Last 3 months headlines – Page 1323
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Cash crisis could close half of CABs
Half of the 3,500 CAB advice centres run by the Citizens Advice charity could close as the government continues to squeeze legal aid and other sources of funding. News of the possible cull comes as the government prepares to give CAB extra work following its ‘bonfire of the quangos’. ...
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Government announces legal aid concessions
The government has made two key concessions demanded by opponents of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill, days before the legislation enters report stage in the House of Lords. In amendments tabled today, the government accepted that the broad definition of domestic violence ...
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Conveyancing forms update plan
The Law Society is seeking views on revising its general enquiry forms for residential conveyancing. It aims to update the property information form TA6 and the fittings and contents form TA10, which are filled in by sellers. Jonathan Smithers, chair of the Society’s land ...
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Extending the act, emails, and empty properties
Approximately 130,000 organisations are covered by the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (FoI). Section 5 of the act allows additional organisations to be added to the list by way of a ministerial order. The criteria are that they must exercise public functions or provide contracted out public authority functions.
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A bit of give and take
Fiona Woolf overlooks the contribution of clients with regard to her hopes that more women will reach the top in law firms. I agree that many law firms find it difficult to accommodate flexible working, but it is clients too who need to change their attitude to women lawyers.
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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 ...