Last 3 months headlines – Page 1235
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Aftermath of panel reviews
It is said that there are more questions on the application form to be a member of a lender’s conveyancing panel than there are to join MI5. Whether or not that is true, it is clear that if you want to do a good job for your homebuying clients, and ...
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Mediators go for ‘gold’ in Hong Kong
Demand for mediation services in Hong Kong – which adopted Woolf-style obligatory mediation in 2010 – has prompted the Centre for Effective Dispute Resolution (CEDR) to create a panel of 22 mediators in the region. Mark Side, partner and head of dispute resolution at Tanner ...
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How To: stop domestic violence
Beyond the headlines that we see all too often in the papers, domestic violence is a hidden epidemic – statistics tell us that one in four women and one in six men will experience domestic violence in their adult lives. Some readers will already be very familiar with these statistics. ...
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SRA ‘confident’ over PC renewals
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has expressed ‘confidence’ that this year’s practising certificate renewal season, which began today, will pass more smoothly than last year’s troubled process. 2011 was the first year that the SRA attempted online renewal and payments, through its mySRA portal. Well-publicised difficulties with ...
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Human endeavour subject to the principles of commerce
Soon there will be fruit machines in the lobby of every courtroom in England and Wales. Three cherries wins you a paralegal; three pineapples a senior partner. Pull the handle and take your chance.
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Civil litigators could consider advocacy
by Rachel Rothwell, editor of Litigation Funding magazine I recently attended a conference held by the Law Society’s Civil Justice Section – Litigators: survive and thrive. One key message was aimed at personal injury lawyers who – with the Jackson timebomb ticking and set for detonation ...
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Falconer lords it over mediation
An apologetic Lord Falconer of Thoroton turned up nearly an hour late last week to give a keynote speech at City firm Norton Rose. He explained that he had been trapped in Television Centre after a broadcast interview was delayed. Fortunately for the former lord ...
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Sign here, Mr President
The Law Society’s librarians are used to turning up treasures. But the signature of Herbert Hoover, 31st president of the United States, tucked away in an autograph book came as a surprise. The fascinating little book, signed by Hoover at the White House in 1930, was created by solicitor Gilbert ...
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Tour de Force seals Paris win
No, it’s not Bradley Wiggins. It’s a chap too shy to give his name at Baker & McKenzie, which beat five other law firms to be named Fastest Firm as part of Breast Cancer Care’s Tour de Law cycling challenge. The firm covered the 500km from London to Paris on ...
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Lyons Davidson looks to capitalise on ABS status
Lyons Davidson has been granted alternative business structure (ABS) status, which the national firm hopes will help it capitalise on changes in the UK legal market. Managing director Mark Savill told the Gazette that the move is key to its strategic relationship with insurers in preparation ...
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Dragon is bang on the money
When I was a newspaper City hack I always considered private equity to be the reductive apotheosis of late-capitalism (sounds pretentious, but bear with me). I still do. Private equity firms don’t provide any service; they are pretty much invisible; and their owners do their ...
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Disappointment at costs council decision
Costs lawyers have expressed disappointment at the government’s decision not to create a costs council as recommended in Lord Justice Jackson’s civil justice reforms. On Monday this week, the Ministry of Justice announced in a written statement that the work of the disbanded Advisory Committee on ...
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Competing with new entrants
The legal market in the UK has been in a state of radical evolution for some time. In these uncertain times, solicitors, particularly those in established local law firms, have the opportunity to compete with the large new entrants and other competitors around them on the level playing field of ...
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Where there is another will
Looking again at Colonel Wintle’s problems over the will drawn by solicitor Nye (30 August), I thought of one from the end of the 19th century when one of the more outrageous frauds was attempted by a Liverpool solicitor, John Hollis Yates. It concerned the estate of Helen Blake, née ...
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Bar needs to rethink on referral fees
Referral fees don’t go away. I’ll probably be writing later about the latest SRA consultation, but my immediate attention’s been caught by the latest guidance on the subject from the Bar Council’s Professional Practices Committee (PPC).
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Leniency for legal whistleblowers
Whistleblowers involved in misconduct will face more lenient penalties under proposals being considered by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The regulator today launched a consultation on the introduction of co-operation agreements, under which solicitors who may have been involved in misconduct or failed to report it, but ...
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Grayling promises clampdown on unrecovered legal aid
Wealthy defendants will have their cars seized and sold under a government plan to claw back £10m a year in contributions to legal aid. Chris Grayling, the justice secretary, will today publish a consultation on measures to ensure defendants co-operate with means testing and make ...
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Contracts and access to justice
Crime and sentencing always make the news. So it is not surprising that the shambles surrounding the court interpreters’ contract and its fallout made headlines. What’s worrying is what this and recent county court changes tell us about the approach that might be taken to forthcoming major civil justice reform. ...
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Bar broadside on referral fees ‘confused and self-serving’
The Law Society today rebutted bar claims that solicitors are putting pressure on barristers to enter referral fee arrangements that damage the interests of clients. Chancery Lane accused the Bar Council of ‘confusing the public interest with barristers’ interests’ in new advice to the bar which ...