News

firm has won an appeal over the Legal Aid Agency’s decision to base a fee on 4,680 pages of prosecution evidence rather than the 10,000 pages claimed. Costs judge Rowley found in favour of Harewood Law in part, directing the determining officer to recalculate the appropriate graduated fee for 6,000 pages . The firm had been […]

A tribunal has ruled that a solicitor who misled two clients about their cases made ‘errors and muddles’ – but was not dishonest. The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal found that Ian Clay’s actions lacked the ‘moral compass’ expected of a solicitor when he failed to inform clients that cases were in jeopardy or had been struck […]

New figures show the average length of public law supervision proceedings was 46 weeks and 61 weeks for private law. Cafcass, which represents the interests of children and young people in the family court, has published its annual report for 2022/23 which shows there were 32,904 open cases, involving 53,463 children, in March 2023. The […]

A senior associate has been struck off after he filed a claim form with incorrect information and later amended it to show a higher level of claim and court fee. Andrew Paul Rose, admitted on 15 November 2001, was acting for a client, referred to as Client A, in a claim for pain, loss and […]

Representatives of claimant lawyers have questioned why court users have to keep funding the service and asked – given the state of so many courts – exactly what the fees income is being spent on. The Ministry of Justice has proposed to increase some court fees by 10% to raise up to £42m extra every year, which […]

The Serious Fraud Office was a ‘vital participant in the overall wrongdoing’ of now retired solicitor Neil Gerrard whom it ‘actively encouraged’ in relation to an inquiry into Kazakh mining group Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC), the High Court has ruled. In a 185-page judgment, Mr Justice Waksman found that although the SFO’s wrongdoing was an […]