All articles by Catherine Baksi – Page 95
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News
Law Society seeks judicial review over costs capping
The Law Society is set to seek a judicial review of the government’s move to drastically reduce the legal costs that defendants can reclaim if they are acquitted of a criminal offence. A regulation introduced by the Ministry of Justice at the end of October removed ...
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News
Chancery Lane hails scrapping of best value tendering pilots
The Law Society has welcomed the Ministry of Justice’s decision to ask the Legal Services Commission not to proceed with its planned pilots for best value tendering (BVT).
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Solicitors ‘to profit’ from instructing barristers following BSB rule changes
Solicitors will for the first time be able to profit from instructing barristers following rule changes agreed last month by the Bar Standards Board (BSB), a legal businessman has said. Peter Rouse, director of online barristers’ directory Bar Select, said the new rules on how barristers ...
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Solicitors dismayed over chancellor's legal aid budget cuts
Solicitors reacted with dismay last week to further planned cuts in the £2bn annual legal aid budget outlined in chancellor Alistair Darling’s Pre-Budget Report. The chancellor included plans by 2012/13 to make ‘£360m of savings in the criminal justice system by improving case management, putting underperforming ...
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What is the best way to combat legal aid cuts?
By now many of you will be as inured to the howls of outrage from the profession over legal aid cuts as you are to the cuts themselves. Both are becoming an almost weekly, even daily, occurrence, it saddens one to report.
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News
Law Society to advise students about the risks of a legal career
The Law Society is to step up its campaign to warn students of the risks and challenges faced in pursuing a legal career. Expanding the Society’s information campaign is one of a number of proposals being considered by the education and training committee to address the ...
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News
‘Chaos’ predicted over virtual court pilot
Solicitors have predicted ‘chaos’ after provisions forcing defendants in custody in the virtual court pilot areas to use the videolink for court appearances were brought in yesterday. A pilot of the scheme, which enables defendants to make their first court appearance via videolink from the police ...
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News
Government to review use of cautions
The justice secretary launched a review today to examine the way cautions and on-the-spot fines are used by the police and Crown Prosecution Service. It follows reports that they have been inappropriately used to punish more serious offences which should be dealt with by the courts. ...
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News
Bar eyes contract push with new procurement vehicles
Solicitors could find themselves approaching barristers for work as the bar takes advantage of new freedoms approved last month, the incoming chairman of the Bar Council told the Gazette this week. Nicholas Green QC said there would be a reversal of the ‘normal order of things’ ...
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News
Bar Council claims ‘privileged’ perception is ‘outdated’
The Bar Council has claimed that the perception of the bar as a profession for the privileged is ‘outdated’ – but it is unable to say what percentage of barristers attended state school. It published a report last week showing a range of initiatives taken to ...
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News
Has the bar been betrayed by government?
In his inaugural speech before taking over the tiller from Desmond Browne QC as chairman of the bar, Nick Green QC listed three things that have contributed towards creating instability for barristers: legal aid cuts, competition from solicitor-advocates and the ‘ambitious’ expansion into advocacy by the Crown Prosecution Service.
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News
Jack Straw hints at more autonomous Welsh justice system
Jack Straw has mooted the possibility of a separate justice system for Wales, but not without a referendum showing that this is what the Welsh want. Speaking at a Law Society lecture in Cardiff last week, the justice secretary said there could be ‘an organic development ...
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News
Anger over 'cost-cutting' plans for serious criminal cases
Solicitors and barristers have reacted with anger to last-minute ‘cost-cutting’ proposals on pay for the most serious criminal cases, which they say ‘drive a coach and horses through two years of patient and careful negotiation’. A Legal Services Commission consultation on fees for very high ...
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News
Law Society Charity donates £369,000 to good causes
The Law Society Charity donated £369,000 to good causes over the past year despite the recession, it announced today. Its accounts for the 2008/09 financial year showed a 3.4% drop in grants made compared to the previous year. The charity supports organisations ...
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News
Tory housing minister reignites HIP debate
Shadow housing minister Grant Shapps’ recent confirmation that he would scrap home information packs (HIPs) has re-ignited the debate over what should replace them. Shapps said last week that removal of the controversial sellers’ packs would be his first task if the Conservatives win the next ...
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News
Woolf calls for arbitration overhaul as he launches new guidance
International arbitration has ‘lost its way’, the former lord chief justice Lord Woolf (pictured) told the Gazette this week, as he launched a set of guidelines which will build mediation into the arbitration process. Woolf co-chaired an international commission for the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution ...
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News
Government legal aid spending cuts called into question
Figures showing a fall in the cost of criminal defence work have called into question the government’s drive to introduce more spending cuts. Statistics obtained from the Legal Services Commission by More4 News showed that the amount spent nationally on criminal defence services has fallen over ...
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News
Quarter of firms expected to walk away from legal aid in next five years
More than a quarter of firms expect to walk away from legal aid work in the next five years, a report slamming the Legal Services Commission’s poor administration has revealed. The report by public spending watchdog the National Audit Office (NAO) showed that one in six ...
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News
SRA boosts the diversity of adjudicators
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has confirmed the appointments of a panel of 23 external adjudicators, who will make decisions on regulatory matters.
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Drop in suspicious activity reports by solicitors
The number of suspicious activity reports (SARs) made by solicitors has fallen by more than a quarter over the last year, according to figures published by the Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA). SOCA’s third annual report showed that solicitors filed 4,772 SARs between October 2008 and ...