Last 3 months headlines – Page 1301
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News
Litigants in person numbers soar
The dire state of the economy has already led to a dramatic increase in the number of litigants in person, new figures from a voluntary organisation suggest. This is before government cuts to civil legal aid come into effect, which many solicitors predict will trigger another huge rise.
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Keep ministers out of legal aid decisions - LSC
The chairman of the Legal Services Commission has warned of the risk of ministers intervening for political reasons in decisions about the granting of legal aid. Speaking at the Legal Aid Practitioners Group conference in Birmingham last week, Sir Bill Callaghan (pictured) expressed concerns that ...
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Spending cuts 'could threaten' innovative court
Spending cuts could threaten the future of the Family Drug and Alcohol Court (FDAC), the judge behind the innovative institution has warned. He called for joined-up government to recognise the savings it makes.
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Extended opening hours could boost magistracy
Government plans to extend magistrates’ operating hours into evenings and weekends could increase the diversity of the magistracy, but should not be carried out at the expense of daytime sitting, according to the chair of the Magistrates’ Association. John Thornhill told the Gazette that justice minister ...
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Wales ponders Welsh law
The Welsh government is to start a public debate on separate legal jurisdiction for the principality. A green paper will be launched early in 2012, first minister Carwyn Jones told last week’s Legal Wales conference in Cardiff. In March, the people of Wales voted to ...
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MoJ faces further challenge over legal aid
The Ministry of Justice faces another legal challenge to its legal aid reforms. The charity Disability Law Service has applied for permission to start judicial review proceedings in relation to the removal of civil legal aid funding for welfare benefits cases. The charity argues the ...
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Southern comfort
The Economist once described Australia as a country that ‘never makes the front pages of foreign newspapers’. But from the perspective of many UK lawyers, that description no longer rings true. Ashurst’s prospective tie-up with Blake Dawson has shown that City interest in Australia as a hub for Asia-Pacific expansion ...
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Conveyancers could sue over panels
Conveyancing firms removed from the panels of Santander and Lloyds Banking Group could have claims against the lenders, according to legal advice obtained by a Hertfordshire firm. Paul Judkins (pictured), a partner at Judkins, has received advice from Philip Coppel QC, of London’s 4-5 Gray’s Inn ...
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Family immigration proposals 'unethical'
Solicitors have rejected as ‘venal’ and ‘unethical’ proposals from the UK Border Agency (UKBA) to prevent abuses of the family immigration route into Britain. They warn that some of the proposals, part of a package of measures to reduce immigration released for a consultation that closed ...
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Employment
Unfair dismissal - Reasonableness Of dismissal Perry v Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust: Employment Appeal Tribunal (Mr Justice Wilkie, Mr Justice Harris, Mr D Smith): 22 September 2011 The Employment ...
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Young lawyers will seek 'bespoke incentive plans'
Ambitious young lawyers will increasingly seek ‘bespoke incentive plans’ after as little as three years’ service with a firm, rather than wait decades for rewards under the ‘anachronistic’ partnership system, a City bank claimed this week. In a report on the future of legal services ...
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Clegg censures lawyers on social mobility
The legal profession needs to open its doors wider to new entrants and do more to encourage social mobility, the deputy prime minister told lawyers this week. Speaking to the Financial Services Lawyers Association, Nick Clegg said: ‘Your profession judges and represents people in court, so ...
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Employment
Contract of service - Written particulars of contract Castledine v Bentley Jennison (a firm) and another: Chancery Division, Birmingham District Registry (Judge David Cooke sitting as a judge of the High Court): 15 September 2011 ...
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A high price to pay
I read Jonathan Goldsmith’s piece with a litigator’s eye. I do not agree that current attacks on the profession (and I have in mind specifically those in part 2 of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill) are due to free market economics. ...
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A local solution to mediation
I write in connection with the Comment piece, ‘See the value of mediation'. Some years ago, Devon and Exeter Law Society, as it then was, ran an extremely successful small claims mediation scheme attached to the Exeter group of courts. Our society also trained and ...
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Selective memory
The Ministry of Justice seems to be suffering from amnesia in relation to the road traffic accident portal negotiations (see ‘Change to RTA portal legal fees’. The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers was closely involved in the negotiations and we can confirm that the issue of ...
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Cuts to the courts service make it less likely that justice will be served
The Civil Justice Council’s working party on litigants in person will send a report to the justice secretary by the end of this month, outlining ways that unrepresented litigants’ access to justice could be improved.
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I'll state my case
Paul Dixon, this week’s Lawyer in the News, will soon be treating an audience of Portsmouth pub regulars to his version of the Sinatra classic My Way. Or perhaps he will be getting on down to Mustang Sally or even belting out We Are The Champions. He won’t be alone ...
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Play it again Sam
Putting the legal ombudsman and solicitors in the same room is like inviting Theresa May and Ken Clarke to a cat show. But the two factions got on remarkably well at a Law Society event last week – with chief ombudsman Adam Sampson (pictured) even extracting the odd laugh from ...