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Lawyers’ baked-bean protest over government plans for ‘Tesco Law’
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On Thu, 14 May 2009 10:21:15 -0700 (PDT), Webmanager_CritEst <...@critest.com
May 12, 2009
Lawyers’ baked-bean protest over government plans for ‘Tesco Law’
Frances Gibb, Legal Editor
The first signs of a fight-back against reforms that will enable
supermarkets and other stores to offer customers legal services came
yesterday with a “baked beans” protest by solicitors.
The lawyers handed out free cans of beans from shopping trolleys
outside the High Court, warning that Government plans for the “Big
Bang” in legal services was a recipe for disaster.
The reforms, under the Legal Services Act 2007, have become known as
“Tesco law”. They will enable big companies such as supermarkets or
motoring organisations to own law firms or employ lawyers and offer
legal services directly to their customers.
Yesterday’s protesters, who waved placards saying “No to Tesco law”,
staged the demonstration with cans of beans bearing the message:
“Legal services by supermarkets is as ridiculous as lawyers selling
beans.”
The lawyers have united under the brand name QualitySolicitors.Com
which has attracted 100 law firm members and which they plan to market
to rival moves by chain stores or any other newcomers to the legal
market.
Clare Magill, head of commercial law at Wolferstans, Plymouth, said:
“My very real concern is that the public is at risk in the current
marketplace.
“There is a plethora of non-lawyer websites which either claim to
match consumers with the best lawyer for their needs, or which direct
the consumer to a firm which has paid for the referrals, irrespective
of whether or not the solicitor is the best for the client.
“Consumers will be at risk, using legal representatives hundreds of
miles away, at best with little understanding of local issues and
often with expertise in areas irrelevant to their needs,” she added.
In defence of the Government plans to allow non-legal bodies such as
the Co-op or the RAC to offer legal services, Bridget Prentice, the
Constitutional Affairs Minister, said: “I don’t see why consumers
should not be able to get legal services as easily as they can buy a
can of beans.”
But Craig Holt, a London barrister who oppposes the changes, said: “My
very real concern is that the public are at grave risk here.
“People have a natural inclination to use services provided by names
that are familiar to them, even if that may not provide the best
source of help for them.
“Allowing the likes of Co-op, Tesco and the AA to provide legal
services is a reciple for disaster and a move that demonstrates utter
contempt for the consumer of legal services.
“Services by these brands will inevitably be provided by unqualified
call-centre staff, probably outside the UK, overseen by an inadequate
number of in-house solicitors.
“Tesco law will represent a disaster for consumers of legal services
in the UK.
“This is combined with a Government that is intent on reducing legal
aid to the point where almost no lawyer will be able to undertake
legal aid work and people will be left having to represent
themselves.”
Mr Holt said: “It is widely predicted that as a result of these
changes, over a third of all law firms will disappear. Some towns will
simply have no solicitors in them.”
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6268665.ece
***
WM
http://www.critest.com
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On Thu, 14 May 2009 18:53:29 +0100, "Vernon" <...@hotmail.com
Mr Holt said: It is widely predicted that as a result of these
changes, over a third of all law firms will disappear. Some towns will
simply have no solicitors in them.
Hmm thats because the local firms rip people off with their monopoly on
legal services. Of course they could stop this from making commercial sense
by offering more competitive services, interestingly in areas where there
are more than one firm, their charges are all very similar.
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On Thu, 14 May 2009 19:08:08 +0100, "john jardine" <...@zen.co.uk
"Webmanager_CritEst" <...@f16g2000vbf.googlegroups.com...
May 12, 2009
Lawyers baked-bean protest over government plans for Tesco Law
Frances Gibb, Legal Editor
The first signs of a fight-back against reforms that will enable
supermarkets and other stores to offer customers legal services came
yesterday with a baked beans protest by solicitors.
The lawyers handed out free cans of beans from shopping trolleys
outside the High Court, warning that Government plans for the Big
Bang in legal services was a recipe for disaster.
The reforms, under the Legal Services Act 2007, have become known as
Tesco law. They will enable big companies such as supermarkets or
motoring organisations to own law firms or employ lawyers and offer
legal services directly to their customers.
Yesterdays protesters, who waved placards saying No to Tesco law,
staged the demonstration with cans of beans bearing the message:
Legal services by supermarkets is as ridiculous as lawyers selling
beans.
The lawyers have united under the brand name QualitySolicitors.Com
which has attracted 100 law firm members and which they plan to market
to rival moves by chain stores or any other newcomers to the legal
market.
Clare Magill, head of commercial law at Wolferstans, Plymouth, said:
My very real concern is that the public is at risk in the current
marketplace.
There is a plethora of non-lawyer websites which either claim to
match consumers with the best lawyer for their needs, or which direct
the consumer to a firm which has paid for the referrals, irrespective
of whether or not the solicitor is the best for the client.
Consumers will be at risk, using legal representatives hundreds of
miles away, at best with little understanding of local issues and
often with expertise in areas irrelevant to their needs, she added.
In defence of the Government plans to allow non-legal bodies such as
the Co-op or the RAC to offer legal services, Bridget Prentice, the
Constitutional Affairs Minister, said: I dont see why consumers
should not be able to get legal services as easily as they can buy a
can of beans.
But Craig Holt, a London barrister who oppposes the changes, said: My
very real concern is that the public are at grave risk here.
People have a natural inclination to use services provided by names
that are familiar to them, even if that may not provide the best
source of help for them.
Allowing the likes of Co-op, Tesco and the AA to provide legal
services is a reciple for disaster and a move that demonstrates utter
contempt for the consumer of legal services.
Services by these brands will inevitably be provided by unqualified
call-centre staff, probably outside the UK, overseen by an inadequate
number of in-house solicitors.
Tesco law will represent a disaster for consumers of legal services
in the UK.
This is combined with a Government that is intent on reducing legal
aid to the point where almost no lawyer will be able to undertake
legal aid work and people will be left having to represent
themselves.
Mr Holt said: It is widely predicted that as a result of these
changes, over a third of all law firms will disappear. Some towns will
simply have no solicitors in them.
http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/law/article6268665.ece
***
WM
http://www.critest.com
Sounds a good idea.
Could also use some on-site dentists. Also banking and share dealing
operations.
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On Thu, 14 May 2009 22:34:30 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message
<...@f16g2000vbf.googlegroups.comWebmanager_CritEst <...@critest.com
The main concern with people like this providing services is that they
will cherry pick the more profitable work that currently underpins a
general legal service to market towns up and down the country. As a
result, many people may find they are worse served than before the
market opened up.
The other major concern I have about alternative business structures is
that once you have a web of companies owning the legal services
business, there is no individual who can be effectively held responsible
for poor service or deliberate rip-offs. For all the problems that
arise, by and large the threat of being struck off and having your
livelihood taken away is an effective deterrent. I do not see that the
threat of having one of your many markets taken away from you has
remotely the same disincentive effect against corrupt or negligent
behaviour. And who is to say that some of the new owners of these firms
will be as reputable as Tesco or Co-op? I have no doubt at all that
Robert Maxwell would have been considered fit and proper to run such a
firm. Likewise Northern Rock, Enron, Conrad Black, and Elliot Morley.
With so many frauds, we have only been wise after the event.
These issues will hopefully be addressed in the regulatory framework to
be set up for ABSs, but I remain to be convinced that they can be dealt
with effectively.
--
Richard Miller
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On Fri, 15 May 2009 02:06:42 +0100, "Colin Peters" <...@blueyonder.co.uk
"Richard Miller" <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk...
I cannot agree with you Richard Miller. The existing self serving, self
worshipping and self governing 'system' is a recipe for disaster, as I have
found to my cost.
As a 'consumer of legal services' all that I have encountered from the legal
profession is a contempt for my right to justice whilst they sought, and
did, screw as much money as possible from public funds, for themselves,
whilst aiding and abetting a provable crook.
The Bradford firm of Kenningham Underwood Armstrong did not 'cherry pick' a
'more profitable work'. They MADE it into a profitable source of income by
using every trick in the book to screw 32,000 from the legal aid system to
aid and abet their client evade a debt of just 6,173.
In this manner their crooked client was well served whilst I was made their
victim. Whilst the existing incestuous legal system might be happy to be a
party to this injustice, is it not possible that private enterprises such as
those named might not want to sully their names by being involved in the
blatant criminality that lawyers revel in and make a lucrative living from?
Take another look at my website at http://colinpetersbd40jh.tripod.com
Richard Miller.
I have tried every possible means to have someone held resposible for the
'deliberate rip off ' that I have suffered, to no avail. -- Just one cover
up and whitewash after another.
Surely the public would be much better off with the legal services being in
the hands of companies closer to, and more in touch, with the needs of the
public. After all, the likes Morrisons, Tesco, Netto, Asda, all got where
they are by serving the public, not criminally screwing them!!!
For all the problems that
True Richard Miller. Take a look at my website and see for yourself that for
years, I was convinced that the crook, Bottomley, was the fraudster who was
fooling everyone.
It was just not so. They were all involved and party to his deceptions,
proven by the fact that his barrister, John Walford, authored one pack of
lies as the 'Pleaded Case', and then.5 years later, stood by and remained
mute as his perjurous client put a conflicting (and accepted) pack of lies
to judge Arthur Hutchinson.
2 different stories of contract and inducements to contract from one and the
same person!!!.
To have either story ruled upon and judged as true is, to quote Registrar
Adams of the Court of Appeal, "Madness. Madness."
Apart from one good guy, Registrar Adams, taking the 'system' away from the
corrupt bodies that currently subvert it and putting it into the hands of
supermarkets, who are closer to, and less contemptouos of the British public
might well not be a 'recipe for disaster', but instead, a recipe for
justice.
Colin Peters
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On Thu, 14 May 2009 23:04:38 +0100, "Vernon" <...@hotmail.com
"Richard Miller" <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk...
Isn't this the case with things like the deregulation of the post,
telecommunications etc. It is good initially but leads to long term
problems. Although the legal profession could do more for themselves, ie
reduce charges etc, or for example maybe move to a fixed fee basis for more
things, ok some you would gain, some you would lose, but overall if people
knew it was going to cost XX then they can make a judgement for themselves
and proceed vs cost of XX or 2xXX or 3xXX which must put off a lot of
business as people cannot afford the risk.
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On Fri, 15 May 2009 19:21:59 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message <...@hotmail.com
I think that is very often true.
There is an argument that lawyers have effectively priced themselves out
of the market.
In part, that is because they have to work with the complex justice
system the Government has set up, and the complex rules of evidence etc,
especially in the criminal field.
Another part of the problem is that the issue of "unbundling" has never
been addressed. Solicitors find it difficult to do part only of a case,
even if that is what the client wants, partly because of their own
historic position but also in part because insurers and regulators won't
let them escape liability for the part of the case the client has done.
Therefore they can't afford to let the client do stuff - or at least
they believe that to be the case. Given the litigious nature of society
these days, it is no stretch to believe that a client might consult the
solicitor on a statement and then sue because the solicitor did not
correct problems in their self-drafted pleadings. Yet if they do try to
correct things, they get accused of deliberately making work for
themselves. I am sure rules could be devised to limit the solicitor's
liability in order to allow them to deliver a more limited service at
cheaper cost.
Fixed fees are another historically contentious issue, but there is
movement here. Many firms are starting to use them, and the advice from
law firm management consultants is that this must be the way of the
future. The key to this is to be clear exactly what is within the fixed
fee and what falls outside it. So much of a piece of contentious legal
work depends on things outside the control of either the client or the
lawyer that it is not possible to give guarantees, but it is more
possible than lawyers have tended to accept to say that if the case goes
according to normal routine (as defined), then it will cost X, no more,
no less. But in turn, that means that clients will have to get used to
not being able to phone up and speak to their lawyer six times a day, or
to keep changing their mind about the instructions, or failing to make
up their mind at all.
I am also sure that solicitors could do a lot more to use technology to
improve services. However, here they run into data security problems.
These are expensive to address, and most high street solicitors' firms
do not have much spare capital floating around to make the necessary
investment.
Whatever the reasons, we have a Government that is not prepared to
continue paying current rates for legal aid lawyers (even though it will
happily pay ten times as much for lawyers to advise the Government
itself - I wonder what the hourly rate was for the fight to not disclose
expenses?) - and a large number of ordinary people who cannot hope to
afford the rates. Something somehow needs to be done about this.
--
Richard Miller
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On Thu, 14 May 2009 23:54:20 +0100, Alasdair <...@bobaxter.coo.uk
On Thu, 14 May 2009 22:34:30 +0100, Richard Miller
<...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
But surely the actual legal services which the likes of Tesco will
provide will be delivered by duly qualified and admitted solicitors
who can be struck off and their livelihoods taken away. When the
monopoly of registered opticians to sell glasses was removed by
Margaret Thatcher's government, there wasn't a major outbreak of
blindness in the nation.
--
Alasdair.
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On Fri, 15 May 2009 19:26:10 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message <...@bobaxter.coo.uk
No.
The actual legal services will be delivered by banks of paralegals with
no qualifications and the minimum necessary training.
A regulated legal services provider will have to have a head of legal,
who must be a qualified person, but these people will be entirely
expendable to the companies concerned, just as Elizabeth Filkin was when
she looked too closely at Parliamentary standards.
No, you are right, the big chains were readily able to deliver this
homogenised straightforward uncontentious service. I expect they could
do the same with conveyancing and will writing too, and if they wanted
to, basic divorces. Possession services for landlords too I expect.
Criminal work, more complex family work, housing work for tenants,
welfare benefits advice, no, I can't see them coping with them.
--
Richard Miller
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On Mon, 18 May 2009 00:21:54 GMT, "aaa" <...@aol.com
Does that not happen already with existing legal businesses.
That sounds like a good thing?
The problem with law is that it is currently so expensive, especially
divorce, where sometimes almost all the assets go to the lawyers.
Any system would have to be better than the one we have.
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On Mon, 18 May 2009 18:40:14 +0100, Richard Miller <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk
In message <...@newsfe23.ams2writes
No. With current legal businesses, the lawyers are the owners, so they
lose their businesses and their ability to earn a living if they break
the rules in any serious way; and they are the ones who decide what the
business does or does not do. Responsibility and power in the same
place.
With these new businesses, the responsibility lies with the head of
legal, but the power lies with the shareholders and directors.
I am not convinced that this splitting of responsibility and power can
be managed in such a way that it doesn't damage clients and increase
significantly the risk of regulatory default.
What sounds like a good thing? That any legal services other than the
routine may cease to be readily available? That is what my concern is.
That was my original point.
Something must be done. This is something. Therefore we must do it. The
most dangerous type of thinking there is.
--
Richard Miller
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On Wed, 20 May 2009 00:59:24 +0100, "Colin Peters" <...@blueyonder.co.uk
"Richard Miller" <...@seasalter0.demon.co.uk...
The system that we are currently lumbered with is one whereby a crook can
con an honest working man, then get 32,000 worth of legal aid on one pack
of lies, and then, 5 years later, a judgement in his favour on a conflicting
pack of lies, all to evade a debt of just 6,173!!!
Anything, I repeat, anything, is better than the corrupt self serving crap
that the british public is burdened with right now.
The legal and judicial system is no better than our governmental system and
look how many of them are lawyers!!!!
Come on Richard Miller. Let's have a full scale public debate, albeit very
limited on this minority viewed newsgroup, on whether or not I am right or
wrong. As a proponent of the legal aid system, what have you got to lose???
To refresh your memory :- http://colinpetersbd40jh.tripod.com
Colin Peters
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