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Rolling back justice (4)

07 October 2011 / Jon Robins
Issue: 7484 / Categories: Opinion , Legal aid focus , Legal services
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What will ABSs mean for legal aid firms? Jon Robins collects the views of those who are for & against deregulation

This week sees the start-date for the licensing of alternative business structures (ABSs), the most radical aspect of the Legal Services Act 2007, which allows for both the external ownership of law firms and the floating of legal practices on the stock exchange. But just what does this significant step towards deregulation of legal services mean for the publicly-funded end of the profession? Does it mean anything? The already precarious financial base of legal aid firms is about to be decimated by a government reform agenda predicated on the objective of removing £350m from a £2.1bn scheme. Ministers also want to slash fees for civil and family by 10% across the board.

Breath of fresh air?

Can ABSs breathe some life into a dying sector? A couple of years ago I asked Carolyn Regan, then chief executive of the Legal Services Commission, whether the Legal Services Act had anything to

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Double hire marks launch of family team in Leeds

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Charles Pigott of Mills & Reeve reports on Haynes v Thomson, the first judicial application of the Supreme Court’s For Women Scotland ruling in a discrimination claim, in this week's NLJ
Charlie Mercer and Astrid Gillam of Stewarts crunch the numbers on civil fraud claims in the English courts, in this week's NLJ. New data shows civil fraud claims rising steadily since 2014, with the King’s Bench Division overtaking the Commercial Court as the forum of choice for lower-value disputes
The Supreme Court issued a landmark judgment in July that overturned the convictions of Tom Hayes and Carlo Palombo, once poster boys of the Libor and Euribor scandal. In NLJ this week, Neil Swift of Peters & Peters considers what the ruling means for financial law enforcement
Small law firms want to embrace technology but feel lost in a maze of jargon, costs and compliance fears, writes Aisling O’Connell of the Solicitors Regulation Authority in this week's NLJ
Artificial intelligence may be revolutionising the law, but its misuse could wreck cases and careers, warns Clare Arthurs of Penningtons Manches Cooper in this week's NLJ
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