Last 3 months headlines – Page 1226
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UKBA warns lawyers over ‘queue-jumping’
Immigration lawyers who help clients queue-jump an appointments system for work permits risk sanctions that could end their practice, the UK Border Agency has warned. In what is known as ‘a 3am appointment’, immigration advisers, including solicitors, use fictitious client names to book appointments online ...
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Lawyers fight town hall cuts
A group of City pro bono lawyers is taking aim at local authority cuts affecting vulnerable elderly and disabled residents. The lawyers will scrutinise care fee contracts that councils seek to vary, and bring judicial reviews of cuts estimated to add up to £1bn. ...
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Speeding up cases ‘risks miscarriages of justice’
Government plans to speed up criminal cases risk ‘significantly’ increasing the number of miscarriages of justice, the Law Society warned this week. Responding to a white paper setting out planned reforms of the criminal justice system, the Society stressed that dealing with cases swiftly must be ...
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Grayling: No U-turn on pensions
The lord chancellor has refused calls to reconsider cuts to judicial pensions. Chris Grayling told the Lords constitution committee last week that exempting judges from austerity would ‘make them the target of public hostility’. Grayling also rebuffed peers’ calls for a statutory duty on the lord chief justice to create ...
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News Focus: RTA fees
Government plans to wipe £700 from each fixed fee paid in low-value personal injury cases will put firms out of business, increase the risk of negligence and harm victims of accidents, solicitors have warned.
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Drunk as a judge and lunchtime tipples
In these abstemious times, Obiter is delighted to discover that one of the great stock characters of legal anecdote, the judge who enjoys a snifter at lunchtime, is still with us. At least in the estimation of Conservative peer Lady Wheatcroft (pictured), who told a Lords committee last week that ...
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Minister for murder
There have not been too many solicitors, or barristers for that matter, who have been convicted of murder, writes James Morton. In the 1920s Major Armstrong, who murdered his wife, springs to mind and a few months before him another solicitor, Harold Greenwood, was acquitted of the murder of his. ...
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Win tickets to see 9 to 5 The Musical
9 to 5 The Musical is a new musical comedy based on the hit movie about three office workers who turn the tables on their sexist boss. They conspire to take control of the company and learn there is nothing they cannot do – even in a man’s world.
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Animal, children and LSB websites
Obiter was in exalted company last week for the launch of the Legal Services Board’s fancy new research website. (And to hear the board’s chair, David Edmonds (pictured), grumble at the inadequacy of his £250,000 research budget.) There was a buzz in the high-powered academic audience as Edmonds handed over ...
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Litigation funding: joining the party
A few years ago, most solicitors would have had no notion of what third-party funding (TPF) was, and even fewer would have cared. But as banks become ever more reluctant to lend to law firms – and civil litigators begin turning their minds to how they will finance contingency fee ...
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No prescription over advisers is bad news
In what circumstances could it ever be in a client’s best interests not to be referred to an ‘independent’ financial adviser? On its face, the SRA’s relaxation of the rules appears both dogmatic and perverse. However, it is not as simple as that. The City’s pre-eminent ...
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The Law Society is right to develop a new model for engaging members directly
by Nigel Spencer, chief of commercial affairs at the Law Society Guy Goodman’s letter on the Recognised Groups Agreement and Solicitors in Local Government demonstrates a misunderstanding of the basis on which the Society is setting up the new divisions.
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How To: release an app
As web 2.0 technologies become an increasingly self-evident component of everyday life, organisations are confronted with a growing urgency to embrace and harness them, or risk losing touch with their clients’ changing needs. According to a recent survey, 45% of senior marketing executives consider social networks and applications a top ...
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Professional priorities
James Caan, described as a private equity investor, is reported in your issue of 1 November as complaining that the solicitors’ profession is ‘reluctant to prioritise making money’. If this is true, then the situation is much better than I had feared. Surely a reluctance to ...
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Novel idea
It sounds as though Peter Elliott (‘Litigants in person "need more support"’) is asking for some sort of state-funded legal assistance, in order to ensure that everyone has access to justice. What a novel idea. I am not sure it will ever catch on with the powers that be. ...
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A holistic approach
I have recently been on two courses on the forthcoming changes to the legal aid scheme. One was organised by the Law Society and the other by the Legal Services Commission. They were, more accurately, roadshows presented around the country and most were well supported. I will not say which ...
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Lawyers’ core principles are under threat
It has been fashionable to speak about the future of lawyers in terms of commoditisation, standardisation and technology (yes, I am speaking about you, Richard Susskind). Those factors will clearly have their impact – even though to date, far from there being fewer lawyers as predicted, there are more and ...
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Implement Jackson reforms for media litigation, says Leveson
A call for Lord Justice Jackson’s proposals on costs to be introduced for defamation, privacy, breach of confidence ‘and similar media-related litigation’ appears in the Leveson report on the press published today. In his report, Lord Justice Leveson proposes a new law to create an independent ...
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CJC member rules out mandatory litigation funding code
There are no plans to change the voluntary code for third-party litigation funding, according to one of its creators. Professor Rachael Mulheron, a member of the Civil Justice Council, said the code was still appropriate one year on from its adoption. Speaking ...