Criminal barristers have voted for direct action on legal aid reforms, such as “no returns” and “days of action”. In a survey of the Criminal Bar Association’s (CBA) 4,000 members, 96% urged the CBA to take action to press the government over its proposals for the Dual Provider Scheme under which work is split into two contracts, “own client work” and duty provider work. Tony Cross, CBA chairman, says: “The proposed changes have no sensible economic foundation and will lead to irreversible damage to the criminal justice system. The proposed scheme will reduce competition, stifle innovation and paralyse the market as it becomes closed to new entrants.”
28 May 2015
Barristers vote on legal action
MOVERS & SHAKERS
Osbornes Law—Alex McMahon, Andrew Middlehurst & Harriet McMorrin
Homegrown hat-trick: Osbornes Law promotes three former trainees to partner
mfg Solicitors—Sarah Bradford
Partner arrival boosts law firm’s growing real estate team
Freeths—David Smith
Freeths secures major tax hire with appointment of David Smith
NEWS
The Supreme Court has clarified the scope of a director’s duty, in a case where a chairman’s good intentions went awry due to the pandemic
Digital fraud is ‘baffling policymakers, investigators, prosecutors and enforcers’, leaving ‘a massive justice gap’, the author of a government-commissioned independent review has warned
Richard Lloyd’s independent review of the Legal Services Board (LSB) has delivered a devastating verdict, accusing the super-regulator of having ‘lost its way in recent years’
The House of Commons has passed the Hillsborough Law, in a historic achievement for campaigners, survivors and families of those who died in the 1989 stadium collapse
Judicial statistics show a steady rise in the number of female judges and Asian and mixed ethnicity judges in the past ten years—however, progress in terms of representation has stalled for both Black lawyers and for solicitors
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