The Law Society Gazette, 16 June 2011

DLA chief fires ABS warning

The head of global legal giant DLA Piper warned this week that a ‘paradigm shift’ is about to hit the sector. Sir Nigel Knowles (pictured), joint chief executive of the firm, predicted that many firms will founder in the next 10 years after alternative business structures arrive in October.

15 June 2006

Society launches HIPs dry run

The Law Society is to launch a dry run of its home information pack (HIP) later this month, a year before provision of the controversial home sellers’ packs becomes mandatory. The Department for Communities and Local Government, the department responsible for introducing HIPs, launched the first phase of a nationwide voluntary dry run in April. Later this month it will publish regulations covering the contents of the packs when they become mandatory on 1 June 2007.

12 June 1996

Legal aid ruling

A European Court of Human Rights decision this week that poll tax defaulters facing imprisonment are entitled to legal assistance was welcomed by legal aid lawyers. In Benham v United Kingdom, the ECHR concluded that a man jailed without representation for refusing to pay a poll tax bill had been entitled to legal aid.

June 1966

Modernised conveyancing

The working party’s new report contains a number of proposals, many of them small in themselves, which will go far towards smartening up and modernising conveyancing practice and procedure and correcting the faults and blemishes that have crept in or appeared on the surface of a system that has proved itself in principle over the years.

Many of the recommendations will require legislation, and one hopes the early attention of the Law Commission will be given to mounting a Conveyancing Reform Bill based on these proposals.

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