Legal Aid

Articles

"Back to the bad old days" as Straw demands huge cap on libel success fees

Claimant libel lawyers have reacted angrily to justice secretary Jack Straw's demand for a cut in the maximum uplift charged on success fees from 100 per cent of base costs to ten per cent.

Comply or die

By embracing new technology, firms will find it easier to meet their compliance burden and avoid the ever-increasing penalties for breaches of data protection, say Lawrence Milner and Don Hughes

Bag a lawyer

The Legal Services Act has generated pages of gloomy predictions about the threat to law firms, but it could offer fresh opportunities for the publicly funded sector. Jon Robins reports

Doubts over LSC's new civil contract timetable

The Law Society has said it is "very doubtful" whether there is enough time for the new civil legal aid contracts to be introduced in October after the LSC announced that the tendering process for some contracts would not begin until early March.

Shifting patterns

Lord Justice Jackson's review of costs in civil litigation proceedings promised to deliver recommendations for a fairer, more proportionate access to justice. One year and nearly 600 pages later, Sir Rupert has made a set of inter-dependent proposals turning the principle of full recovery on its head. Fraser Whitehead gives his analysis of the report from the claimants' perspective and Raj Patel and Saqib Khan provide the defendants' view; Richard Barr considers the likely implications for clinical negligence claims, and Rod Dadak looks at the consequences for libel cases

Are you sitting comfortably?

The position of many claimants in actions against the police remains far from comfortable, despite the decision in Hoare, as they face several uncertainties when pursuing their case – not least the difficulty in securing public funding, say Stephen Chippeck and Nicholas Turner

Revised DNA proposals face further opposition

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has attacked the government's revised proposals on the retention of DNA records contained in the Crime and Security Bill.

The deal is done on criminal legal aid

The government has decided to abandon best value tendering as a means of funding criminal legal aid, but is pressing on with cuts in duty solicitor and advocacy fees.