Last 3 months headlines – Page 1192
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Memory lane
The Law Society’s Gazette, March 1938Road traffic tribunals The Law Society and the Bar Council made joint representations to the Ministry of Transport that the right of audience before Road Traffic Tribunals should be restricted to members of the legal profession and, in certain cases, to ...
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Seeing the positives in change
Complaints allowed before we’ve even signed up the client? This can’t be true, you may cry. Well, I’m afraid it is, but behind every threat is an opportunity waiting to be seized. The news that even potential clients can now complain about you, following the ...
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Chancellor cheers conveyancers, as Scots vote on ‘sep rep’
Chancellor George Osborne today cheered conveyancers by announcing in his budget dramatic new measures to boost the housing market. A help-to-buy scheme is to be introduced for prospective purchasers struggling to find mortgage deposits. This will include £3.5bn for shared ...
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Strike disrupts courts service as another walkout is planned
Thousands of court workers across England and Wales today walked out on strike as the union began a three-month programme of action. Members of the Public and Commercial Services Union took industrial action to mark budget day after talks broke down over cuts to pay, pensions, ...
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Osborne imposes further £142m of cuts on MoJ
Chancellor George Osborne today imposed a further £142m of cuts on the Ministry of Justice, which will have to be implemented before the 2015 general election. The MoJ is one of the government departments required by Osborne’s budget to reduce its spending by 1% for the ...
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Probate work helps Co-op ABS break even in year one
Co-operative Legal Services (CLS) made a small profit in its first year as an alternative business structure on a 12.8% increase in revenue, the Co-operative Group’s financial results published today reveal. CLS, established seven years ago, became one of the first ABSs in March last year ...
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Insurers turn guns on compensation payments
The insurance industry’s campaign for cutting the cost of personal injury claims will not end with the banning of referral fees and the reduction of lawyers’ fixed fees in RTA Portal cases, a leading figure in the insurance industry has indicated. James Dalton, head of ...
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No justice for Zimbabwean campaigner
It’s almost a decade since the Gazette first reported that Zimbabwean human rights lawyer Beatrice Mtetwa had been beaten up and thrown into jail. And now she is behind bars again. The Law Society and the International Bar Association have both called for her immediate release, ...
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Does Henry costs ruling undermine Jackson?
It was an interesting experience to have achieved success in the Court of Appeal for the appellant in Sylvia Henry v News Group Newspapers Limited ([2013] EWCA Civ 19), only for virtually every commentator in the costs world to pour derision on the judgment. Job well done, some might say. ...
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LSC to reconsider ‘hacked’ legal aid contract tender
A Birmingham solicitor who lost out on a family legal aid contract after her online application was hacked has won a legal challenge to the Legal Services Commission’s refusal to reconsider her application. The High Court heard that Rifat Mushtaq, owner of Mushtaq & Co, had ...
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Supreme Court holds secret hearing in Mellat case
The Supreme Court has submitted to what its president Lord Neuberger called the ‘unhappy procedure’ of becoming a secret court to consider some of an Iranian bank’s appeal concerning the validity of a 2009 order made against it by HM Treasury. The Treasury claimed that privately ...
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Budget fallout: running into a brick wall
Watching the fallout from every budget is like being transported into the Truman Show. Everyone says the same thing, moves in the same direction and ends up just where they started. Perhaps George Osborne’s tortured economic recovery will end, like Truman, running into a brick wall ...
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Call to end ‘mock trials’ in public inquiries
The ‘litigation model’ of public inquiries should be reformed to embrace alternative methods of dialogue and decision-making, according to a report published by the chief executive of the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR). The report’s author, CEDR chief executive Karl Mackie, said that public inquiries ...
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Separate representation vote condemned
The Council of Mortgage Lenders today accused Scottish solicitors of protectionism after they voted for separate representation for buyers and lenders in all conveyancing transactions. CML director general Paul Smee said: ‘It is disappointing that a measure which is so blatantly against consumer interests and ...
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Cold-calling prosecutions planned
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is ready to prosecute up to a dozen more companies who carry out cold-calling and send spam text messages. This week the ICO fined a second company for unlawful marketing techniques to attract personal injury and payment protection insurance claimants. ...
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Risk and Compliance conference
The Law Society has unveiled a new consulting service to help members meet their regulatory obligations. Launched at the Society’s annual Risk and Compliance conference, the service aims to provide clarity and reassurance to law firms, in particular through guidance to newly appointed compliance officers. ...
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Legal education: bespoke courses
News that Oxford Brookes University is discontinuing its legal practice course (LPC) because a drop in applications means it is no longer viable has sent a shock wave through the legal education market, as we await publication of the much-anticipated Legal Education and Training Review (LETR).
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Human rights
Human Rights – Freedom of expression – Protesters The wife and children of Omar Othman v The English National Resistance and others: Queen's Bench Division: 25 February 2013 The Queen's ...