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02 March 2012 / Deborah Evans
Issue: 7503 / Categories: Opinion , Legal services
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Proceed with care

Deborah Evans warns against too much change, too soon

Too much change, too quickly, is dangerous. While there are many areas the government would like to reform, it is not necessary or sensible to do it all within the same year. The government should be urged to proceed with care, understanding the impact of each change before imposing the next, and asking itself regularly whether further change is necessary.

As well as the sweeping reforms of conditional fee agreements (CFAs) in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders (LASPO) Bill, and the removal of legal aid for clinical negligence, personal injury lawyers face the impact of the introduction of alternative business structures (ABSs), the ban on referral fees, review of fixed fees, destruction of the after-the-event insurance market, and just to top it off nicely an extension of the road traffic accident (RTA) portal coupled with a couple of new portals to help control David Cameron’s perceived health and safety “monster”.

Referral fee ban unworkable?

ABSs (such as the Co-op) will

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys—Maggie Kwok & George Weston

Harneys senior leadership appointments

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths—Keith Browne & Jim Jordan

Freeths strengthens London Construction and Engineering practice with two strategic senior hires

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins—Laura Moss

Anthony Collins announces strategic hire to deepen skills base in the social business sector

NEWS
More than 100 teams from the legal and financial services sectors competed in five sports at the 51st Law Society RFC Festival of Sport earlier this month
Part-time status need only be an effective cause of less favourable treatment, rather than the sole cause, the Supreme Court has held in Augustine v Data Cars
Britain’s new acknowledgement that Israel’s occupation is unlawful, and accompanying settlement-goods ban and sanctions, is significant but overdue, argue Danny Friedman KC and Victor Kattan in NLJ this week
New planning fee rises, wider trade union access rights and a service-by-email trap feature in Stephen Gold’s latest Civil Way
Existing defamation law can respond to AI ‘hallucinations’, but allocating responsibility will prove harder where outputs reach users without human intervention
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