All articles by John Hyde – Page 330
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News
Deadline for PC renewals
Practising certificate renewals for 2012 must be completed by 14 December, the Solicitors Regulation Authority has announced. The organisation says it has completed a programme of improvements to its IT infrastructure supporting online renewals and the application forms. In particular, firms will this year be able ...
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News
Insurers prepare for court fight on damages uplift
Insurers will go to the High Court next week seeking to overturn July’s landmark decision on increased damages. The Association of British Insurers has challenged the Court of Appeal’s ruling confirming a 10% uplift on all general damages from 1 April 2013.
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Complaints figures merely prove how good solicitors are
You can come out now, it’s safe to look. Monday was judgment day, when the Legal Ombudsman would finally get its way and publish complaints data on solicitors.
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Chancery Lane hits out at ‘potentially misleading’ complaints statistics
The Law Society has described as ‘partial and potentially misleading’ new data on complaints against named law firms published by the Legal Ombudsman this week. A table shows the collated names of 770 lawyers or law firms involved in complaints leading to a formal ...
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Complaints data naming law firms goes live today
The Legal Ombudsman has today published an online list of complaints relating to 770 law firms across England and Wales. The list shows the collated names of lawyers or law firms involved in complaints which have led to a formal decision by an ombudsman. It will ...
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FFW and Osborne Clarke decline comment on merger
Top 40 law firms Field Fisher Waterhouse and Osborne Clarke have separately confirmed that they are keen to secure a merger – but refused to comment on speculation that it is with each other. Speculation mounted today that the firms – which together posted turnover ...
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Complaints hike follows surge in unrepresented litigants
An increase in litigants in person has been cited as the reason for a sharp spike in complaints against barristers, alleging discrimination. The Bar Standards Board yesterday heard there were eight complaints in the first quarter of 2012/13, compared to just nine in the whole of ...
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McNally gets legal aid as MoJ portfolios announced
Liberal Democrat peer Lord McNally has been handed the legal aid portfolio following last week’s government reshuffle. The Ministry of Justice today confirmed McNally (pictured) – the only justice minister to survive the reshuffle – will take over that responsibility from Jonathan Djanogly. McNally, who helped ...
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News
Don’t be ‘hoodwinked’ over rules, SRA warned
A former senior City watchdog has warned the Solicitors Regulation Authority that it is being ‘hoodwinked’ into liberalising rules relating to financial advisers. The SRA is set to reveal whether it will relax a rule requiring lawyers to refer clients to wholly independent advisers. Arguing that ...
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Personal injury firms face rising claims
Negligence claims against personal injury firms for under-value settlements are increasing rapidly, the Gazette has been told. Professional negligence lawyers say that firms’ reliance on under-qualified staff, a lack of face-to-face contact with clients and failure to understand medical reports are all factors in the trend.
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ABI claims milestone as fraud register launched
Insurers will add suspected fraudsters to a list that will be shared by all other insurance companies – even if the claimant has not been convicted. The Association of British Insurers today confirmed the creation of the Insurance Fraud Register containing details of what it calls ...
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Sorry, but the SRA is right
I want you to sit down and take a deep breath. Perhaps have a stiff drink to hand. Maybe one of those stress balls too. I’m going to write something in support of the Solicitors Regulation Authority. Before I start let me make it clear I’m ...
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News
Dickinson Dees and Bond Pearce plot merger
National firms Dickinson Dees and Bond Pearce have begun merger talks. The pair confirmed in a statement that discussions are under way to explore the option, although there will be no further comment until those discussions are completed. If it does go ...
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Complainants going it alone on PPI claims
Consumers are increasingly making their own compensation claims for mis-sold payment protection insurance rather than rely on claims management companies or law firms, according to research published today. The Financial Ombudsman reported that nearly half of all new complaints during the past six months were made ...
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News
MoJ backtracks on victim compensation cuts
The government has announced it will delay proposed changes to compensation for victims of crime – just three days after defending its plans in parliament. On Friday, new justice minister Helen Grant backed the government’s proposals to cut compensation for victims claiming less than £2,500. However ...
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Grant: crime compensation scheme ‘not sustainable’
Helen Grant, the newly appointed justice minister, has reiterated the government’s intention to cut compensation for victims of less serious crime. Grant (pictured) said the new scheme, due to be implemented at the end of this month, will save the taxpayer around £50m a year and ...
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Call for ‘sanity’ on whiplash as claim numbers fall
Lawyers have called for a rethink on whiplash injury compensation after the government’s own figures showed that the number of claims fell by almost 24,000 last year. Records uncovered by the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) showed 547,405 claims for whiplash in 2011/12, compared with ...
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News
Automatic fines ‘top of shopping list’ for SRA
The Solicitors Regulation Authority will call on the government for permission to impose on-the-spot fines for firms that fail to comply with regulatory deadlines. Hundreds of firms are thought to have failed to submit nominations for compliance officers more than a month after a deadline ...
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Oligarch case whets appetite for more
A leading City lawyer says he would welcome more foreign litigation coming to London after the conclusion of a high-profile case involving two Russian oligarchs. The High Court last week found that exiled Russian Boris Berezovsky (pictured) had no claim to the business interests of Roman ...
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Could wishes of legal aid campaigners be Granted?
She is a mixed-race woman who grew up on a council estate and was educated away from Oxbridge. Cynics will suggest it was inevitable that Maidstone MP Helen Grant would be parachuted into a ministerial role, despite entering parliament only in 2010. But is there more ...