News

The founder of Solicitors from Hell has branded a High Court order to shut down his site as “a sad day for freedom of speech” but said he will no longer seek to keep the controversial service running. On Tuesday the High Court ordered him to “cease, forthwith”.

Lawyers have been warned over their duty to protect personal information, after a barrister was found to have breached the Data Protection Act for failing to encrypt a laptop containing sensitive personal data which was later stolen.

Changes to the personal injury landscape mean that claims management companies and others may step out of regulation altogether to run cases which commercial pressures may lead them to under-settle, the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has warned.

Law firms need to have a “publicly available, high-level policy commitment to respect human rights”, a leading legal charity has claimed. Advocates for International Development is now poised to draft a model policy to help comply with new UN human rights guidelines.

A solicitor has for the first time been fined by the High Court for failing to co-operate with an investigation by the Legal Ombudsman. The High Court used the case to stress that such failures could also lead to immediate imprisonment.

Profit margins among all but the elite of the top 100 law firms have dropped significantly over the past five years, new research has revealed, with the introduction of alternative business structures set to pressure them even more.

The Law Society is to launch a campaign aimed at moving flexible working – for both women and men – “into the mainstream of employment practice in law practices”. It has identified “buy-in” at senior partner level as the key challenge.

The Legal Ombudsman should press to extend its jurisdiction to complaints about non-lawyer will-writers and the not-for-profit sector, while the government needs to review its inadequate powers over complaints against CMCs, a study has recommended.

A group of insurers and their lawyers lobbied former justice secretary Jack Straw last week as part of a bid to close “loopholes” in the proposed referral fee ban. They have also questioned whether the Claims Management Regulator will be willing to enforce the ban.

Ian Dodd considers the background and motivations of the four ‘generations’ of barristers currently populating the Bar, from the ‘Veterans’ to Generation Y, and says chambers would do well to ensure that all are properly involved in their management.