Opinion – Page 325
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OpinionTactics emerge in costs budgeting
Some interesting points emerged in relation to costs budgeting at IBC Legal’s Impact of Jackson conference last week. By now, many litigators will have had to knuckle down and complete Precedent H – the form through which they must provide the opposing party with an estimate of their costs in ...
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Opinion
Axa calls for three-day limit on whiplash claims
Whiplash claims should be made within three days of the alleged accident and include evidence of physical injury if they are to succeed, insurance giant Axa said today. The recommendations are part of a wishlist for the government to adopt on whiplash, copying models already in place in France and ...
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OpinionDefendant firms are turkeys protecting Christmas
This may surprise you, but not all my correspondence is adoring fanmail. Indeed, on some occasions people tell me rather forcefully that I’m wrong, and often in the kind of language that gives our email filter system nightmares. The majority of angry responses come from defendant firms who take issue ...
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OpinionCounting the cost of interventions
The cost of law firm failures is being felt across the solicitors’ profession. The Gazette reported recently that the unprecedented bill for the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) intervening in failing firms means that we will all have to pay an extra £23 each towards the compensation fund in the coming ...
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Opinion
Open justice? Open court listings would be a start
A century ago, in Scott v Scott (1913), the House of Lords affirmed the common law rule that courts must administer justice in public. Just last week, Lord Justice Kay cited the ruling when rejecting a request by a Saudi prince for litigation to be heard in private. He ruled: ...
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Opinion
Using Google Analytics
GA is a simple piece of code/script that drops a cookie onto a visitor, to track them and their behaviour whilst on your website.
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OpinionThe jury’s out on the European Public Prosecutor
Ladies and gentlemen, this is the case of United Kingdom vs the European Public Prosecutor’s Office.
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Opinion
Legal aid proposals intended to strengthen the power of the state
No one can say that I have not done my bit for the profession
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Opinion
Time for a ‘sub-profession’ in the law?
The article about interventions in last week’s Gazette, which included a description of the consequences and cost of the collapse of Blakemores, should have us all worried for the future of our profession. It is clear now that our leaders were mistaken when they allowed first advertising and later referral ...
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Opinion
Probate pitfalls
The Law Society’s advertising campaign on behalf of personal injury practitioners is to be applauded. But private client practitioners have long had their own battle with corporate providers of probate services, which include most high street banks. The public is frequently misled and overcharged because they do not go to ...
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Opinion
Leader: Restitution would favour those who deliver growth in our economy
As the government limbers up to sell its stake in some of our largest banks
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OpinionPrivate client: a good place to be
There was a very positive mood at the Private Client Section’s annual conference on Friday.
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OpinionThe best of summer holiday reading
It’s the time of year when every respectable journal tells you what reading to pack for the beach, and so here goes. Crime The fiction list for lawyers has not been strong this year. A late contender is the publication in the last few days of the Financial Action Task ...
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Opinion
SRA rules are inconsistent
The Solicitors Regulation Authority is taking an average of seven months to license an alternative business structure, and 20% of applications have taken longer than nine months to process. Schedule 11 of the Legal Services Act prescribes that the decision period must be six months from the date an application ...
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Opinion
Prest confirms simple principle
In the judgments of Mr Justice Moylan in the High Court and Thorpe LJ in a minority judgment in the Court of Appeal, they considered that it was enough, under section 24(1)(a) of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, to justify an order to transfer properties from the husband to the ...
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Opinion
Client choice
No, Mr McCulloch. Manchester set up a voluntary court duty solicitor scheme at about the same time as Southampton. Birmingham came soon afterwards, building in particular on the Manchester template. I know this because I was involved. We then expanded it to include a police station scheme, and all of ...
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Opinion
Duty freedom
I write with reference to the letter from Alexander McCulloch. It is incorrect to claim, as he does, that the current system deprives any person charged with a criminal offence of the ability to choose their own solicitor. The duty solicitor scheme certainly forwards a client to whoever is on ...
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Opinion
Lib Dems fighting legal aid cuts
I was very disappointed to read about Ian Craine’s experience of trying to discuss proposed changes to legal aid with Liberal Democrat MPs. May I assure him that the Liberal Democrat Lawyers Association is lobbying hard over these proposals to try and persuade our MPs that they are misguided. So ...
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Opinion
Let us record proceedings
Having just spent another couple of days frantically scribbling notes of the evidence being given and the judgment, I am again at a loss to understand why the lawyers involved in proceedings are not allowed to record them electronically. It is quite ridiculous that we should have to make a ...
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Opinion
Don’t give up on mediation
In his letter of 17 June, Michael Haran related a bad experience with what may have been a small claims telephone mediation provided by the county court. I have great sympathy with him. But he should not compare this cheap and cheerful type of mediation, which incidentally does have a ...