An initiative designed to boost social mobility and help talented students become lawyers has appealed for greater financial support to help raise funds to assist candidates in need.

The Law Society's Diversity Access Scheme (DAS), which is supported by the Law Society Charity, supports promising entrants to the solicitors' profession who face exceptional social, educational, financial or personal obstacles to qualification.

The scheme provides financial support to candidates, funding their LPC places, as well as networking and mentoring.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/law-society-diversity-access-scheme-calls-funds

The Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL) has criticised the government for ignoring Law Commission recommendations to increase general damages in personal injury cases.

Responding to a Ministry of Justice consultation on the draft Civil Law Reform Bill, APIL said that ‘injured people will bear the brunt of the government’s failure to keep the law of damages up to date.’

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/apil-attacks-government-over-eligibility-bereavement-damages

Home Information Packs (HIPs) have reduced the number of failed conveyancing transactions, figures have suggested.

Conveyancer and HIP provider myhomemove said the packs had caused the number of failed property transactions it was involved in to dip to 9% since the full introduction of HIPs last April. The figure is significantly lower than the 23% average failure rate published by the government in 2007, before the introduction of HIPs.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/hips-reduce-failed-transactions-and-benefit-solicitors-provider-claims

The personal injury claims process has lost sight of the injured person, the president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers has said.

Speaking at the APIL president’s lunch, John McQuater said a good claims system needed to strike ‘the right balance’ for injured people and society as a whole, in ‘fostering a sense of responsibility but, when things do go wrong, in providing proper and fair redress’.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/injured-person-forgotten-says-apil

The number of legal disputes over children almost doubled in January as Christmas and the recession combined to increase tensions between divorced parents, figures have revealed.

Contact Law, a client introduction network for law firms, said enquiries regarding child support and child custody jumped 49%, from 373 in December 2009 to 557 in January 2010 – a much greater rise than the upturn usually associated with the month.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/number-family-law-disputes-january-much-greater-expected

Magic circle firm Linklaters has launched an accelerated legal practice course designed to cut four and a half months from the typical LPC course length.

The accelerated LPC, available to the firm’s trainees from January 2011, will take seven and a half months to complete. Linklaters said today that it redesigned the course after recent trainees questioned the need to spend a year studying its bespoke LPC.

The accelerated LPC will be run in January and July each year to accommodate the firm’s March and September trainee intakes.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/linklaters-launches-fast-track-lpc

Trainee solicitors are being ‘exploited’ by firms offering them a Hobson’s choice between a paralegal role or the dole when they qualify, the Gazette has learned.

The Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) said firms’ financial problems meant they were attempting to avoid paying newly qualified lawyers’ salaries and to save on practising certificate fees.

JLD committee member Kevin Poulter said some newly qualified lawyers are being told that they will only be taken on as paralegals, while law graduates seeking training contracts are being expected to work without pay.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/trainee-solicitors-039exploited039-after-qualification

Law firms could find themselves being sued for reporting suspected money laundering following a Court of Appeal decision last week.

Law firms, banks and other businesses handling client money are obliged to file Suspicious Activity Reports (SARs) to the Serious and Organised Crime Agency (SOCA) where they suspect a client of money laundering.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/firms-face-court-action-risk-over-money-laundering-reports

Solicitors should be under a duty to notify the Solicitors ­Regulation Authority when they get into financial difficulties, a report to the SRA board by accountants KPMG has recommended.

The report also proposes that there should be a new core duty on financial management as part of the solicitors’ rules.

KPMG is helping the SRA to assess the extent to which the financial stability of firms affects the public interest.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/solicitors-should-report-insolvency-risk-sra-recommends-kpmg

The Legal Services Commission’s procurement plans for civil legal aid, published last week, have revealed that there will be no increase in the number of civil cases funded in the 2010/2011 financial year, to the dismay of solicitors.

To assist firms tendering for the civil contracts which will run from October 2010, the LSC has issued revised figures for the number of new cases, known as matter starts, that it will allocate in each field of law and geographical procurement area.

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Full Article: http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/lsc-procurement-plans-show-no-rise-civil-legal-aid-cases