Last 3 months headlines – Page 1260
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Junior staff forced upon 'life and death' care cases
The soaring number of court applications to take children into care is forcing cash-strapped law firms to use junior and unqualified staff to handle ‘life and death’ cases.
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Law firms ‘are their own competitors’
Law firms lose almost half of potential new clients by mishandling telephone enquiries and most show ‘zero’ sensitivity to a client’s needs, a ‘secret-shopping’ exercise has found. Some 33% of calls to firms were disconnected before they reached a legal adviser and 44% of those which ...
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Survey: in-house woe for magic circle
Pressure on corporate legal budgets eased in 2011, but that failed to halt a three-year decline in the use of magic circle firms. Legal departments instead chose to increase their own headcount, and to make greater use of UK mid-tier law firms, other international firms, the bar and niche firms.
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Setting the date
The announcement by the Sentencing Council on 24 January of a reduction of sentences for those who are drug mules, and not organisers, is long overdue but greatly to be welcomed. The new guideline applies to all offenders aged 18 and over who are sentenced on or after 27 February ...
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Something stinks
So as far as I can make out we, a solicitor’s firm, must now go cap in hand to a licensed conveyancer firm if we want to appeal to get on to the panel of a high street bank. And that licensed conveyancer firm, which is on the panel of ...
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Language barrier
Catherine Baksi is quite right to raise the issue of interpreters, of such concern for so long to those of us in the know. Pro bono (and with any number of colleagues from the defence, the prosecution, the police, the Probation Service, the courts service ...
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Courting disorder
I read with some amusement the article regarding complaints about Salford. Obviously those on high have been thinking for some time about the future of court work in this country. We have been steered away from the courts via the urging of the parties to mediate. ...
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Society in new deal on ARP finance
The Law Society has offered to share equally with insurers up to £60m in liability to cover the cost of the assigned risks pool (ARP).
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On top form
I am just recovering from my first attempt at completing the criminal legal aid application forms CDS 14 and 15 on behalf of my client. That these convoluted affairs come with a 22-page guide to their completion, to extract virtually the same information as their predecessors, says it all.
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Call to account
I read with interest that the SRA had extended its operating hours to deal with the issues arising from this year’s online renewals process. Over the last three days, I have spent nearly two hours waiting on the phone to speak with someone at the SRA ...
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Where credit is due
While the online renewals process for practising certificates was confusing and highly stressful for many of us, the SRA deserves credit for the way in which some of its staff handled individual complaints and concerns.
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Download limit
The letter from the grandly titled ‘Programme Director, CJS Efficiency Programme’ at the CPS poses more questions than it answers. Downloading every case in a court building on to the computer of each prosecutor at a court building on a particular day places those prosecutors under ...
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Where lords fear to tread
The House of Lords debate on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill has featured a procession of eminent lawyers honing their advocacy skills. All of which has made it a formidable place for those without a legal background. Some noble lords have been ...
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Display of affection
The high street of Church Stretton, Shropshire, is just a little more romantic this week thanks to the efforts of local solicitors. Shropshire firm PCB Solicitors has a Valentine’s Day display, put together by administration assistant Jade Phillips. Jade does ‘a fantastic job’, solicitor Pauline Davies tells us.
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Solicitors enter Dragon’s Den
Gimlet-eyed multi-millionaires look on sceptically as you launch into your business pitch. Pulse tripping, you contemplate the excruciating embarrassment of freezing before the cameras and unseen millions gawping at their TV screens. Or maybe you manage to limp through to the end of your presentation only to hear your ambitions ...
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Coming clean
James Morton’s anecdotes on the evergreen topic of court dress code have provoked a few recollections of judicial observations.
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Poetic licence
One of Australia’s great literary hoaxes was played on the intellectual magazine ...
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The corporate market is changing and its firms need to adapt
As we report today, several years of harder economic times have effected a permanent change in the instruction choices of general counsel in our largest corporations. Even with improved budgets in 2011 and 2012, they are opting to grow headcount in-house, and achieve legal advice coverage through increased use of ...
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County Court reforms could cripple system
by Francesca Kaye, vice-president of the London Solicitors Litigation Association The ministerial foreword to the government’s response to the consultation Solving Disputes in the County Courts states: ‘An effective justice system is the cornerstone of a civilised society… upon which ordinary members of the public rely ...
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Commitment to human rights should begin in UK
Governments in the UK have traditionally exhibited a somewhat divided attitude to the use of torture. The trial of Sir Walter Raleigh in 1603 raised, in essence, the same issues as those in the more recent case of Abu Qatada, the cleric sought by Jordan. How fair can a trial ...