Last 3 months headlines – Page 1359
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Ombudsman will name lawyers and firms ‘in public interest’
The Legal Ombudsman has taken the highly controversial decision to name lawyers and law firms in circumstances where there is a ‘pattern of complaints’ against them or when it is in the ‘public interest’ to do so. The regulator denied that its object is to ...
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Legal aid cuts ‘will undermine pro bono work’
Proposed cuts to legal aid threaten to undermine a decade of pro bono work, the legal profession has warned at the start of the tenth national pro bono week. A Law Society survey in the spring revealed that just under half of solicitors in private practice ...
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Reforms will cut claims against NHS in half
Legal aid cuts and the Jackson reforms will slash the number of claims brought against the NHS by 50%, a senior member of the Civil Justice Council has predicted. Peter Smith, managing director of FirstAssist Legal Expenses Insurance, told Saturday’s Bar Conference that Jackson in particular ...
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Is compliance an opportunity or a threat?
Even before the current outcomes-focused regulations came into force compliance was seen by many as a necessary evil. What firms are going to make of it with the new regulators out in force still remains to be seen. I don’t think that law firms will find ...
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Watchdog’s warning to legal regulators
The Legal Services Consumer Panel has today challenged regulators including the SRA to make the new compliance regime work, or face being replaced by a single regulator independent of the profession. In its response to a Legal Services Board consultation on the boundaries of ...
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Jackson keeps a firm hand on the tiller
Last Monday, a group of leading experts in civil justice - many of them solicitors - gathered for a comprehensive discussion on some of the crucial detail concerning the rules required to implement Lord Justice Jackson’s radical reform of civil litigation costs. With the reforms ...
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Independent costs regulator opens for business
Costs lawyers now have an independent regulator to uphold professional standards. The Costs Lawyer Standards Board (CLSB) formally took up its duties on 31 October after the Association of Costs Lawyers (ACL) delegated its regulatory role. The association is the sixth and final approved regulator set ...
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Libel and slander
Defamatory words - Words capable of defamatory meaning Kordowski v Hudson: Queen's Bench Division (Mr Justice Tugendhat): 21 October 2011 The Queen's Bench Division held that the claimant's claim for ...
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Social security
Housing benefit - Assessment Child Poverty Action Group v Secretary of State for Work & Pensions: Queen's Bench Division, Administrative Court (London) (Mr Justice Supperstone): 13 October 2011 The Administrative ...
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Company
Administration order - Administrator - Costs of administration Re Nortel GMBH (in administration) and other companies; Re Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (in administration) and other companies: Court of Appeal, Civil Division (Lords Justice Laws, Lloyd and Rimer): 14 October ...
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Lawyer independence is a strong foundation
Lawyer independence - both of the individual lawyer as practitioner, and the regulation of lawyers collectively - has never been consigned to the wings in all the time I have been qualified. But now it has grabbed the microphone to sing. Regrettably, it is a shaky version of that old ...
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Third-party harassment
In March, the coalition referred to the current rules protecting employees from harassment by third parties as ‘unworkable’ and announced that it will be consulting on their removal from the Equality Act 2010.