'What!' I hear you say, 'wasn't the final Jackson report on costs released on 14 January?' Why yes it was. All 584 pages of it. But amid the headlines about scrapping CFA success fees and recoverable ATE insurance premiums, introducing contingency fees, and...
Fixed Fees and CLACs – MOJ plan
The Ministry of Justice has published its 'Implementation Plan' in response to the recommendations of the 'Legal Advice at Local Level' steering group. The plan is here [pdf]. The issue is principally the effects on NFP advice providers of the impact of...
Intermittently exposed
Now, this is a bit of an oddity. Mohammadi v Shellpoint Trustees Ltd & Anor [2009] EWHC 1098 (Ch) was an appeal from the Supreme Court Costs Office. It concerned when a person should have the protection from liability for costs under s.17 Legal Aid Act 1988....
Unsung heroes Part 2
The shortlist for the Legal Aid Practitioners Group Legal Aid lawyers of the year awards is out (see previous post here), and given that housing only featured as a subset of social welfare, there is a good crop of housing lawyers in there. Not NL, of course....
Unsung heroes?
Under the banner of 'Unsung Heroes', LAPG is inviting nominations for the 6th annual Legal Aid Laywer of the year awards. The categories are Criminal Defence Mental Health Family Legal aid firm/not-for-profit-agency Young Solicitor Barrister Immigration and...
The value of disinterest
That's disinterestedness, not uninterestedness, should anybody who went to school after about 1990 be reading this. Does nobody really read Kant any more? But, in a rather dismal demonstration of the trope of irony, this is likely to be an outright rant on...
Falling property and other news
This week's award for literalism goes to William Lyttle. Mr Lyttle, apparently not realising that 'fall' and 'collapse' are usually metaphors when applied to property, spent 40 years excavating a labyrinth of tunnels under his Hackney property. Mr Lyttle,...
Law Society v LSC settlement
My grateful thanks to Free Movement for finding this, posting about it and passing it on. A Law Society letter of 2 April 2008 setting out the terms of the settlement of the Law Society's litigation against the Legal Services Commission has been leaked. A...
No more than expected
LSC introduces new IT system to file matter start funding claims. System promptly doesn't work. Three months later, system still doesn't work. Any idea when it will work? Errrr no. So we send in Excel forms instead. LSC says "It's not working as well as it...
Hierarchy of Need
I haven't posted about the Shelter staff dispute until now, partly because I was hoping it would be resolved and partly because I had little to add. I have been prodded into posting by a comment by Mark P. As he observes, Shelter management are in the...
Follow-ups
There have been some very interesting comments on posts from the last week, and further news on the stories, making a catch up post worthwhile. In no particular order... I am delighted that Tony Fearnley commented on the Helena Housing v Molyneaux &...
Not for Profits in trouble?
Madeleine Bunting has an editorial in the Grauniad decrying the civil legal aid reforms, in particular for the effect on the Not for Profits, as well as the 'paralegal in call centre' approach. Apparently Gateshead Law Centre went into receivership last week...