Last 3 months headlines – Page 1322
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First complaint
For many years I have been a very contented customer of First Direct for my personal banking. I have recommended the service to others, including clients, unhesitatingly. No longer. While I still get an excellent service, I have complained to First Direct about their owner HSBC’s ...
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MoJ warned two years ago over interpreters
Ministry of Justice officials were warned two years ago that a central contract for courtroom interpreter services would lead to wrongful detentions, the Gazette has learned. Emails from a body representing interpreters also warned in 2010 that members would boycott the scheme. The MoJ and its ...
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BSB code hints at OFR
The Bar Standards Board has outlined a move towards solicitor firm-style outcomes-focused regulation, in a consultation which also proposes the immediate suspension of some barristers facing disciplinary action. In papers published this week, the BSB sets out its aim to introduce a single handbook of rules, ...
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No turning back from liberalisation
I expect that very soon the Solicitors Regulation Authority will announce that it has granted the first group of licences for alternative business structures if, indeed, an announcement to this effect has not already been made by the time this article is published. The end of the profession? I think ...
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In good wealth
Wealth management has never been one of Obiter’s preoccupations (a jam jar for loose copper generally sufficing), but it seems the coming thing in the legal sector. City firm Mishcon de Reya last week revealed plans to branch out into offering ‘private bank relationship management advice’, along with tax advice ...
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Super marketing
Let’s face it: when it comes to passing trade, some law firms have an advantage over others. Obiter called in at the Co-op store at London’s Charing Cross this week for his quotidien bottle of gin and was surprised on inserting his bank card into the payment terminal to find ...
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Rude gull hit
Another tale of a courtroom wardrobe malfunction, this time from Clive Gladstone of Northumberland County Council. He recalls being called to defend an application with only a few minutes’ notice: ‘As I hastened across, a seagull scored a direct hit right across the front of my dark suit jacket. The ...
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Pancake play
No, there hasn’t been a breakdown of law and order in Lichfield. The scene is the annual pancake day race, to which Lichfield and London firm Keelys contributed a team. After last year’s triumph as Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, this year’s theme was ...
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The Swiss joker
Passing the London Hippodrome near Leicester Square the other day, I thought of one of the great and comparatively harmless 19th century conmen. In 1898 Louis de Rougemont sold the amazing story of his adventures to World Wide magazine, and what a success it was.
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Direct action can work, seemingly against daunting odds
HSBC trumpets that it is the ‘world’s local bank’, a claim that rings hollow with conveyancing solicitors and their clients. Having chosen a panel with just 43 members - thereby severely circumscribing a client’s right to choose their own solicitor - the bank won’t even say who those members ...
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MoJ must address the chaos
by Madeleine Lee is director of the Professional Interpreters’ Alliance We are just a month into the National Framework Agreement for interpreting and translation services in HM Courts and Tribunals Service.
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Let's separate
At last some common sense. I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiments in the letter from Michael Brough. It is high time that lenders and borrowers were separately represented, and we take ourselves out of the potential conflicts of interest that often arise. ...
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Scrap it all
I fully agree with Michael Brough’s letter in the Gazette. I have been saying the same thing for several years - but the Law Society seems to be afraid separate representation will put up the cost of house buying. It might do, but only by a ...
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Level playing field
Sunil Kambli's letter suggesting that the Law Society should require separate representation of mortgage lenders may point the way forward here. However, any such requirement must be imposed on all recognised bodies, including licensed conveyancers and alternative business structures. Any rule change would have to exclude borrowers' solicitors giving any ...
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No limit
I have today been faxed by solicitors acting for a prospective purchaser. They inform me they are having to deal with Countrywide as their clients are having an HSBC mortgage. I am required apparently to undertake on completion to discharge all mortgages on the property. This is of course contrary ...
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No practical joke
I refer to the letter from David Kirwan ‘Writing on the wall’. When I started the Legal Practice Course in September 1996, I was astounded to be given a spelling and grammar test, particularly since the last time I had done anything like that had been when I was at ...
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Law now reserved for the wealthy
Has the door to the law silently closed to those who are either not from wealthy backgrounds or do not have connections in the profession? How many of today’s lawyers have working-class origins, compared with solicitors five, 10 or 20 years ago?
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Learning on the job
Dr Critchlow rightly suggests that those who want to be called doctor should take a PhD or LLD. When I was in Iran on business in 2010 giving two-day courses in Isfahan and on Kish Island I was perturbed to see that the certificates of ...
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LASPO concessions a ‘smokescreen’, says Labour
The shadow justice secretary has dismissed the government’s partial U-turns on domestic violence and clinical negligence as a ‘smokescreen’ to avert losing votes on the reforms in the House of Lords. The government announced yesterday that it had tabled amendments to the Legal Aid Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill ...