Gateley buys Surrey property law firm for £4m in biggest acquisition to date
Listed law firm Gateley has made its biggest acquisition to date, and first of a law firm, with a £4.15m deal to buy Surrey property firm GCL Solicitors, while also announcing an 8% increase in turnover over the past year. The deal brings in 79 new members of staff, including six partners.
Courts Service to use lessons of online divorce pilot to develop digital family law service
The Courts Service has laid out how it will develop its new online divorce facility, starting with enabling lawyers to submit petitions on behalf of clients and also developing both public and private family law services that are fully accessible online.
ABSs can facilitate criminal legal aid revolution, argues former justice minister
The legal market is “totally fragmented, under-capitalised, technologically semi-illiterate and structurally redundant”, a former justice minister has claimed, arguing that a smaller number of big firms is the answer to the problems with criminal legal aid.
Listed law firm sees value soar by £10m as it targets regional acquisition
The market capitalisation of Rosenblatt, which last week became the fourth law firm to go public, has already risen by £10m on the back of a strong start to trading. Its chief executive is planning a regional acquisition to provide a lower-cost offering for corporate transactions and to create a standalone litigation funding business.
“Panicked” solicitor suspended for lending mobile to police suspect – and then denying it
A young solicitor who “panicked” has been suspended for six months for lending his mobile to a criminal suspect who used it to silence a witness, and then denying it when questioned by police. Mohammed Abid’s barrister said he had made a “grave unforgivable error… he was a rabbit in headlights”.
ABI lashes out at MPs over small claims report as claimant lawyers urge government to act on it
The Association of British Insurers has hit back angrily at yesterday’s justice select committee report criticising the government’s plan to raise the small claims limit, saying that it “read like a shopping list of asks from the claimant lawyers”. Claimant lawyers, by contrast, have called on the Ministry of Justice to adopt the committee’s recommendations.
Tribunal tells SRA and solicitors it prosecutes: “We’re not just here to rubber-stamp your plea deals”
The Solicitors Regulation Authority and the solicitors it prosecutes have been warned that disciplinary tribunals are not there to rubber-stamp any agreed outcome they reach to avoid a full hearing. There have been examples in recent months of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal rejecting agreed outcomes to proceedings
MPs blast government’s approach to PI reform as they call for £1,500 small claims limit
The small claims limit for personal injury should rise by inflation to £1,500, rather than the higher levels proposed by the government, MPs on the justice select committee have recommended. In a major boost to claimant lawyers, the committee found little credibility in much of the government’s case for raising the limit.
SDT: Solicitor’s headbutt “madness” had to lead to strike-off
Headbutting a litigant-in-person in the High Court may have been a “moment of madness” but the solicitor involved could not stay in the profession, the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal has ruled. He argued that the headbutt, which left his victim with a broken nose, was “temporary insanity” which should result in a suspension.
Senior MP says SRA should do more to combat “alarming” ignorance of equality laws
The Solicitors Regulation Authority should do more to combat a “quite alarming” lack of understanding of equality laws, the Conservative chair of the House of Commons women and equalities select committee has said during a parliamentary debate on public legal education.
