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All articles by Deven Pamben – Page 2
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News
Survey finds consumers sceptical about banks and supermarkets’ legal services
Consumers are ‘sceptical’ about banks and supermarkets providing legal services because they have concerns about the quality of work, according to a major opinion poll. A survey of public attitudes towards solicitors, commissioned by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and released this week, found that 69% ...
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News
Warning on the cards for 11,000 law firms
Solicitors in England and Wales are to be issued with warning cards to help prevent them becoming involved in fraudulent activity. The cards highlight four risk areas - property fraud, undertakings, fraudulent financial affairs and money laundering. They will be issued to 11,000 firms by the ...
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News
Bribery bill will involve no shock tactics, law commissioner says
British companies should not be subjected to ‘extreme’ rules when carrying out business overseas, a Law Commission commissioner told MPs and peers during a two-hour parliamentary hearing on the draft bribery bill. Professor Jeremy Horder told a joint committee charged with scrutinising the bill that ...
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News
Trebling of compensation fund levy on SRA agenda
The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority will decide today whether to recommend a 313% increase in compensation fund contributions in 2009/10. SRA officers have proposed that solicitors holding clients’ money contribute £470, up from £150 last year. Last month, the regulator predicted that practitioners ...
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News
SRA rethinks compensation fund levy for 2009/10
The Solicitors Regulation Authority board has asked officials to rethink this year’s proposed compensation fund contributions. As the Gazette reports today, a paper considered by the board at its monthly public meeting, in Birmingham, recommended that solicitors holding client money contribute £470 in 2009/10, up ...
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News
Hot under the collar over gender equality
The Fawcett Society’s claim that the criminal justice system is ‘institutionally sexist’ is a shocking soundbite, but for many it will not sound a discordant note.
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News
Criminal justice system ‘institutionally sexist’
Women suffer widespread discrimination at all levels of the criminal justice system, including in the legal profession and judiciary, according to a report launched at the Law Society today by equality campaigners the Fawcett Society.
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News
Council replaces legal post with head of corporate governance
A county council is replacing the role of head of legal and democratic services with a head of corporate governance as part of a series of measures to make £1.4m in efficiency savings. The move, by Northamptonshire County Council, is likely to attract widespread interest ...
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News
New guidance for child care and supervision cases
The Ministry of Justice is drawing up new guidelines to help local authority lawyers tackle problems faced during child care cases. The Gazette has learned that new guidance is intended to make the Public Law Outline (PLO), introduced in April last year, more effective and ...
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News
Don’t complain that you haven’t been warned
Let’s be honest, no one likes to receive complaints, though some businesses like to burnish their consumer-friendly credentials by pretending that they do. What matters though, ultimately, is how you deal with them.
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News
France sets out agenda for OLC
Improving consumer confidence in the legal profession will be high on the agenda of the first chair of the Office for Legal Complaints, Elizabeth France, as work starts on how the organisation will be run. ‘Change is needed to improve confidence in the system,’ France ...
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News
Law Society president urged to contact Co-op on probate calls
The Law Society’s president has been asked to take up complaints that customers of the Co-operative’s funeral service business are being offered free probate advice from the firm’s legal services department. Following the Gazette’s report two weeks ago (see Gazette [2009] 23 April, 1), several ...
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News
Which? enters online wills market
Which? Legal Service is entering the wills market in a tie-up with law firm Blake Lapthorn. The service uses an online questionnaire which takes customers through 1,500 questions tailored to individual needs. Once the questionnaire is completed, a solicitor at ...
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News
SRA considers rise in Compensation Fund levy
Cash-strapped solicitors may have to pay ‘a significantly larger’ sum into the Compensation Fund as more firms require intervention in a deepening recession. Papers considered last week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority board forecast that the number of interventions is expected to rise from 71 in 2008 to more than ...
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News
Law Society to hire diversity head
The Law Society is proposing to hire a high-profile head of diversity as part of a new framework to promote equality and diversity in the profession. Other measures, expected to be discussed at Council this week, include signing up 100 law firms to a Diversity Charter to be launched this ...
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News
Minority Lawyers Conference
The Minority Lawyers Conference was held last weekend. For many students and young solicitors, and indeed myself, it was inspiring to see and hear successful BME speakers...
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News
Concern grows over probate ‘cold calls’ to funeral clients
Customers of Co-operative Funeralcare are being called by the organisation’s legal services department offering free advice about probate, a committee of the Law Society will hear this week. The Co-operative denied cold-calling. A spokesman said ‘the vast majority’ of customers welcome free legal advice, and ...
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News
Women solicitors: still not equal
The Association of Women Solicitors’ submission to Lord Hunt’s regulation review tells an all-too-familiar story. It describes how women remain ‘underrepresented at senior levels despite making up the majority of new entrants into the profession and.... underrepresented in certain practice areas, particularly those which are rewarded more highly’.
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News
John Wotton wins Law Society deputy vice-presidential election
John Wotton of magic circle firm Allen & Overy is set to become president of the Law Society in 2011 after this week winning the election for deputy vice-president. Wotton, 54, was a partner at Allen & Overy for 23 years and is now a consultant ...
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News
Plan for chief legal officer splits local government solicitors
A proposal that every local authority be required to appoint a qualified chief legal officer has attracted split responses from 70 different organisations. The Law Society and Solicitors in Local Government have proposed a change in the law to create the new role, replacing that ...