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MoJ slaps away Bar Council call to scrap Legal Services Board
The Ministry of Justice has thrown cold water on the Bar Council’s call to abolish the Legal Services Board (LSB). On Saturday, Bar Council chairman Michael Todd QC said the new Lord Chancellor, Chris Grayling, was sympathetic to concerns that the legal profession is over-regulated.
Smith: put online NHS Direct for law at heart of radically reformed legal aid system
An online NHS Direct for law, supported by 30 law centre-type operations in key areas around the country, should form the basis of a radical new approach to publicly funded legal services, according to a leading legal thinker.
LSB’s “open debate” on cost of regulation throws spotlight on practising fee split
The possibility of the Law Society and other representative bodies being cut off from any of the money raised by practising fees has been raised by a Legal Services Board call for an “open debate on the cost of regulation”.
SRA and OISC make competing land-grabs for immigration work
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has launched a bid to regulate non-lawyer immigration advisers. However, at the same time the body that oversees them – the Office for the Immigration Services Commissioner – is seeking to take over the regulation of specialist lawyers.
COLP/COFA readiness – take part in a benchmarking survey
Legal Futures is the media partner for the most comprehensive independent survey to date to establish the state of readiness of the legal services sector to respond to the impact of the full compliance obligations in the SRA Handbook. It is being undertaken by Edge International and Khiara Law LLP.
LSB calls on consumers and indemnity insurers to help drive improvements in legal services
Regulators should empower consumers to drive improvements in the quality of legal services, while professional indemnity insurers could hand over firm-specific claims data to help target poorly performing practices, the Legal Services Board has suggested.
LSB chief calls for training review to be radical
The Legal Education and Training Review needs to be radical and permanently separate authorisation to practise from professional titles, the chairman of the Legal Services Board said this week.
“eBay for lawyers” ReferMarket launches in the UK offering an online marketplace to revolutionise the way law firms generate revenue
The first-ever secure online marketplace for the referral of legal cases will be launched in March 2012 to help law firms maximise the opportunities from referring business to one and other. ReferMarket™ will enable law firms to protect valued client interests and relationships while growing their business through the sale and purchase of referrals using the trusted ReferMarket™ network and marketplace.
Waterfront Solicitors dramatically improves billing efficiency thanks to Virtual Practices
London-based Waterfront Solicitors LLP has transformed its billing efficiency with the move to managing matters and time recording in the ‘cloud’ with the hosted legal software service of Virtual Practices.
Peppermint Legal Service Platform to support iPads and smartphones
Legal technology innovator Peppermint Technology today announces it will support Apple iPad/iPad2 and a range of smartphones including: Windows Phone, Apple iPhone 3GS+, Google Android and RIM Blackberry in its Q2 2012 release of its Legal Service Platform.
Blog
Change in regulator shouldn’t make AML less of a priority
While SRA fines for AML have been climbing, many in the profession aren’t confident they will get any relief from the FCA, a body used to dealing with a highly regulated industry.
There are 17 million wills waiting to be written
The main reason cited by people who do not have a will was a lack of awareness as to how to arrange one. As a professional community, we seem to be failing to get our message across.
The case for a single legal services regulator: why the current system is failing
From catastrophic firm collapses to endemic compliance failures, the evidence is mounting that the current multi-regulator model is fundamentally broken.
