Last 3 months headlines – Page 1296
-
News
Workers’ rights go in and out of fashion
Many comparisons can be made between employment law and the fashion industry - even leaving aside the glamour of its practitioners. Both can be cruel mistresses, blown in the winds of opinion; each is subject to changes that can appear at best fickle (and are often imported from the continent). ...
-
News
Criminal-case mediation ‘by 2020’
Compulsory mediation of civil disputes and mediation of criminal cases could be introduced in the UK by 2020, a High Court judge has suggested. Mr Justice Ramsey (pictured) predicted that in 10 years’ time a Mediation Act would make the process compulsory before parties could ...
-
News
MPs call for comprehensive referral fee ban
An influential Commons committee has today called on the Ministry of Justice to impose a comprehensive ban on referral fees and tougher penalties for breaching data protection laws. A report published by the House of Commons justice committee concludes that referral fees often reward illegal behaviour, ...
-
News
Claimant solicitors to get fraud data access
Claimant solicitors are set to be given unprecedented access to fraud records to root out potentially bogus cases. Agreement that lawyers acting for claimants should have access to the same information as motor insurers and their representatives follows a ground-breaking meeting between the insurance industry and ...
-
News
Costs rule ‘will fuel litigation’
Litigators may face a tough new rule on the ‘proportionality’ of their costs that could fuel satellite litigation and uncertainty, experts warned last week. Nicholas Bacon QC, a member of both the Civil Procedure Rules committee and Civil Justice Council group dealing with implementation of the ...
-
News
Court closures 'undermine Big Society'
A leading barrister has called for a halt to magistrates’ court closures, saying economies would be better made by returning the courts to magistrates’ control. In a pamphlet, The Cost to Justice, published by think tank Politeia, Stanley Brodie QC said the programme to cut 142 ...
-
News
LCJ ‘not giving up’ on solicitor judges
Law firms should be more supportive of solicitors applying for judicial positions and stop allowing the issue to blight promising careers, the UK’s two senior judges told a House of Lords committee last week. Supreme Court president Lord Phillips of Worth Matravers and Lord Chief Justice ...
-
News
Lawyers working at quangos can get support
With the government’s controversial Public Bodies Bill promising a ‘bonfire of the quangos’, lawyers working in the sector are facing an unsettled future, with increasing demands to do more within shrinking budgets. The bill, currently making its way through parliament, will allow ministers, by order, to abolish, merge or transfer ...
-
News
Needless long hours
I read the comments of both Nick Herbert and in relation to magistrates sitting at unsocial times and hours. I have little respect for Mr Herbert’s opinion that ‘swift justice is currently the exception...’. Is he unaware of the Criminal Justice: Simple, Speedy Summary (CJSSS) process? ...
-
News
Keep formal training
I have followed the recent correspondence and editorial on the subject of training with some interest. I am about to retire after over 40 years as a solicitor and nearly 50 years at work. Mr Howell’s experience must have been later than mine.
-
News
The worst advice
According to reports, the government has asked Aviva, AXA, Direct Line and the Association of British Insurers to help shape its justice reforms. Having had the misfortune of dealing with these organisations for many years, I realise just how ridiculous a proposition this is, although perhaps ...
-
News
LSC helpline cut back again
The Legal Services Commission’s telephone helpline is taking emergency calls only in an effort to reduce a backlog of work. Emergency calls are those requiring action within 48 hours or where the information being sought is not available elsewhere. In July, the commission cut the ...
-
News
Referral fee ban will go in legal aid bill
The justice secretary has confirmed that a rule banning the payment of referral fees in personal injury cases will be introduced into the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill and debated next week in parliament. Kenneth Clarke tabled the amendment, stating that a regulated ...
-
News
Plea for Society to join forensic service fight
A solicitor renowned for his work freeing the wrongly convicted Guildford Four has asked the Law Society to become a ‘major player’ in the campaign to stop the government’s proposed closure of the Forensic Science Service (FSS).
-
News
More than just ‘bumper stickers’
To refer to documents such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a series of ‘bumper stickers devoid of substance’ - as one speaker did at the ‘Fairness, Justice and Human Rights’ conference last Saturday - is to overlook an important point. While it is ...
-
News
Employment law should be centralised
by Joanne Owers, chair of the Employment Lawyers Association Another month, another government consultation - or so it seems. No sooner does one consultation period around an important area of employment law end, than another often overlapping one commences - and before government has indicated its ...
-
News
The Baker report on extradition law is something to build on
When Sir Michael Bichard was finalising his report on child protection measures after the Soham murders of 2002, he took some trouble to ensure the institutions he was about to criticise would give his recommendations a fair wind. On the BBC’s Law in Action this week, he told me how ...
-
News
Judges not ‘quangocrats’ should accredit advocacy, says Deech
Judicial assessment will be a key component of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA), rather than assessment by ‘quangocrats and drama coaches’ according to the Bar Standards Board chair. Lady Deech said the controversial scheme ‘depends on the involvement of judges as the assessors of ...
-
News
Djanogly: referral ban will cover recipients
The new offence being created to ban referral fees will cover those receiving the fees as well as the lawyers who pay them, justice minister Jonathan Djanogly said last week. The minister told a LexisNexis costs conference that he wants the offence to go ‘further ...
-
News
Junior lawyers sitting pretty
Here’s a romantic tale that brought a tear even to Obiter’s cynical eye. Neville Takiar, commercial dispute solicitor at Newcastle firm Muckle, went to last year’s Junior Lawyers Division annual ball in London on his own. The long trip was not wasted.