Tag Archive for 'criminal'

LSC to grade advocates?

By NL on 21/06/2008. 3 Comments

By an unexpected route, the following landed in my inbox. I haven’t heard anything about this, nor had some friends in Criminal so this may be news. What is clear is that the Legal Services Commission are seeking to introduce competence assessments for Criminal Defence advocacy, both barristers and solicitor-advocates, with a pilot scheme to take place in 2009. Note the inclusion of an appeals process in the outline scheme. This is clearly intended to play a role in whether individual advocates receive legal aid funding or not.

The LSC email in full:
The LSC is seeking expressions of interest from suppliers with the
experience and capability to provide consultancy … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , , , , .

Lacking Support

By NL on 21/01/2008. 0 Comments

Tempted though I am to get caught up in Jeremy Paxman’s baggy pants revelations (and don’t you just love the image of Paxman raising his best inquisitorial eyebrow as he questions the occupants of his gym and, of course, the House of Commons as to the adequacy of the tautness of their crotch support), it is another set of briefs lacking sufficient support that must take my attention.

This is, of course, the barristers refusing to sign the LSC contract for Very High Cost Cases for criminal matters. Over on Pupillage and how to get it, Simon Myerson managed a very impressive impression of Emile Zola. His J’Accuse represents … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , .

Exodus Part 1 (of many)

By NL on 07/01/2008. 0 Comments

The Guardian reports on a survey by the Association of Lawyers for Children. The results are not surprising to anyone facing a legal aid future (although the survey was done before the LSC decision to terminate the unified contract).

One-third of individual solicitors and 40% of law firms planned to reduce their What Price Justicereliance on legal aid work. 17 solicitors had or were just about to give up family legal aid (what proportion was this?). One solicitor reported that a prospective client looking for an urgent domestic violence injunction had called 22 other solicitors without finding a taker. Anecdotally, this doesn’t surprise me. Some of our callers for housing have … Read the full post

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Busted

By NL on 06/10/2007. 0 Comments

In one of the least surprising brassiere related decisions ever by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal, Daniela Scotece has been struck off the roll.

Ms Scotece, an erstwhile criminal defence solicitor at the Nottingham Johnson Partnership, was convicted in April of passing cannabis to a client by smuggling it in to the cell at a Magistrates hearing. The cannabis was concealed in her bra, but that didn’t stop a sniffer dog. Possibly even worse, from the Court’s point of view, she had abused the judicial process to get her client to court.

For some reason the Guardian has now decided she hid the drugs in her knickers, but never mind. … Read the full post

Posted in Various (non-housing). Tags: , , .
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