Last 3 months headlines – Page 1340
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School trip
A-level students at Longslade Community College in Leicester were treated to a ‘brief visit’ recently, as Justine Flack (pictured, right), family solicitor at Howes Percival, and Imogen Cox (left), director at Cartwright King, went back to school for the day. The pair led a series ...
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Chancery Lane escalates legal aid fight
The Law Society is stepping up its campaign to block coalition reforms of legal aid and civil litigation funding which it says will leave the civil justice system ‘at the edge of an abyss’. The move comes as the House of Commons’ health committee warned this ...
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Lenders vet solicitors on Google
Credit checking law firms and monitoring the timeliness with which they register charges are among measures being considered and in some cases adopted by lenders seeking to clamp down on mortgage fraud. One large lender is also demanding the introduction of a compulsory scheme under ...
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Personal injury firms join forces over thalidomide claims
Two leading personal injury firms have joined forces to represent those affected by the drug thalidomide. London firm Leigh Day & Co and national firm Russell Jones & Walker this week launched the Thalidomiders Legal Group to pursue compensation claims on behalf of people in the ...
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Late bid to amend Quality Assurance Advocacy Scheme
Talks will be held this week in an eleventh-hour bid to rationalise the scope of the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA). The scheme, which will accredit advocates at one of four levels, was approved by the Solicitors Regulation Authority at the start of the ...
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Opening Dors
Sometimes I wonder how I ever managed to qualify. In those days the Law Society’s College of Law (or was it school in the 1950s?) was in Lancaster Gate. Even in the early morning, the pavement from Lancaster Gate tube ...
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Axa says no to referral fees
Leading insurer Axa has said it will no longer accept referral fees from personal injury lawyers. The firm, which has 10 million customers in the UK, will no longer take the payments when it puts customers in touch with solicitors at the time of an accident. ...
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Firm fights LSC on client rights
A Merseyside firm has commenced legal proceedings on behalf of two clients challenging the Legal Services Commission’s attempt to restrict their right to choose their own solicitor. In judicial review proceedings, RMNJ claims the LSC acted ‘unlawfully’ by not allowing the clients to choose their own ...
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ABSs will tempt investors, top banker predicts
A leading banker has predicted that investors will be queuing up to enter the legal services market when alternative business structures (ABSs) come into force from October. Former barrister John Llewellyn-Lloyd, now head of mergers and acquisitions for Espirito Santo, said the market was an attractive ...
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LSC cuts off phone advice agency
The Legal Services Commission has suspended The Shaftesbury Group’s contract to provide telephone advice for people detained in police stations for less serious offences. As reported earlier this month, the LSC transferred a contract to provide the Criminal Defence Service (Direct) service from Bostalls to the ...
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Bar Council stands firm on Bellfield trial backlash
The Bar Council has warned that defence lawyers may feel inhibited about taking on high-profile trials that could potentially see them vilified by the media, following coverage of the trial of Levi Bellfield last week. Jeffrey Samuels QC was subjected to a torrent of abuse on ...
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Student debt mountain a powerful deterrent to university
A survey of qualified lawyers has found that under half would have gone to university today, when aspiring solicitors can expect to wrack up massive debts. Legal recruitment firm Laurence Simons found that the majority of 224 respondents would have baulked at the total cost of ...
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Gazette is media partner for high-profile Law Society debates
The Gazette is pleased to be official media partner for a series of cutting-edge lectures and debates examining key law reform issues in the UK. The Law Society 2011 debate series will initially focus on marriage, privacy laws, super-injunctions and social care. ...
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News focus: our analysis of the legal aid and sentencing bill
A close reading of the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill has left many lawyers, campaign groups and politicians who support the legal aid system more worried than ever about future provision. Even though the government decided to rush to a second reading ...
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Law firms ally with chambers to bid for criminal contract
Fifteen law firms in south Wales are to form an alliance with a set of chambers to bid for a criminal legal aid contract from the Legal Services Commission in the next contract round. In what is believed to be the first initiative of its kind, ...
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Bostalls was an unregulated commercial body and the move was seen to pre-empt the establishment of ABSs
So, the Legal Services Commission has suspended The Shaftesbury Group’s contract to provide telephone advice at the police station. This comes a fortnight after we revealed that predecessor firm Bostalls - owned and run by the same people as Shaftesbury - had been placed into ...
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We must make our voices heard in the campaign to maintain equal access to justice
by Stephen Ward, director of communications, inclusion and corporate responsibility at the Law Society Driven by the work of the solicitors who form its specialist committees, the Law Society is constantly lobbying government and parliamentarians on a range of aspects of law reform.
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Most courts operating ‘as normal’
Government officials insist that most courts are operating as normal today despite mass industrial action by public sector workers. Thousands of PCS members have staged a one-day walkout which the union claims is the ‘best supported strike we’ve ever had’. The tranquility ...
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Government to provide £20m for not-for-profit centres
The government will provide £20m to help support not-for-profit advice centres hit by planned legal aid cuts, Justice Minister Kenneth Clarke announced yesterday. During the second reading debate on the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill, the justice secretary also indicated the he may ...