Last 3 months headlines – Page 1122
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Ministry doublespeak
The embarrassing court interpreter outsourcing saga continues. Courts minister Helen Grant repeats the same old mantra of ‘a dramatic improvement in the interpreter contract’. Who says, exactly? The Ministry of Justice has in all conscience been asked this often enough. When its responses are shorn ...
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Grayling flies flag for City law firms
Justice secretary Chris Grayling has announced a renewed drive to export the UK’s legal services as City firms fight to maintain healthy profit margins. Grayling used a speech last week to stress that London was as much as a legal centre as a financial one and ...
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Prepare for the worst, SRA tells struggling firms
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has urged struggling firms to establish a contingency plan for insolvency, as the cost to the profession of interventions increases. The regulator has committed £2.2m to interventions in failed law firms in the first quarter of 2013 – almost £1m more than ...
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Insurers blamed for blocking Atteys sale
The interim manager handling the wind-down of Yorkshire firm Atteys has alleged that the successor practice rules (SPR) allowed ‘the professional indemnity insurance (PII) tail to wag the profession’s dog’. The SPR ensure insurance is in place to cover claims against firms that no longer exist, ...
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Society calls for tribunal fines to fund regulation
The Law Society has proposed that fines imposed at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal be used to fund regulation of the legal profession. Last week the Gazette revealed that almost half of the solicitors fined by the tribunal in recent years had avoided paying those fines in ...
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Family courts cuts will create ‘perfect storm’
Lawyers have voiced concern about plans to cut the number of judges and courts dealing with family cases in central London at a time when increasing numbers of litigants in person are expected to put greater strain on the service. The family justice system is working ...
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Inter-firm initiative to promote diversity
Firms need to work together to achieve ‘true change’ in the legal profession’s approach to diversity, according to the co-chairs of a new inter-firm initiative that launches this week. NOTICED has been set up by eight City firms to help make the profession more accessible and ...
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Apprenticeships ‘risk alienating international firms’
A leading City training specialist has warned that legal apprenticeships may be less appealing to the biggest corporate firms with overseas offices. Tony King, chair of the City of London Law Society training committee, said: ‘Internationally, the lack of a degree will raise issues with ...
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Leveson haunts crime bill
The House of Commons is to vote today (18 March) on amendments to the Crime and Courts Bill that would implement the Leveson proposals on press regulation in conjunction with a royal charter. The vote follows the prime minister’s announcement last week that the Conservatives were ...
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EU’s struggle with the law around pornography
by Nichi Hodgson, a regular commentator on sexual politics and the law The EU may have successfully banned fish dumping and incandescent light bulbs but porn, it seems, is safe – at least for now.
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Emergency declared after Blakemores falls
The Law Society last week set up a dedicated website to help solicitors and trainees worried about the viability of their firms, after radical changes to the legal services market claimed another high-profile casualty. On Monday, Gazette Online exclusively revealed that all 200-plus solicitors and ...
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Blakemores chief hits out at regulator over shock closure
The managing partner of failed Midlands firm Blakemores accused the Solicitors Regulation Authority of intervening in the firm at the worst possible time last Monday, when the firm was shut down and over 200 solicitors and employees dismissed. But the regulator rebutted Guy Barnett’s claim, ...
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Maintaining public confidence is tough for the judiciary
Having good judgement is one thing that the judiciary should be good at. But deciding cases is not nearly as difficult for judges as maintaining public confidence in the judiciary. And that requires considerable sensitivity to the public mood.
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Blakemores appeared to embody many qualities deemed essential for success
One Gazette contributor of portentous mien had this to say about Blakemores: ‘This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.’ It might appear tasteless to invoke Churchill’s famous quote in the ...
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Why I quit the Lib Dems over secret courts
by Jo Shaw, executive director of Rosa, the UK women’s fund Last November, the new president of the Supreme Court, Lord Neuberger, gave a lecture entitled: ‘No Judgment, No Justice’.
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Spotlight on the European courts
It’s time to look again at the European courts in Luxembourg. I shall start with the particular, two recent and interesting cases affecting lawyers, and move to the general, the courts’ record in relation to efficiency and the appointment of judges.
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North and south
High street practices may be crumbling before our eyes and intervention costs about to cripple the profession, but the legal services scene is not all doom and gloom. Indeed, according to a report published today by lobbyists TheCityUK, legal services contributed £20.9bn to UK gross domestic ...
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Repeat offenders ‘should lose right to jury trial’
Serial offenders who shoplift or commit other petty offences should be denied the right to trial by jury, a senior magistrate has said. Such offenders should have their cases heard by magistrates at a cost of around £900 rather than by a jury in the Crown ...
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Poll predicts cull of north-west firms
Almost a fifth of law firm managing partners in north-west England are considering closing down their firm, according to a survey published today. The poll of 300 firm leaders by Liverpool firm O’Connors found the vast majority of respondents believed that planned changes to civil ...
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Press royal charter looks like a winner for lawyers
When one door closes, another opens. So, if your legal aid or PI business looks a little shaky at the moment, have you considered opportunities in media law? The Recognition Panel whose royal charter was approved today in the latest tortuous step of the Leveson process opens up plenty of ...