Last 3 months headlines – Page 1357
-
News
Deech confident about QASA roll-out
The controversial accreditation scheme for advocates has the support of judges and will go ahead, the chair of the Bar Standards Board has said amid a continuing dispute with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
-
News
Unite joins interpreting campaign
Britain’s biggest trade union this week joined a campaign for the Ministry of Justice to bring courtroom interpreting services back in-house from a contract with Applied Language Solutions (ALS). ‘The courts system is descending into chaos, as suspects are not being informed of their rights and ...
-
News
Environmental
Nuisance - Motor racing - Defendants using land for motor racing Lawrence and another v Fen Tigers Ltd and others: CA (Civ Div) (Lord Justices Mummery, Jackson, Lewison): 27 February 2012 ...
-
News
Employment
Sex discrimination - Employee married to husband - Tribunal dismissing claim Dunn v Institute of Cemetery and Crematorium Management: EAT (Judge McMullen QC, Mrs R Chapman and Mr P Smith): 2 December 2011 ...
-
News
Industrial disease wins exemption from CFA cut
Peers in the House of Lords have voted for sufferers of asbestos-related disease to be exempt from reforms to no win, no fee litigation. The House of Lords yesterday agreed two amendments to the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders bill, allowing claimants continued access ...
-
News
Revving up the blame game
Stirring words from Admiral as the car insurance giant announced its latest financials. Given all the doom and gloom we hear about the insurance industry in the face of a rapacious compensation culture, it was something of a surprise to hear that group profits were up 13% to £299m in ...
-
News
Red alert
The next phase of the government’s red tape challenge, in the first three weeks of June, is legal services. This will involve a review of the Legal Services Act for superfluous regulations, with particular focus on claims management, sentencing and bailiffs. Encouragingly, and despite the ...
-
News
Unjust deserts
The boot was on the other foot last week, when Obiter found himself cast as a token male at the International Women in Law Summit 2012. He listened with humility as Law Society vice-president Lucy Scott-Moncrieff told delegates that senior male partners generally thought they deserved their success, rather than ...
-
News
Deferred prosecution could come to UK, says Alderman
Legislation to enable US-style deferred prosecutions for corporate crime may feature in the Queen’s speech on 9 May. Richard Alderman (pictured), outgoing director of the Serious Fraud Office (SFO), said last week that deferred prosecution - under which the authorities and a business agree a ...
-
News
News focus: no to ‘patronising’ quotas
Women lawyers overwhelmingly oppose the introduction of quotas as a tool to help more of them into senior positions in firms, it emerged at an international conference last week. As the proportion of women on boards of FTSE100 companies looks set to pass 25%, the ...
-
News
Is it not time for law firms to be bold and mandate change?
‘Personally, I am not a great fan of quotas, but I like the results they bring. We need quotas to break the glass ceiling before returning to normal.’ So said EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding recently, introducing a consultation on whether to bring in quotas for women in company boardrooms.
-
News
Accreditation can help firms meet fresh challenges
by Joe Gibson, a practice manager at Beeley & Co in Stockport There are about 11,000 firms of solicitors in England and Wales and 1,082 legal practices have the Lexcel accreditation. So why is it that so many firms have either not achieved the Lexcel accreditation ...
-
News
Media distortion obscures human rights
Should you, for any bizarre reason, feel like a period of abuse from outraged members of the public, try defending the European Court of Human Rights’ decision in the Abu Qatada case. One outraged viewer of a TV slot three weeks distant is still calling daily to express his anger. ...
-
News
Hill start
Biking is a theme at Southport personal injury firm Fletchers, so it was appropriate that Tommy Hill, British Superbike champion, was invited to open its new offices. Fletchers sponsored Hill at the start of his career in 2003. Hill knows a bit about personal injuries: his early racing life included ...
-
News
Act now to avoid a budget-day headache
Speculation has been rife in recent weeks that tax relief on pension contributions could take a hit in the budget next week. Partners urgently need to consider that it could be a quid pro quo for a reduction in the 50% rate - and ...
-
News
Concern over new powers to prosecute cartels
Legal specialists have warned that a new anti-competition regime announced by the government today could lower the bar to prosecutions, creating the risk of miscarriages of justice. The reform, proposed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, would merge the Competition Commission and the ...
-
News
SRA sets back compliance officer deadline
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has postponed the date for firms to nominate compliance officers after another technological delay. The new deadline has not yet been announced. Firms had been expected to put forward two staff members by the end of this month, but with the online ...
-
News
Kettling no violation, ECHR rules
The ‘kettling’ of protesters and others by the Metropolitan Police in 2001 did not violate their human right to liberty and security, the European Court of Human Rights ruled today. The case was brought to the Strasbourg court by a demonstrator and three passers-by who had ...
-
News
My experience as a conveyancing client
Just over two years ago my colleague Rachel Rothwell, now editor of Litigation Funding magazine, wrote a blog with the same title as this one. Rothwell shopped around a bit, asked questions about referral fees, and eventually settled on a licensed conveyancer above a couple of ...
-
News
SRA 'grey areas' an issue for troubled firms
The implementation of the Legal Services Act in October 2011 has brought a significant wave of changes and challenges to the legal profession, which is only just starting to be felt by law firms. Law firms are facing several challenges and opportunities: new regulatory structures ...