Consultations are like buses. There must be one well on its way because two have just arrived at the same time.

On Monday, MoJ issued a consultation document which sets out the government’s proposals for further reform of the legal aid system in England and Wales. The expressed aim of the proposals is to deliver savings of £220 million per year by 2018/19. At its launch, justice secretary Chris Grayling said: Read the full story

On Tuesday, Policing and Criminal Justice Minister Damian Green delivered a speech at the centre-right think tank ‘Reform’ on crime and justice policy.

One of the themes of his speech was the failure to exploit technology. He said: “Anyone who compares the way the criminal justice system works with any other modern workplace will be immediately struck by the terrible failure to take advantage of all the benefits that technology can bring. If you compare basic processes that take place across the country all the time Read the full story

Aware that marketing services to potential clients can take up a lot of valuable time and money, the Law Society runs a major campaign every year to raise the profile of solicitors in the public eye. The theme for this year’s campaign, launched on 1 October, is Ask a Solicitor. Read the full story

For the first time government, industry, voluntary groups and law enforcement agencies have joined forces to tackle fraud. Thirty-seven organisations have come together to launch ‘Fighting Fraud Together’, a new strategy that aims to reduce fraud, estimated to cost the UK £38 billion every year.

Speaking at the Fighting Fraud Together launch event, minister for crime and security James Brokenshire said: “Fraud causes serious harm to the public, to businesses and the wider economy. For too long fraud has Read the full story

“You cannot override market forces …. We cannot secure your future for you, you must secure your own future.”
John Wotton, Law Society President, 17th October 2011

With these words, John Wotton made it very clear that the profession needs to start taking responsibility for itself in the business arena. Speaking at the Sussex Law Society Annual Conference, he said that many solicitors are very worried about the fundamental changes they are now facing and that he doesn’t have a crystal ball. “It would be wrong to say that everything will be fine”. He confirmed that Read the full story

Unnecessary legislation

One of the commitments in the Coalition Agreement was the repeal of unnecessary or outdated legislation. The government is now consulting on a bill to implement this commitment.

The Ministry of Justice is collating suggestions for repeal based on the following criteria: Read the full story

Linda Lee, president of the Law Society, has written to the Justice Secretary calling on him to pause legal aid reforms to allow more scrutiny.

She wrote: “The Legal Action Group (LAG) and the Law Society continue to have very serious reservations about the government’s proposals for changes to legal aid provision in England Read the full story

The number of people who will lose out on access to civil legal advice services if the legal aid cuts are implemented was quoted as 502,000 in the Ministry of Justice’s impact assessment on scope changes published in support of the green paper. A significant number in all conscience, but the Legal Action Group believe that Read the full story

On Monday Ken Clarke took his knife to legal aid. The scale of the reductions revealed in the Green Paper  – £350m a year to be taken out of a £914m annual civil and family legal aid budget by 2014 – had been widely anticipated. The total bill of civil and criminal legal aid currently runs to £2.1bn a year, and a substantial contribution towards the reduction of 23% over four years in the Department’s budget was inevitable. Read the full story

The tendering process for the Legal Aid scheme for new family law cases is unlawful and must be changed, the High Court ruled last week. The decision follows a three day hearing of the Law Society’s application for judicial review at the Divisional Court. Read the full story