News – Page 133
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Behind closed doors
I know that admitting this is a bit like inviting Jehovah’s Witnesses into the house, but I am genuinely interested in the work of the Legal Services Consumer Panel. The panel’s latest background paper, Empowering Consumers, raises important questions about whether people who buy legal services are consumers in the ...
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Davies gets three more years at consumer panel
The Legal Services Board (LSB) today announced the re-appointment of Elisabeth Davies (pictured) as chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel. Davies’s new appointment runs from 1 August 2012 to 31 March 2015. She has been interim chair following the resignation last year of Lady Hayter.
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Quality test 'should not protect barristers'
Controversy about the use of judicial evaluation in a new scheme to assess the quality of advocates has escalated, with solicitors’ bodies warning that the scheme could become a means to protect barristers.
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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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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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We’re clearing web backlog, says SRA
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has apologised for delays to online practising certificate renewal as it starts to clear the backlog of applications.
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SRA warning to legal aid lawyers
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has urged firms to take care with vulnerable clients and uphold standards even if legal aid cuts are in force.
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Regulator to miss October deadline for ABSs
The Ministry of Justice has confirmed that the Solicitors Regulation Authority will miss its 6 October deadline for an ABS licence.
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SRA braced for ABS interest from abroad
The SRA has been told to prepare for increasing interest from non-English law firms following the introduction of alternative business structures.
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Publish complaints against firms, Consumer Panel urges
The body that advises the Legal Services Board on the interests of consumers has called for the publication of complaints made against law firms if they have been upheld. Responding to an open consultation by the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) on whether its decisions should be published, the Legal Services Consumer ...
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Conveyancing under spotlight as SRA unveils sweeping PII reforms
The single renewal date for professional indemnity insurance (PII) should be scrapped from 1 October next year, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has recommended in a consultation on client financial protection, published today. The regulator simultaneously announced that it will begin investigating failures in the conveyancing process early next year, and ...
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Consumer panel wants lawyers to undergo ‘regular MOT’
Lawyers would have to demonstrate at regular intervals that they are competent to practise under radical proposals from consumer watchdogs for beefing up quality. The Legal Services Consumer Panel has today called for the introduction of ‘periodic validation’ – a review of permission to practise after a fixed time – ...
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Consumer panel calls for competence test for lawyers
Lawyers should undergo five-yearly competence testing and there should be peer review of the advice they provide to clients, the chairwoman of the Legal Services Consumer Panel has said. Dianne Hayter said continuing professional development was an insufficient check of quality, and she would like to see a more formal ...
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Legal Services Board launches consumer panel
The Legal Services Board has unveiled its eight-strong consumer panel to represent the interests of individual and business consumers in England and Wales. The LSB said that the independent panel will help it develop a ‘sharper focus’ on consumers’ interests across the legal services sector, and enhance access to justice.
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LSB appoints chairwoman of consumer panel
The Legal Services Board has appointed Dr Dianne Hayter as chairwoman of its independent consumer panel. The panel, set up by the Legal Services Act 2007, will advise the LSB on the interests of all legal services users, including individual and business consumers. LSB chairman David Edmonds said: ‘The panel’s ...
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LSB consumer panel members will do it for love, not money
‘The common thread that underpins the Legal Services Board’s work is the consumer,’ the LSB declared in its business plan. With this in mind, it is presently recruiting a chair and members for its consumer panel, which the board says will have ‘considerable scope to advise and influence the LSB ...
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Maggie Maggie Maggie! In in in!
The last time I was in the same room as Margaret Thatcher, several hundred Japanese businessmen were there, too. It was Tokyo, September 1989, the high noon of Japan's economic power. World leaders were passing through every week to pay homage to the yen, but prime minister Thatcher was different. ...
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People’s peers
Anyone for ping-pong? Yes, the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill is back in the Lords this week, for the upper house to pick over its wounded amendments following their savaging last week in the Commons. In the end, of course, the Commons will get its way. As ...
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SRA to fast track ABS applications
The Solicitors Regulation Authority will fast track alternative business structure applications from firms seeking to bid for new criminal legal aid contracts, it has been revealed. In a letter to the House of Commons Justice Committee, SRA board chair Charles Plant said that ABS applications from non-traditional law firms could ...