Opinion – Page 324
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Opinion
Legal aid: children suffer
Comments by Charles Falconer QC in The Times law section regarding a tightening of the process in criminal and family care cases are worthy of careful attention. On the face of it, removal of private law family legal aid is serving the same purpose, except that it has produced the ...
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Opinion
A review of pre-packs is well overdue
Cadbury, Greenbury, Hampel, Turnbull, Higgs, Myners, Smith. No, this is not Blackpool’s backline from the 1953 cup final, but a list of grandees commissioned to review aspects of company law and corporate governance in the 1990s and early 2000s. Fading memories of attending their dessicated and often inconsequential press conferences ...
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OpinionGovernment bank sanction plans are flawed
The Treasury has accepted the recommendation of the Parliamentary Commission on Banking Standards
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OpinionLawyers need to think tactically on costs
A few months in to the new costs budgeting regime, many litigators have already had to knuckle down and complete Precedent H
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Opinion
Embracing compliance - like going to the gym
Much has been said and reported about the cost of regulatory compliance, but not so much about the benefits of compliance as a driver of quality and competitive advantage through creating better processes and controls. The SRA’s report Attitudes to regulation and compliance in legal services showed that the majority ...
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OpinionMesothelioma and Monopoly
There's a moment in most games of Monopoly when you have to make the choice. Your opponent needs your Pall Mall to complete their set, and they'll offer you a red, a green and a station in return. The deal looks too good to be true - what the hell ...
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OpinionChannel 4 is wrong to screen The Murder Trial
The strangest moment I ever faced while reporting a murder trial was some years ago in Braintree. The victim had been killed outside a nightclub and the DJ was giving evidence about the last time he saw the accused: dancing enthusiastically to ‘Oops Upside your Head’ (this really does constitute ...
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OpinionChannel 4 was right to screen The Murder Trial
Last night’s two-hour TV documentary about the Scottish trial of fruit and veg seller Nat Fraser for the murder of his wife Arlene offered a fascinating insight in the reality and banality of the courtroom. Despite the horrific and extraordinary nature of the offence, the programme, even with its sometimes ...
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Opinion
PI firms not playing by the rules
In the new personal injury claims environment we all have to play by the new rules. The trouble is that there are many firms which are not. I have seen adverts on the internet offering, without qualification, ‘100% compensation’, but when the firm in question is called the offer is ...
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Opinion
Stop this PI lawyer-bashing
I read with sadness the letter from Rob Barley. I work for a small practice which mainly deals with personal injury claims. I have in the past month received at least five calls to my firm’s telephone number asking me if I am sure I have not been injured in ...
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Opinion
'Posturing' on victim levy
How right Joshua Rozenberg is to pour scorn on the legerdemain of the Ministry of Justice over levying the victim surcharge. This has been brought into effect irrespective of any of the philosophical underpinning or due process safeguards applying to all other financial sanctions. ‘Looking tough’ in this way is ...
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Opinion
Hollow laugh with High Court application
There is still amusement in the law. I delivered an application to the High Court today. Royal Mail had lost my previous bundle and I thought it best to hand over a substitute in person (ironically, the case is about a judge who believed in the efficacy of the postal ...
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Opinion
Standing up to the insurance industry
The Law Society deserves to be praised for at long last standing up to the insurance industry. There are critics who (justifiably) will say all of this is too little too late, but the campaign is something which is very close to my heart. We launched Review My Claim earlier ...
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Opinion
Speedier ABS processing
In response to Adam Entwistle's letter which was critical of the time taken by the SRA to process an ABS licensing application, I would like to reassure potential applicants that this has speeded up significantly since we introduced changes earlier this year. We listened to the profession, and took into ...
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Opinion
Should we allow non-graduate entry?
SRA chair Charles Plant says there should be a return to non-graduate entry to the profession. Over the years I have thought this too. After all, I am a five-year man myself. At the end of this month I retire and my views have changed. The law too has changed, ...
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Opinion
Lewisham Hospital prompts tribunal of the people
It is increasingly obvious that citizens worldwide are becoming disenchanted and disengaged with established government. This has been manifest in various forms of political and economic meltdown. Underpinning all the movements is a desire for accountability and transparency. Where this is not forthcoming ordinary people are finding ways of exercising ...
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Opinion
London legal pre-eminence is not set in stone
Honeyed words from Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, in-house head of legal at the multi-billion-pound international Hinduja Group. ‘There is a global respect for English law and London lawyers are the most experienced in the world,’ he told delegates at the Law Society’s International Marketplace Conference last week. Yet the global market is ...
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OpinionWhy the Magna Carta still has relevance today
What shall we be doing in the summer of 2015? A general election is scheduled for 7 May. If Theresa May gets her way, we shall be voting on whether to denounce a list of rights and liberties that will have been binding on our rulers for little more than ...
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Opinion
Helping out litigants in person
A report has been published by the Judicial Working Group on litigants in person. It explores possible judicial responses to the expected rise in litigants in person caused by the recent cuts to public funding for legal aid.