The Law Society Gazette, 17 November 2005

AA gears up to offer ‘Roadside Law’

The AA is set to offer legal services to the public as soon as the government opens up the market, it said this week. The AA plans to offer wills, conveyancing and personal injury work direct to the public. It is considering whether it might buy a law firm, or set up an in-house legal team.

15 November 1995

Conditional fee first

A small firm in Buckingham has become the first to fight and win a conditional fee case using the Law Society’s insurance scheme. In what may well be the first case ever to be settled under the lord chancellor’s conditional fee regulations introduced in July, a female lorry driver won £6,000 damages for a workplace accident.

13 November 1985

Review of the Law Society’s Affairs by Coopers & Lybrand

Report 1 – The Regulatory Functions

Coopers & Lybrand identify three criticisms of the present arrangements:

(a) There is a conflict of roles.

(b) There is confusion arising from the distinctions between conduct unbefitting, negligence and bad work – and the different ways in which these are handled.

(c) There is delay, inefficiency and inertia in the actual handling of complaints.

19 November 1975

Sterilisation of minors

The Department of Health and Social Security has issued a discussion paper on the sterilisation of minors, a subject that became one of public controversy in the summer in relation to the case of an 11-year-old girl whose proposed sterilisation was challenged in the court.

November 1965

Computer conveyancing?

A paper entitled ‘The use of computers for lawyers’ was given by Mr Colin Tapper of Magdalen College, Oxford. At the start of a most interesting address, Mr Tapper reassured his listeners that they would not become redundant as a result of his remarks. He then described how computers were developed in the early 1950s for mainly mathematical purposes, but he emphasised that they were also capable of handling linguistic materials. The cost at present was prohibitively expensive (somewhere in the nature of £750 per hour) and, not surprisingly, the pressure to use computers for law came primarily from the manufacturers. One was left wondering what a solicitor’s office would look like 50 years from now.

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