Last 3 months headlines – Page 1289
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The Jackson review - where are we now?
Now that the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Act has entered the statute book, I'm looking at where the government is up to in terms of the overall Jackson package of reforms for personal injury compensation.
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Tomlinson judge appointed first chief coroner
The judge who presided at the 2011 inquest that returned a verdict of unlawful killing on newspaper seller Ian Tomlinson was today named as the first Chief Coroner of England & Wales. The Ministry of Justice said that Peter Thornton QC will improve the coronial system ...
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Social exclusivity ‘rife’ in profession
Social exclusivity is increasing in the legal profession, according to a new analysis of lawyers’ schooling published today. Legal recruiter Laurence Simons studied almost 50,000 professionals working in London using the networking site LinkedIn. It found that more than 15% of lawyers - more than 7,000 ...
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Making the law work for deaf people
Until I started working with the team at the Royal Association for Deaf People’s Deaf Law Centre (RAD DLC) I wasn’t aware of the difficulties that so many D/deaf** and hard of hearing people face when accessing legal services. When I met Rob Wilks, head of RAD’s legal team, in ...
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Lawyers’ right to strike
As social ties are stretched to breaking point by the economic crisis, an interesting question arises: do lawyers have the right to strike, and if so in what circumstances? The focus here is not on the legal right granted to citizens, including lawyers, by the law of a particular country, ...
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General training ‘failing’, consumer watchdog tells review
Regular re-accreditation and an end to the ‘general practitioner model’ of training are among the reforms called for by the Legal Services Consumer Panel in its submission to the Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) today. The consumer watchdog tells the review that the current system ...
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Trainee minimum abolition ‘will hit women’
Women will be disproportionately affected by the scrapping of the minimum salary for trainees, the Association of Women Solicitors (AWS) said today. The AWS has added its voice to mounting opposition to the decision taken last week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. From August 2014, firms ...
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Trainee minimum dumped in 'partial deregulation'
Regulators have voted to partially deregulate the trainee solicitor minimum wage 30 years after it was introduced. The board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority made the decision to change the terms of the salary at its meeting today - with the change coming into effect in ...
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Criminal bar unfurls strike banner
Nine out of 10 criminal barristers are prepared to take direct action in protest against low and late payments, a survey by the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) has revealed as their leader for the first time sanctions ‘strike’ action. CBA chair Max Hill QC will ...
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One out, all out
The warning by Criminal Bar Association chair Max Hill QC today that barristers are prepared to strike - backed by a survey showing near unanimous outrage - is a watershed moment. Hill notes barristers’ reluctance to use their ‘ultimate weapon’, namely ‘stopping the courts’, to make ...
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Pro bono no substitute for legal aid - Wotton
Lawyers need to do more to bridge the gaps in access to justice caused by legal aid reforms, the Law Society president told an international conference in Russia. However he stressed that pro bono work is no substitute for a properly funded legal aid system. John ...
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Judicial review
Evidence - Claimants seeking judicial review of decisions of defendant secretary of state refusing to grant naturalisation R (on the application of AHK and others) v Secretary of State for the Home Department: QBD (Admin) (Mr Justice Ouseley): 2 ...
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News focus: progress report on legal profession
The Law Society’s 28th Annual Statistical Report might appear to be a rather desiccated agglomeration of facts, tables and bar charts. It is not an avowedly political document and, for that reason, raises more questions than it answers. As a snapshot of changing trends in the profession, however, the survey ...
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Travellers, homelessness and bricks and mortar
Basildon Borough Council did not act unlawfully when offering bricks and mortar accommodation to homeless former Dale Farm travellers. So found the Court of Appeal on 21 March 2012 in Sheridan and others v Basildon Borough Council [2012] EWCA Civ 335, which also usefully considered the extent of a housing ...
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Giving hard-up graduates hope
I have read the various exchanges, following the initial open letter on the Gazette website from the (clearly desperate) Legal Practice Course graduates. The issue, from my perspective, is not the minimum wage applicable to trainee solicitors, but more the lack of training contracts compared with the number of ‘qualifying’ ...
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Doing the deed
Increasingly, original title deeds are disappearing and we are ever more dependent on obtaining copies from the Land Registry. Yet again this morning an office copy lease has arrived with the plans uncoloured and a power of attorney which had no relevance included as a page of the lease. I ...
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Naive strategy
The government intends to clamp down on compensation claims arising from road traffic accidents. Apparently, the government regards solicitors as the ‘bad guys’ and insurers as the ‘good guys’.