News – Page 209
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News
LETR may be ‘outdated’, warns Savage
The much-delayed Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) could be ‘obsolete and outdated’ even before it is published, according to the University of Law’s chief executive Nigel Savage.
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Customers or clients?
Believe it or not, being chief Legal Ombudsman does not lend itself to fan mail. On the contrary, when a letter or email arrives – looking insidiously like private correspondence from a lawyer – my natural inclination is to mull over what I might have said recently in the press ...
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BT Law is born as claims unit granted ABS licence
Telecommunications giant BT today announced its long-expected move into legal services with the launch of BT Law Limited. The subsidiary, which has received an alternative business structure (ABS) licence from the Solicitors Regulation Authority, will offer services to corporate customers, initially in the motor claims ...
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Extending our jurisdiction
Despite hysterical ‘end of the world’ concerns about fiscal cliffs and apocalyptic Mayan calendars, it seems we all managed to see out Christmas without too much controversy. But much as I was relieved not to meet my doom on 21 December, the joy was short-lived ...
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Education and training review delayed again
Publication of the Legal Education and Training Review’s (LETR’s) research report, which is expected to recommend the most fundamental reform of legal education in 30 years, has been delayed for a second time with no revised date for when it is likely to be released.
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Learn from your mistakes
The good ship Legal Ombudsman has been navigating some pretty treacherous waters of late. We have managed to steer past one or two potential rocks – notably the announcement that we will be taking on claims management complaints from next year, and then the publication of the first quarter of ...
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Legal education system ‘not fit for purpose’
Evidence of ‘fundamental gaps’ in lawyers’ skills suggests that the current education system is not fit for purpose, according to a discussion paper published as part of the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR).
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Legal insurance should not confuse clients
If there are two words guaranteed to send any audience to sleep in an instant, they are these: Annual Report. By God, they are dull - I should know, I have written enough of the damn things. You know that very few people are going to read them but you ...
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Court lists and performance data to go online
Court lists and data on individual courts’ performance are to be made available online under plans expected to be published by the government today. A ‘right to data’ white paper from the Cabinet Office will also set out a timetable for publishing judges’ sentencing remarks online, ahead of their planned ...
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Avoiding conveyancing complaints
By the end of this article, at least in draft form, I fully expect a page full of red squiggles, erroneously identifying the noun ‘conveyancing’ as a misspelling. I have no idea why Word fails to recognise it, given its widespread and generally quite prolific use in legal circles. Perhaps ...
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Law Society responds to training review
Bottlenecks in the legal training system are inevitable so long as there are more aspiring entrants to the profession than the market can employ, the Law Society points out in its first formal response to the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR). The response is broadly in favour of the ...
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We need to make Ombudsman scheme fairer
Five years on from the arrival of the 2007 Legal Services Act we are still waiting for the ‘Big Bang’. What has come into existence seems less an entirely new universe, with a primordial cloud of traditional legal service providers accelerating away, transforming into clusters of one-stop-shop commercial enterprise (as ...
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Biggest dissatisfaction is with lawyers' costs
The older I get, the more I feel uncomfortable about the binary nature of our discourse. OK - a pretentious sentence, even by my standards. What do I mean?
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SRA seeks online feedback
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has promised a ‘comprehensive review’ of problems encountered in its first year of online renewals.
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Looking again at the rules
It is embarrassing how far, despite all your efforts to suppress them, your teenage obsessions come back to haunt you. Not a problem if your adolescent self showed any semblance of cool. But nerdy classicist is not exactly the image I want to cultivate.
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Deadline looms for online PC renewal
More than one-third of solicitors had yet to start renewing their practising certificates online through the mySRA website by Tuesday of this week, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said. The deadline for the first batch of registrations is Monday (13 February).
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SRA sorry for online delays
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has apologised for further delays to online renewals of practising certificates as it starts to clear a backlog of applications. The SRA’s new mySRA system, which replaces paper forms and cheques, has been the subject of widespread criticism in the profession.
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Managing the implications of ABSs
As Birmingham is our home, we have paid tribute to the city by naming some of our meeting rooms after its famous landmarks. One of them is named after Spaghetti Junction, a Medusa’s head of highways. It can take you where you need to go, but it is a long ...
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Barristers plan escrow scheme for holding client money
The bar is looking into a scheme to allow barristers to hold client money through proxies, the incoming head of the bar said in his inaugural speech last night.