Last 3 months headlines – Page 1400
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‘Big fall’ in number of conveyancing practices expected
Property specialists are predicting a ‘significant’ fall in the number of conveyancing firms in 2011, as regulatory pressures on the profession rise and transaction volumes drop. Eddie Goldsmith, chair of the Conveyancing Association and a partner at London firm Goldsmith Williams, predicted that two-thirds of firms ...
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Managing partners predict merger-packed 2011
Managing partners expect a bout of consolidation in the legal market in the coming year, according to an authoritative benchmarking survey seen exclusively by the Gazette. However, the research shows that most law firm leaders believe their firm to be on a solid enough financial footing ...
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New Year honour for LSC chief
The chief executive of the Legal Services Commission and the pro bono leader at City firm Hogan Lovells were among those recognised by the Queen in the New Year’s honours list. Hogan Lovells pro bono manager Yasmin Waljee received an OBE for services to the Muslim ...
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RSPCA victory in disputed will
The RSPCA has won an appeal in a dispute over a testator’s intentions where he left assets ‘up to the inheritance tax threshold’. George Mason, who died in June 2007, had written a will leaving ‘the maximum’ that could be free of IHT to his ...
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Law firms' middle-class bias risks excluding a diversity of talent
by Dr Louise Ashley, research fellow at the Centre for Professional Service Firms, Cass Business School, part of City University London It may come as no surprise that the legal sector has a bias towards middle-class candidates. A range of research has attributed this situation to ...
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Prominent legal figures give their predictions for 2011
No one from whom the Gazette sought a prediction sees the year ahead as dull – 2011, according to lawyers, people who provide services to the legal profession, a government minister, and the profession’s leaders, will be a year in which the economic context will remain extremely challenging. Firms’ finances ...
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Virtual courts – increasing the cost of delivering justice
The government’s non-committal response to a detailed report evaluating the year-long virtual courts pilot is disappointing. Though occasionally lapsing into mandarin-esque understatement and equivocation, the study is clear enough. Conceived as a straightforward way to save money, the scheme actually increased the cost of delivering criminal justice compared to the ...
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Important lessons from the new process for low-value RTA claims
Beset by problems such as delays in providing registration log-ins, several insurers not being registered on the system and countless technical hitches involving the online portal, many have described the new streamlined low value road traffic claims process as a shambles. With the Ministry of Justice introducing the new electronic ...
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Chancery Lane warns against publication of complaints
Reporting the names of lawyers and law firms who have been the subject of complaints by the public will disproportionately affect sole practitioners and black and minority ethnic (BME) lawyers, according to the Law Society. Responding to the Legal Ombudsman’s (LeO) consultation on whether its decisions ...
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Employment
Remuneration - Holidays with pay Russell and others v Transocean International Resources Ltd and others: Supreme Court (Lords Hope DP, Brown, Mance, Kerr and Wilson SCJJ): 7 December 2011 The ...
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Students lured by City-style work
Prospective lawyers are most interested in pursuing careers in City-style law, figures from legal careers website All About Law seen exclusively by the Gazette have suggested. An analysis of the advice pages viewed by the 10,000 students registered on the site indicates a preference for corporate ...
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My predictions for 2011
This time last year I wrote a blog for the Gazette that predicted a major change in 2010. I suggested that solicitors firms and new legal service providers would be divided into two broad groups – those that used web-based systems to deliver services to clients and those that didn’t. ...
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Expert fees for independent social workers ‘irrational’
The Ministry of Justice is putting the welfare of children caught up in complex family court proceedings at risk, organisations representing independent social work (ISW) expert witnesses have claimed. The British Association of Social Workers and others have written to justice secretary Kenneth Clarke to ...
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Are judges getting feisty?
You might expect a court’s annual report to be a pretty dull read. But not so the Court of Appeal’s annual report, released earlier this month, with a forward by the lord chief justice Lord Judge.
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Bar Council calls for prohibition of referral fees
The Bar Council and the Criminal Bar Association (CBA) have today called for referral fees to be prohibited. In a joint statement sent to the Legal Services Board, which is in the process of deciding whether or not to ban referral fees, the two bodies say ...
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Ministry of Justice backs virtual courts scheme
Video technology will still play an important part in the courts system despite a report criticising the costs of the virtual courts pilot, the government has said. Justice minister Jonathan Djanogly said in a statement that the report on a year-long pilot showed that virtual courts ...
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You must speak proper to work in the City
Clever, white, working-class men and women are being overlooked for top jobs in City law firms because they don’t quite ‘fit in’, according to research released yesterday. ‘Focusing on ethnicity enables law firms to boast excellent or, at the very least, improved diversity outcomes, despite the ...
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Forced mediation will encourage ‘excessive demands’ in family disputes
Pushing parties into mediation in family disputes will encourage badly behaved partners to make ‘excessive demands’, an MP warned in a parliamentary debate on legal aid reform last week. Labour MP Karen Buck, who tabled an adjournment debate on legal aid that took place last week, ...
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‘Irresponsible’ to roll out virtual courts after critical report, says Law Society
Virtual courts should not be rolled out nationally following a critical Ministry of Justice evaluation of a year-long pilot, the Law Society has said. The MoJ said yesterday that the pilot was successful in reducing the average time from charge to first hearing, failure to appear ...
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Age of criminal responsibility will not change, says government
The government will ‘hold firm’ on the age of criminal responsibility despite the findings of a recent critical parliamentary report on the matter, the House of Lords heard yesterday. Francis Hare, the Earl of Listowel, questioned justice minister Lord McNally over the All-Party Parliamentary Group for ...