Last 3 months headlines – Page 1118
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Bird & Bird leads shareholders in record £4bn RBS suit
Shareholders of the Royal Bank of Scotland today issued legal proceedings against the bank and four former directors in a claim that could be worth as much as £4bn. The RBOS Shareholder Action Group, represented by international firm Bird & Bird, claims that the bank’s directors ...
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Unchastened LSB defends business plan
The Legal Services Board today pledged to go ahead with its programme for the year ahead despite the battering its draft business plan received in consultation. However its research programme has been ‘rescoped significantly in light of feedback’, according to the plan published today.
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Motor insurer partners with law firm as referral ban bites
The UK’s fourth biggest motor insurer has become the first to announce a partnership with a law firm in the aftermath of the ban on referral fees. Ageas UK has agreed a five-year partnership with Cardiff firm NewLaw to provide services for customers making non-fault personal ...
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Grayling sets sights on prisoners’ legal aid
Prisoners will no longer get legal aid to bring ‘unnecessary’ cases about their treatment in prison under plans announced by the justice secretary this morning. ...
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Northern barristers vote en masse to reject QASA
Northern circuit barristers have overwhelmingly voted to reject the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA) in a secret ballot carried out at end of the March. It has become the first circuit to declare its hand, after the chairman of the Criminal Bar Association Michael Turner ...
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Law Society stands by Jackson CFA guidance
The Law Society has said it stands by its draft model conditional fee agreement, which was issued ahead of the Jackson reforms coming into force. The Society has faced criticism from some online commentators that the documents contained errors and could not be relied upon. ...
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Ex-Shearman’s partner bankrolls barrister-matching site
An online service promoting fast direct access to silks and junior barristers, akin to dating site match.com, will launch this week, matching clients to barristers without the need for a solicitor. myBarrister is the brainchild of former Shearman & Sterling partner and dual-qualified US lawyer and ...
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Has ending compulsory retirement been good?
‘You are your age and still working?’ the French woman said to me, in French, eyebrows arched. ‘How very strange.’ She had just invited us to spend another week in the cottage in Normandy that we were renting from her. It wasn’t booked for the coming week, and we were ...
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Solicitor wins BBC RTA apology
The BBC has apologised after failing to reveal its source for a claim that one in seven RTA claims results from a staged collision. Home affairs correspondent Tom Symonds made the unattributed claim on a News at Ten report on 15 February on the conviction of ...
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Insurers use referral fee ban to feather their own nests
Readers will remember that former justice minister Jonathan Djanogly was required to begin many public appearances by declaring an interest (‘possibly’) in the insurance sector.
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Chancery Lane consults on ‘unworkable’ tendering exercise
The Law Society has published its own consultation on the ‘potentially catastrophic’ price-competitive tendering (PCT) model in advance of the government’s paper expected later this month. The Society is calling on solicitors to respond with alternatives to the planned introduction of PCT for the tendering of ...
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Treatment of whistleblowers
Children’s heart surgery is something I have a close interest in as a parent – till she had an operation at the hands of a world-leading surgeon, my daughter had a rather large hole where four distinct chambers should be. And I’ve known more than my fair share of children ...
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Commercial property: from offices to homes
Planning rules are to be amended to make it easier for offices to be changed to residential accommodation. Proposals prepared by government almost two years ago – and shelved last summer – have been dusted off and fine-tuned for implementation. The revised legislation regarding ‘permitted development rights’ is intended to ...
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Stop fathers drifting out of children’s lives
You will have to excuse me for not sharing the optimism of the Kingsley Napley partners about the Children and Families Bill in their article ‘Changing perceptions’. It was published a week after your magazine carried a front-page article: ‘Unpaid overtime costs lawyers £14k’. As Frances O’Grady said, the hours ...
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Iranian women in exile
I recently returned from Paris where I spoke on behalf of the Law Society at the International Women’s Day conference in support of Iranian women in exile. There are 1,000 Iranian women held in two camps in Iraq, where they have been refugees for 25 years. They are the residents ...
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Pay up, please, lawyers
Congratulations to local government lawyers for securing from the Solicitors Regulation Authority a rule change allowing them to charge local charities for legal services. Self-evidently, this is a commercial income-generating arrangement, not a philanthropic endeavour. In the spirit of a level playing field, presumably lawyers ...
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Bias concerns
Joshua Rozenberg’s article ‘Balancing act’ (4 March) discusses Lady Hale’s lecture on equality in the judiciary and the question of ‘positive discrimination in senior judicial appointments’. The emphasis appears to be on the appointment of more women, but there is little discussion of African, Caribbean and Asian applicants.
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Why the fuss over RTA?
I read that Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson sees the changes in low-value RTA litigation as ‘serious.’ He notes ‘all the spurious talk about fraudulent claims’. I can see his point but, having defended fraudulent insurance claims for the past 16 years, I can assure ...
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In the loop
I would like to thank your team for the Daily Gazette updates. I read them after work on my iPad and your articles have helped me plan various strategies for the survival of our practice, while the personal injury and civil litigation worlds seem to be collapsing all around us. ...