Title and description of item or excerpt.

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Date posted on UnjustIS

Law Soc deficit rises to £8m

The Law Society’s annual deficit rose again last year to nearly £8m, the recently-published accounts reveal. The society’s income from practising certificate fees, investments and other sources totalled £110m in 2005, up from £103m in 2004. But expenditure rose by a greater amount to £118m, from £108.6m the previous year. However the society’s acquisition of the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF) meant that £30m was added to the income side of the balance sheet, enabling the organisation to end the year in credit.

The Lawyer

30 Jun

City police arrest seven in money laundering scam

City of London police have arrested six men and a woman in a series of dawn raids as part of an investigation into an alleged multi-million pound insurance fraud and money-laundering scam.

Telegraph

30 Jun

Tribunal suspends solicitor

A Croydon solicitor who let his firm's accounts fall into disarray as he handled £430,000 of his clients' cash was suspended for two years...Gbenga Ogurinde, 37, failed to keep his books properly balanced while looking after money for more than 100 customers.

Croydon Guardian

30 Jun

Backing for new legal watchdog

A cross-party committee of MSPs will today voice its backing for legislation introducing an independent system for handling complaints about Scotland's 10,000 lawyers.

The Herald

30 Jun

Call centre fraud hits HSBC customers

HSBC account holders have fallen victim of an alleged fraud emanating from one of the bank’s call centres in Bangalore. The bank said 16 accounts had been affected and all would be reimbursed. It is believed £233,000 had been taken from the accounts. A data operator in a Bangalore call centre has been charged with hacking into the bank’s computer system which is alleged to be connected with the fraud.

Telegraph

29 Jun

Defamation

BBC Radio 4's Law in Action was broadcast on Tuesday, 27 June, 2006 at 1600 BST.
Earlier this year a Law in Action listener contacted us about problems he had been having bringing a complaint against a solicitor. He says that the advice the Law Society gave him meant that he ended up being threatened with defamation proceedings. Because of the nature of the complaint we cannot tell you who he is, or what the complaint was, but he explains what went so badly wrong. And the spokesperson for the Law Society's complaints, Geoffrey Negus, explains how our listener ended up in such terrible situation and what you can do to avoid the same problem. If you need to make a complaint about a solicitor, the Law Society helpline can be contacted on 0845 608 6565. (Be prepared for a very rocky ride: "...you feel like you're trapped in a horrible, nightmarish Kafka novel..." UJ)

BBC Radio Four

27 Jun

Bank manager jailed for £21m fraud

A bank manager who swindled £21 million from his employer has been jailed for ten years. Donald Mackenzie, 45, pleaded guilty at the High Court in Edinburgh earlier this month to embezzling the money from the Royal Bank of Scotland. He accessed the money through the bank's loan system by setting up false accounts in the names of fictitious customers.

ITV News

27 Jun

House of Lords
Legal Services: Complaints

Lord Falconer of Thoroton (Secretary of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs) Hansard source

On 24 May this year, the Government published their Legal Services Bill. The draft Bill is currently undergoing pre-legislative scrutiny by a Joint Committee chaired by Lord Hunt of Wirral. It develops proposals set out in our White Paper The Future of Legal Services: Putting Consumers First and it will put consumers at the heart of a new framework for the regulation and delivery of legal services.

TheyWorkForYou

27 Jun

Office for Legal Complaints

The government's proposed new Office for Legal Complaints will be based in the west Midlands, junior constitutional affairs minister Bridget Prentice announced. It will deal with all consumer complaints about firms offering regulated legal services including lawyers, replacing the Law Society and the Bar's powers to investigate their members.

Guardian

27 Jun

Law lords to rule on internet defamation

A TEST case comes before the law lords, Britain’s highest court, today that will determine how far newspapers and other internet publishers are open to lawsuits from people alleging that they have been libelled in any part of the world. In a landmark ruling last year, the Court of Appeal ruled that internet publishers could not be sued in the English courts unless there had been a “substantial” publication in England.

Times Online

27 Jun

Victims' family scheme championed

The families of murder or manslaughter victims must have more of a voice in court, the lord chancellor will say. The government is piloting a scheme allowing relatives to make a statement before a convicted killer is sentenced. Lord Falconer will champion the scheme when he makes a speech to the North of England Victims' Association. His speech follows Tony Blair's warning that there is a growing gap between the criminal justice system and what the public expects from it.

BBC

24 Jun

Blair attacks the 'justice gap'

There is a huge and growing gap between the criminal justice system and what the public expects from it, Tony Blair has said in a speech in Bristol. In the wake of controversy over prison sentences, the prime minister said the rights of suspects must not "outweigh" those of the "law-abiding majority".

BBC

24 Jun

Investigator claims he was fired for hedge fund inquiry

The low-profile, high-earning world of hedge funds suffered a jolt yesterday as allegations surfaced of political influence and insider dealing at one of America's most prominent players

Guardian

24 Jun

The law in the dock

Hard cases make bad law. You might think this is so axiomatic that no one would use an exceptional and complex issue to urge wholesale legal change. Yet this week Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, called for reform of commercial litigation in the wake of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International action. This lengthy and expensive legal battle certainly raises questions. It is not evident that a radical shift in the system is the answer.

Financial Times

24 Jun

Lawyers defend profession after Bank governor's attack

Litigation lawyers called for reform of the civil legal system yesterday, saying it put too great a burden on parties caught up in court proceedings. However, they sprang to the defence of their profession in the face an attack by the governor of the Bank of England, who this week condemned the system as a monopoly run mainly for lawyers' benefit.

Financial Times

24 Jun

Lawyers laud e-disclosure

UK lawyers believe litigation costs have risen dramatically in the past five years and expect to see a significant move towards e-disclosure, according to a poll by LexisNexis. The survey involved in-house lawyers from FTSE 100 companies and private practice lawyers from the top 30 UK firms. According to those polled, UK lawyers spend on average 20% of their time on the document disclosure process during litigation.

LegalIT

23 Jun

TV deal: Just £4 damages for League
The Football League won its professional negligence claim against its former legal advisers at the High Court - but was awarded just £4 damages instead of the £150 million it was seeking. It was hailed as one of the largest professional negligence claims ever made against solicitors - the firm of Edge Ellison, which advised the League over the collapsed £140 million television deal with ITV Digital. Mr Justice Rimer found that there had been two breaches of duty. But he ruled that neither caused any substantial damages and awarded the League just a nominal £2 for each breach.

Guardian

23 Jun

Commission ploughs £3m into legal aid

The Legal Services Commission is making a further 100 grants available to help fund future legal aid solicitors. Each grant could be worth up to £30,000, meaning the total cost be almost £3m.The grants will cover the tuition fees of students on the Legal Practice Course (LPC), as well as 75 per cent of the Law Society’s minimum salary. They will also cover the cost of professional skills courses for LPC students on training contracts with law firms or legal advice centres.

The Lawyer

22 Jun

Hamza firm solicitor faces jail over alibi letter

A solicitor at the firm acting for Abu Hamza, the Muslim cleric fighting deportation, faces jail after being convicted of perverting the cause of justice in a separate case. Maya Devani, of Arani & Co., which is representing Hamza, was found guilty of smuggling a letter out of a London jail to help a gunman accused of shooting a trial witness. She was convicted at the Old Bailey today and will be sentenced at a later date when she faces an unlimited jail term. (Updated September 2006)

Times Online

22 Jun

Short warns Brown on Trident row

Ex-Cabinet minister Clare Short has warned Gordon Brown his support for new UK nuclear weapons could damage his chances of becoming prime minister.

BBC

22 Jun

Greater risk of accidental nuclear strike
American scientists have warned that the risk of an accidental nuclear attack has increased since the end of the Cold War.

BBC

30 April 1998

Lawsuit disclosure system criticised

Companies are paying more than £500m a year of unnecessarily because lawsuit documents are still being disclosed manually rather than electronically, according to a poll of leading lawyers.

Financial Times

22 Jun

Website winners and losers

Law firm websites range from the excellent to the bizarre and the downright awful. James Tuke reveals the findings of recent research into the UK’s top law firms’ websites and examines which firms are getting it right

Legal Week

22 Jun

Legal system shake-up on hold

CONTROVERSIAL plans to revamp the Scottish judiciary are being shelved until after next May's parliamentary election following an outcry from the legal profession and opposition MSPs.

The Herald

22 Jun

King lashes out at City lawyers

The Bank of England Governor has launched an uncharacteristically fierce attack on City lawyers, saying that the disastrous BCCI case proved that the legal system exists largely for them to make profit. Speaking in front of the Chancellor at the Lord Mayor's Banquet at Mansion House last night, Mervyn King said the system is a "profitable monopoly" for lawyers.

Telegraph

22 Jun

Law Lords rebuff extradition plea from bankers

The House of Lords has refused to hear an appeal by three British bankers wanted in the US on Enron-related fraud charges. The case, in which the High Court had identified potential grounds of appeal to the House of Lords, had been expected to challenge the legal status of Britain’s fast track extradition treaty with America. But today, a committee of Law Lords refused a petition by David Bermingham, Gary Mulgrew and Giles Darby, all former NatWest bankers, for permission to appeal against an order for their extradition.

Times Online

21 Jun

Solicitor jailed for sale link
A Shrewsbury solicitor has been jailed for 15 months for money laundering after he carried out legal work on the purchase of a house from two drug dealers. Phillip John Griffiths, of Emstrey Lodge, was convicted of turning a blind eye to the purchase of a house in Birmingham by estate agent Leslie Dennis Pattison for £43,000 — a third of the property’s value. A jury at Warwick Crown Court yesterday convicted the 44-year-old solicitor of entering into or becoming involved in a money laundering arrangement. Correction 21 June 2006:Solicitor jailing
"We have been asked to point out that Shrewsbury solicitor Phillip John Griffiths was cleared of entering into or becoming involved in a money laundering arrangement during a recent court case. The 44-year-old, of Emstrey Lodge, was convicted of failing to make a ‘required disclosure’ to the authorities about a house sale when, as a solicitor, he knew or suspected or had reasonable grounds for knowing or suspecting money laundering was taking place. He was jailed for 15 months by Judge Marten Coates following a two-week trial at Warwick Crown Court."

Shropshire Star - link removed.

Correction

20 Jun

Lawyers in dispute over legal aid net £1.3m fees

LAWYERS embroiled in a bitter dispute over legal aid fees have shared in almost £1.3m from the public purse over the past three years. Hundreds of solicitors are threatening to boycott cases involving alleged sex offenders in a dispute over legal aid that has been condemned as “shocking and disgraceful” by Jack McConnell. However, figures obtained from the Scottish Legal Aid Board show that the firms of the leading legal figures involved in the dispute are benefiting handsomely under the current system.

Times Online

18 Jun

Benefit fraud businessman guilty

A 45-year-old businessman who drove a Rolls Royce while claiming more than £50,000 in benefits has been convicted of fraud. Terence Pendleton, was convicted of 13 charges relating to benefit fraud by a jury at Liverpool Crown Court. Undercover investigators filmed him living in a luxury £500,000 house in Knowsley Village, Merseyside. He claimed he was crippled, depressed, unable to work and living alone in a dingy bedsit in West Derby, Liverpool.

BBC

17 Jun

Poverty 'driving' benefit fraud

People who work and claim benefits do so often because they are in dire financial trouble, a Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) study has said. Many claimants took illegal cash-in-hand jobs to pay for food and heating or to make debt repayments. The study's author said they were "hard-working, ordinary people trying to survive day by day". (UJ has first-hand experience of how this crummy little country treats the downtrodden. Rotten Britain)

BBC

16 Jun

Falconer backs judges in jail row

It is wrong that judges have become the "whipping boys" over flaws in the sentencing system, Lord Falconer says. The lord chancellor said there needs to be a "very urgent" look at sentencing problems such as the automatic discount to jail terms given for guilty pleas.

BBC

15 Jun

The solution to a dispute with your solicitor

If you were fined £250,000 for getting a legal document wrong, you would probably sack your solicitor. Imagine, then, how the solicitors' profession must have felt last month when they were ordered to pay that penalty by the Legal Services Complaints Commissioner.

Telegraph

15 Jun

A large Charity is unwittingly duped.

A regional branch of The Multiple Sclerosis Society was until 2004 chaired by a convicted fraudster, who later that same year fled to Cyprus. The fraudster, Michael (Mike) Turner, was accompanied in the post of Chairman by his life partner, Jacqueline (nee Dyer), who also assumed the post of Secretary, and who accompanied her partner to Cyprus. The premise of the Turner's resignation from their posts was that of emigrating to a climate more suited to their health needs. However, the pair also had interests in a company called PCL Internet International Limited (PCL), which is now in liquidation under suspicious circumstances amid investigations involving hundreds of thousands of pounds. A strange synchronicity saw Michael Turner as the Managing Director of PCL, whilst Jacqueline Dyer occupied the post of Secretary. The Turners have an interesting history involving struck off English solicitors and American Attorneys.

Local item and the reason for this site existing

Multiple Sclerosis Society newsletter (Word document - Right click, Save AS...)

Link to original document

15 Jun

Detective jailed over $500m fraud

A detective who was an international expert on fraud has been jailed for two years after becoming involved in an $500m (£270m) attempted fraud. Detective Sergeant William McKelvie, 44, from Esher, Surrey, was sentenced on Wednesday at Southwark Crown Court. The court heard how McKelvie called contacts under the pretence of carrying out official police business. He was acquitted of perverting the course of justice but convicted of three charges of misconduct.

BBC

14 Jun

Law lord launches free legal unit

A TOP law lord is set to launch a university's free legal advice clinic tomorrow (Thursday). The University of Hertfordshire's law department now offers people in the area help without charge through their lawyers and students working together. The Hatfield-based clinic has helped over 70 people already since October. The official opening will be performed by Robin Auld who has been a Lord Justice of Appeal since 1995 and was appointed by the Lord Chancellor to review how the criminal courts work in 1999.

Welwyn & Hatfield Times

14 Jun

How to shut out the share scammers

Bogus stockbroking firms are persuading experienced investors to part with thousands of pounds to buy into 'red-hot' companies that often do not even exist. Richard Evans explains how to spot the conmen. Experienced investors are among the most common victims of "boiler rooms" - bogus stockbroking firms, usually based overseas, that cold-call householders and pressure them into buying worthless shares..."If you are cold-called by someone trying to sell you shares, the most important thing to do is check whether the firm is registered with the FSA. You can do this by phone (0845 606 9966) or online (www.fsa.gov.uk/register). The regulator also maintains a list of suspected boiler rooms."

Telegraph

14 Jun

Lawyers face £750,000 fine

The Law Society is expected to be given a second heavy fine of up to £750,000 for its failure over handling the public’s complaints (Frances Gibb writes). The solicitors’ professional body in England and Wales was fined an unprecedented £250,000 last month over proposed 2006-07 targets for complaints handling. The Legal Services Commissioner will now rule on last year’s record, when four out of seven targets were missed. (And the thousands of unresolved cases that the Law Society has ignored, lost, buried, fudged, obfuscated and generally confounded? Should add two zeros. UJ)

Times Online

13 Jun

Windows gets big security update

One of the biggest security updates for more than a year is due to released by Microsoft to fix 12 software flaws. Nine of the updates apply to the Windows operating system and one is deemed critical, a rating reserved for the most serious security problems. At least one of the loopholes being patched is already being actively exploited by malicious hackers. Windows users are being urged to download the patches as soon as they become available on Tuesday 13 June.

BBC

13 Jun

500 officers v 9,000 criminals - no guessing who's winning

THE rising tide of VAT fraud has recently become another battleground between the Government and civil servants. The Public and Commercial Services Union blames Gordon Brown for job cuts that Customs investigators say have made it impossible to stem the fraud that risks spiralling out of control.

Times Online

13 Jun

Serious fraud: why justice is not being done

Proposals to improve the investigation and prosecution of fraud do not go far enough

TWENTY YEARS have passed since Lord Roskill famously declared that “the public no longer believes that the legal system . . . is capable of bringing the perpetrators of serious frauds expeditiously and effectively to book”. As then, the overwhelming weight of evidence suggests that the public is right. The fight against a rising tide of serious fraud is being frustrated by fragmented use of inadequate resources, onerous obligations on investigators and unmanageably long trials with soaring legal aid bills.

Times Online

13 Jun

Vital reforms needed for coroners

Coroners are judicial officers but are subject to far less oversight than any judge or magistrate in England and Wales. The Coroner's Court has been around since medieval times. This largely unregulated system - a medieval legacy which has, surprisingly, survived into the 21st century - has been creaking for a considerable time. But it has become unsustainable as a result of the 1998 Human Rights Act. The conduct of an inquest engages two articles of the European Human Rights Convention - one guaranteeing the right to life, and the other protecting the right to privacy and family life. (Pretty soon the lawyers and judges might have to relinquish seventeenth century fancy dress. What ever next? UJ)

BBC

12 Jun

Reid attacks child sex sentence

Home Secretary John Reid has criticised the sentence on a paedophile who abducted and sexually assaulted a girl of three as "unduly lenient". Relatives of the victim of Craig Sweeney, 24, attacked his life jail term because guidelines on guilty pleas mean he could be out in five years.

BBC

12 Jun

Judges criticised as too lenient

One in 10 judges have given "unduly lenient" sentences to criminals guilty of serious crimes, according to data released by the attorney general. Figures given to the Sunday Times under the Freedom of Information Act show Lord Goldsmith has referred 339 cases to the Court of Appeal since 2003. In 230 cases the sentences were increased as a result, involving rulings by more than 200 judges.

BBC

12 Jun

Mass lobby spotlights problems with legal aid

Access to justice was demanded by volunteers and staff from Lambeth and Merton Citizens Advice Bureaux who took part in a masslobby at Parliament. The workers went to Westminster last week to bring to the attention of MPs the growing crisis in civil legal aid. They took part part in the demonstration organised by the Access to Justice Alliance, which includes Citizens Advice, Shelter, Justice, Law Centres Association, Legal Aid Practitioners Group and others..."The cost to the economy of unresolved personal legal problems is as much as £13million, and research has demonstrated that a third the population have unresolved legal problems at any one time.".

Wimbledon Guardian

09 Jun

SDT forces Raleys to pay miners compensation

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) last week ordered Barnsley firm Raleys to pay compensation to two former miners in the first case involving the coal health scheme it has heard. It upheld and enforced a Law Society adjudication panel finding that the firm had failed to explain the funding arrangements to the two clients and should pay £300 to each in compensation.

Law Society Gazette

09 Jun

Cracking down on crime (Feature)

As head of the Serious Organised Crime Agency, Sir Stephen Lander pledges to get tough with dodgy solicitors. But will his enforcement duties clash with his role as a Law Society watchdog? Rachel Rothwell meets the former MI5 chief. The new Serious Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) is a very discreet establishment.

Law Society Gazette

09 Jun

Judge warns against law firms as banks

A High Court judge spoke out against the dangers of solicitors acting as bankers this week – in a damning statement in which he criticised a Law Society Council member as being ‘grossly negligent’. Matthew Gauntlett, council member for Berkshire and north Hampshire, and Sarah Beveridge, his former partner at Yateley firm Beveridge Gauntlett, were acquitted of money laundering offences at Southwark Crown Court last week. However, Laurence Ford, a legal executive at the firm, was given a six-year sentence after the jury found that he had channelled some £200 million in carousel fraud proceeds through the two-partner Hampshire firm – without the solicitors’ knowledge.

Law Society Gazette

09 Jun

McConnell raises the stakes with furious attack on solicitors

JACK McConnell yesterday launched an astonishing attack on the "shocking and disgraceful" stance of lawyers who have voted to boycott sex crime cases - accusing them of risking public safety and saying they "should be ashamed of themselves". The First Minister spoke out in the Scottish Parliament as the pledge by lawyers to refuse to take sex cases in a row over legal aid payments threatened to spread across the country.

The Scotsman

09 Jun

Solicitor stole from clients

A Solicitor was jailed yesterday for stealing £140,000 from his clients to fund a failing second business. Richard Dawson, 54, put clients of Dawson's Solicitors in "financial hardship" while he poured their money into his new business.

IC Wales

08 Jun

Commons vote could force greedy lawyers to return compensation fees to sick miners

"Parliament will vote to clamp down on the claims handlers who have made a fortune on the backs of the sick miners. The Compensation Bill, entering its second reading, will demand that firms set up by unions to process the claims of pitmen and their families hand back their fees. "It's the mother of all gravy trains," says John Mann, Labour MP for Bassetlaw, Notts. "One of the biggest scandals in British legal history with unscrupulous lawyers milking the scheme while others are left with nothing." "

Mirror

08 Jun

Chaos looms as legal aid boycott spreads

MORE than half of Scotland's legal aid solicitors will stop taking sex offence cases this summer in a move which could throw the courts into chaos.

The Herald

08 Jun

Q&A: The David Mills affair

Why does the husband of a British minister face the prospect of trial by an Italian court?

David Mills is a lawyer. For several years, he advised Italy's former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi. In particular, he helped Mr Berlusconi create a network of offshore companies for his business empire.

Guardian

07 Jun

Typical boiler room victim loses £20,000, warns FSA

People who fall victim to boiler room scams by purchasing virtually worthless shares lose an average of £20,000, the Financial Services Authority has found. The FSA surveyed callers to its consumer contact centre who had reported being targeted by boiler rooms – overseas operations that use high-pressure selling techniques to persuade UK investors to purchase shares. Boiler rooms are not authorised by the FSA and act illegally by promoting and selling shares in the UK.

FSA

07 Jun

Law Society leaves it late for justice

MS writes: I was mis-sold an endowment mortgage by a firm of solicitors in 1992. I complained to the firm in 2000, but am still awaiting a decision on compensation.
Hello again. You first featured in this column way back last September, when you described the quite unconscionable delays you experienced in trying to get your case heard by the regulation arm of the Law Society of England & Wales.

Sunday Times - Money

07 Jun

Legal exec jailed over VAT fraud

Laurence Peter Ford, of 25 Albany Close, Fleet, Hampshire, has been jailed for six years for his role in laundering more than ₤200m from the proceeds of a complex VAT fraud, following an investigation by HM Revenue & Customs. Ford, 54, a senior legal executive employed by a Hampshire law firm, Beveridge Gauntlett Solicitors, was found guilty by a jury on money laundering charges at Southwark Crown Court.

Accountancy Age

07 Jun

The BAA sell-off will mean shoddy airports, higher taxes and sweated labour.

(Comment by Will Hutton)

It's another small milestone but I'm almost alone in thinking it matters. BAA, the acronym that stands for British Airports Authority, which owns and runs Gatwick, Heathrow, Stansted and various other British airports including Edinburgh and Glasgow, has accepted a £10 billion plus bid from the Spanish group Ferrovial.

Will Hutton's blog

07 Jun

Bank manager in £21m loan fraud

A bank manager carried out a £21m fraud on his employers as they named him business manager of the year. Donald Mackenzie, 45, admitted at the High Court in Edinburgh to taking loans over five years up to March 2004 from the Royal Bank of Scotland by fraud.

BBC

06 Jun

Shake-up of legal market 'could be detrimental'

A radical government plan to reform the £19bn England and Wales legal services market could threaten the profession's independence and damage the quality of regulation, leading lawyers have warned. The heads of the Law Society and the Bar Council plan to call on the government to curb the powers of a proposed new independent super-regulator and tighten rules that would allow lawyers to go into business with other professionals and outside investors.

Financial Times

06 Jun

The lawyer doth protest too much (Comment)

Anyone happy with the status quo in the legal profession is likely to be converted to the case for change by listening to its complacent spokesmen. Leading lawyers have welcomed the spirit but criticised the letter of the government's radical proposals for reform. They must be careful that their stubbornness does not become a persuasive argument in favour of the reforms...."Yet the Law Society has hardly covered itself with glory in its self-regulatory role."

Financial Times

06 Jun

BAA agrees to Ferrovial takeover

Airports operator BAA has agreed to be taken over by Spanish construction group Ferrovial, the BBC has learned. Following a secret auction, BAA has agreed to a 950p a share offer, which values the firm at £10bn, BBC Business editor Robert Peston said. Ferrovial had until midnight on Monday to table a final offer for BAA, which operates seven UK airports.

BBC

05 Jun

Win or lose, no fee: pro bono week promotes free legal services

A free lawyer may sound like an oxymoron, but last year tens of thousands of people were helped by solicitors and barristers who gave their services without pay. Today is the start of national pro bono week, which showcases the growing number of services around the country where people can get free legal help. The week-long programme aims to alert the public to these services, while encouraging more lawyers to sign up.

Guardian

05 Jun

Would granny swear by the Law Society?

THE Law Society of Scotland continues to fret about the prospect of independent oversight of its controversial master insurance policy, which covers compensation claims against Scottish solicitors arising from negligence, fraud or dishonesty.

The Herald

05 Jun

Clarification

The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hears all disciplinary cases against solicitors and is independent of the Law Society, which deals with breaches of regulation that fall short of professional misconduct (“Law Society opens up hearings”, May 30). The tribunal, which has lay and solicitor members, has conducted its hearings in public for more than ten years and its findings are in the public domain. (Hearings, or certain stages thereof, may be heard in camera. UJ)

Original article

02 Jun

Solicitors guilty of misleading miners must repay millions

SOLICITORS who misled thousands of sick miners into paying millions of pounds to Arthur Scargill’s union have been ordered to hand back the money. The ruling came after lawyers from the Yorkshire-based Raleys appeared before the Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal to challenge a Law Society decision that the firm had provided an inadequate service to its clients.

Times Online

02 Jun

Lawyers to snub sex crime cases

The largest group of court lawyers in Scotland has voted to refuse to represent people accused of sexual offences in a row over legal aid fees. The move by Glasgow Bar Association could halt trials and may even lead to accused walking free from court.

BBC

01 Jun

United Kingdom: Key Court Ruling for Victims of Fraud

The Fight Back Begins - No More Privilege Against Self-Incrimination For Pre-existing Documents.

On Friday 26 May 2006, a High Court Judge took a brave and long awaited step to protect victims of financial crime who use the Civil Legal process to recover their money. The Judge held that fraudsters can no longer rely on the privilege against self-incrimination to refuse to deliver up pre-existing documents evidencing their fraudulent activities.

Mondaq

01 Jun

Tougher libel laws may be needed to combat cyber vigilantes, lawyers warn

The libel laws are in need of reform to cope with the new menace of "cyber-vigilantism", lawyers said yesterday. In one case that is the talk of internet chatrooms, a teenager has been publicly humiliated and vilified after incurring the fury of a buyer who bought his laptop and then claimed it was defective. The buyer wreaked his revenge by setting up a fake website apparently in the name of the...

Times Online

01 Jun

Goldsmith to forge ahead with plan to abolish juries in complex fraud trials

Lord Goldsmith has pledged to press ahead with controversial reforms of fraud trials with the Attorney General arguing that the UK needs a fundamental overhaul of its white-collar crime regime. In an interview with Legal Week, Goldsmith stood by proposals to remove juries from trials for serious and complex fraud cases, outlining the case for major reform of the UK’s fraud regime and increased resources for enforcement.

Legal Week

01 Jun

Financial rights for live-in couples who separate

Couples who split up after living together but not marrying may be able to make financial claims against each other if the Government accepts far-reaching proposals published by its law reform advisers yesterday. The change would mean new rights and responsibilities for more than two million cohabiting couples in England and Wales, who currently have very limited entitlement to financial provision on separation.

Telegraph

01 Jun

Legal aid fees face reform to speed up justice

HUGH Henry, the deputy justice minister, yesterday promised a shake-up in legal aid amid fears that the current system is encouraging lawyers to delay court cases. Currently, lawyers acting for people accused of less serious crimes are allowed full legal aid only if their clients plead not guilty, while only partial fees are available if the accused tenders a guilty plea.

The Scotsman

01 Jun

City firms remain indifferent to pro bono promotional push

Allen & Overy (A&O), Linklaters and Lovells are among the few top UK firms to be leading initiatives for next week’s National Pro Bono Week, with the majority of elite City firms turning their back on the event. The week-long event, organised by LawWorks, formerly the Solicitors Pro Bono Group, begins on Monday 5 June and is intended to spark a national focus on charitable activity by law firms across the country.

Legal Week

01 Jun

Fraud and White Collar Crime: The Long Arm Of The Law

In the past, the embarrassment of internal fraud saw those involved removed as quickly and quietly as possible. These days, write David McCluskey and Bill Waite, it is far more difficult to brush fraud under the carpet. There was a time, not that long ago, when companies did not want to deal with internal fraud. CEOs and financial directors (FDs), if they learnt about it at all, simply did not want a fraud on their watch.

Legal Week

01 Jun

Advocates join attack over judicial reform

The leader of Scotland's advocates has joined accusations that the Scottish Executive is attempting to undermine the independence of the judiciary

The Herald

01 Jun