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| Thursday September 28 2017 |
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By Frances Gibb and Jonathan Ames
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Breaking: Legal storm hits Ryanair over chaos of axed flights
Ryanair faces prosecution for misleading passengers after 400,000 more travellers were dragged into the chaos over cancelled flights, The Times reveals this morning.
The Civil Aviation Authority has threatened legal action after Europe’s biggest airline decided to ground 18,000 flights until March. It could lead to a multimillion-pound fine. Officials said yesterday that the authority had begun legal enforcement proceedings against the airline for failing to offer travellers the chance to be rerouted with other carriers at no extra cost if they could not get another Ryanair flight.
See below for the rest of this morning’s must-read of all things legal, including news, comment and gossip. And for more in-depth coverage ...
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Today
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'LIVING WILLS' SHOULD BE COMPULSORY, SAYS JUDGE
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Final push to force lawyers to publish fees
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Uber ‘U-turn’ in employment claim appeal
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Exclusive: Most bosses lack confidence in lawyers’ ability to deal with risk
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Third of big law firms keep lid on tech spending
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Blue Bag diary: Dentons goes from hybrid to polycentric
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More Blue Bag: Independence worries as CPS bunks down with ministers
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Analysis: Businesses are still undervaluing general counsel
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Special focus: Charities need help to repair their broken public image
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Analysis: US firms are in London to stay, regardless of Brexit
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Story of the Day
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‘Living wills’ should be compulsory, says leading judge
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People should be compelled to make “living wills” to set out a statement of wishes in the event that they suffer an incapacitating illness, a High Court judge suggested yesterday.
Mr Justice Francis said that disputes about treatment of patients who have lost capacity would be easier to resolve if the patient had expressed their wishes in advance.
The judge was speaking at a hearing in the Court of Protection in London, which considers issues about people who lack the mental capacity to make decisions. He is overseeing a dispute about the treatment of a pensioner who is in a minimally conscious state.
“It should be compulsory that we all have to make living wills because these cases would be resolved much more easily,” Mr Justice Francis told lawyers. “We all ought to be encouraged to tackle these issues.”
The judge, who is based in the family division of the High Court, said that a public campaign about living wills would be welcome. “If there was some sort of campaign to educate people about these sort of things, I think people would actually do something about it,” he said.
The man at the centre of case, who cannot be identified, is in his 80s. Officials at the Royal Wolverhampton NHS Trust have asked for a ruling on treatment.
Mr Justice Francis said that the man’s family had been in “great conflict” with hospital staff over treatment. He said that there had been “intimidation” and “nurses in tears” in a case that he described as “very, very sad”.
Doctors want Mr Justice Francis to approve the insertion of a feeding tube into the man’s stomach.
Vikram Sachdeva, QC, who represented the man at the hearing, taking instructions from staff at the Official Solicitor and Public Trustee’s office, which helps people who are unable to manage their own affairs, said that he was in favour of such a procedure.
Mr Justice Francis, who made rulings in the case involved the sick baby Charlie Gard this year, called for mediation. He said it should be compulsory in cases where there is a dispute between relatives and medical staff on the right course of treatment.
The hospital was represented by Eloise Power, a senior-junior barrister at Serjeants’ Inn chambers. Lawyers said that family members had decided not to take part.
Last week Mr Justice Peter Jackson said that patients who were being kept alive by artificial nutrition and hydration could be allowed to die, without the case having to be brought before the courts for approval, where both relatives and medical staff agreed.
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Special focus: Charity law
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Premium
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Charities need help to repair their broken public image
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Legal reforms would be welcomed by the third sector after a series of scandals, writes Dan Hayes
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News round-up
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Law firms could be forced to publish fees
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Law firms will have to publish their charges for conveyancing, wills and accident dispute advice under proposals outlined by the profession’s watchdog.
Better information on price and quality of service will help the public to make better legal choices and law firms find new clients, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) said.
At present, the public can struggle to find useful information either on price or the quality of legal services, the authority says. That means that they find it difficult to make reasoned choices and some do not seek professional legal help when they need it. If they do go to a lawyer, only one in four shop around, according to the SRA.
Under the plans, a single register would collate basic information on solicitors and law firms. The SRA proposes that firms should publish information on their charges and the services those prices include. This would only be for certain types of work, such as conveyancing, wills or personal injury work. The profession is to be consulted on what areas of work would be most appropriate.
The SRA also proposes to publish data collated by firms on the complaints they receive, although it recognises that to be meaningful, such complaints would need appropriate context. Information could be made available on the SRA website and on comparison sites.
As a further protection for the public, the authority is proposing to create a logo showing that firms are regulated by the SRA and covered by its compensation fund. Solicitors working in businesses not covered by a legal regulator would be unable to use these logos, but would still need to provide information on the client protections that they have.
Paul Philip, the SRA’s chief executive (pictured), said the regulator was attempting to “get the balance right. We do not want to impose unnecessary burdens on firms, or publish information that is unhelpful or too complex”.
Solicitor rule book to be slashed
More than 300 pages are to be axed from the solicitors’ rule book, the regulator confirmed yesterday.
The SRA said the move was designed to make the rules “simpler and more focused on high standards”, and that they would be condensed to about 130 pages.
Getting the chop under the plans will be what the regulator described as “restrictive rules that add cost without sufficient public benefit”.
They include the need for early checks on students and trainees, so that character and suitability testing is focused on point of entry to the profession; the need for a solicitor-owner or manager to seek approval before moving firms or roles; and the “often misunderstood rules” around being “qualified to supervise” which, according to the SRA, “do not provide any guarantee of competence, but prevent solicitors establishing their own firms once they have qualified”.
The Law Society, which represents solicitors in England and Wales, rejected the proposed cut, saying it would “create a Wild West marketplace for legal services”.
Joe Egan, the society’s president, accused regulators of “ploughing ahead with proposals that would see solicitors subject to entirely different regulations depending on where they practise. The regulator has failed to think through the implications for consumer protection nor has it proposed adequate safeguards.”
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Uber makes ‘U-turn’ in employment claim appeal
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Uber has been accused of performing a U-turn at an employment tribunal by acknowledging that it is a mini-cab company.
The company is appealing a ruling made last year that its drivers should be granted employment rights. If upheld, the ruling would have a profound impact on the so-called gig economy.
The opening of the hearing in London attracted demonstrators yesterday as one of the co-claimants, Yaseen Aslam, told the crowd that the company was “exploiting” drivers.
“People talk about slave labour and exploitation in third world countries, but we have …workers being exploited on the streets of London," he said outside the appeals tribunal building in Fleet Street.
"All Uber want to do is flood the market with drivers with no responsibility nor liability.”
At the hearing yesterday, Dinah Rose, QC, of Blackstone Chambers in London, who appeared for Uber, told the tribunal that the company was “incorrectly lumped together with a variety of other platforms and businesses” in the so-called “gig economy”. Uber has the same business model as taxi firms that use self-employed drivers but technology allows it to do so on a “much larger scale,” she said.
Lawyer commentators argued that Uber had changed its approach since the first ruling last year. “Uber has done a U-turn,” said Rachel Farr, a lawyer in the employment group at Taylor Wessing, a City of London law firm. “At the employment tribunal the firm argued that they were not a taxi company, but an app putting customers in touch with drivers. Now Uber says that they are no different from a traditional mini-cab firm with self-employed drivers.”
Addison Lee lost a case this week when an employment tribunal held that its drivers were workers as well.
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Most bosses lack confidence in general counsel
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Corporate board directors lack confidence in the ability of their senior in-house lawyers to deal with business risk and uncertainty, a survey has revealed.
Less than 40 per cent of top-flight business executives told researchers that their general counsel managed uncertainty well.
Business leaders also took the view that the role of general counsel was predominantly functional, with much of their responsibilities involving responses to internal legal requirements, the survey, which has been released exclusively to The Times, found.
That view at the head of the boardroom table conflicts significantly with general counsels’ view of themselves. Nearly 70 per cent of those responding to the survey said that they managed business uncertainty well, while the consensus among senior in-house lawyers was that they spent less than 20 per cent of their time on internal legal issues.
John Jeffcock, chief executive of Winmark, the networking group that conducted the survey, said that as regulation issues became an increasing concern for senior executives, the status of general counsel would rise. “This enables GCs for the first time to play the leading role in strategy,” he said, adding that the research team identified a range of differences between how boards perceived the role of in-house counsel and their actual performance.
Simon Konsta, senior partner at Clyde & Co, the City of London law firm that sponsored the research, said the report “shows that at every level, the general counsel role is being reinterpreted and reaffirmed in light of the changing risk and regulatory landscape that businesses face. Because of these changes, the successful, modern general counsel must deploy a blistering array of commercial, legal and wider business skills on a daily basis.”
See analysis below
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Third of big law firms keep lid on tech spending
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More than a third of Britain’s biggest commercial law firms failed to increase spending on technology upgrades, it was revealed yesterday.
While most firms had increased their technology budgets, a significant minority of 35 per cent did not spend any additional cash relative to their previous financial year. Another 35 per cent said they boosted their technology budgets — but by only up to 10 per cent.
Researchers found that only 30 per cent of the UK’s biggest law firms increased their spending on technology by between 10 and 50 per cent.
Easily the biggest allocation of cash for technology upgrades went to artificial intelligence systems. Some 65 per cent of firms surveyed said that they had focused the technology budgets on AI. Cybersecurity was the second most important area.
The survey, conducted by HSBC in conjunction with The Lawyer magazine, found a belief that technology would contribute to the end of hourly billing in the legal profession. All of the respondents said that technology investment “will change how firms price away from the billable hour”. Some 17 per cent strongly agreed with that statement.
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In Brief
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In today’s Times Law …
And elsewhere …
- Mosley’s press watchdog at risk after attack on ‘fascist’ media – The Times
- Law firms in High Court battle for lead role in VW group action – Litigation Futures
- School head vows to defy law over exclusion --The Times
- Law firm 'inadvertently' leaks Pepsi client secrets to Wall Street Journal -- Legal Week
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Analysis
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Businesses are failing to make the most of general counsel
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Premium
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The status of in-house lawyers has improved but they continue to be underused by corporate bosses, argues Simon Konsta
Corporate board directors still define the role of general counsel relatively narrowly, underestimating the value that they can provide in contributing to strategic projects and decisions that will help to create a sustainable and resilient business.
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Read the full story
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Analysis
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Premium
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In London to stay, regardless of Brexit
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More than a year after his firm launched in the Square Mile, Tim Powers explains why London remains crucial to the international plans of American practices
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Blue Bag
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Dentons goes from hybrid to polycentric
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Officials at Dentons, the world’s largest law by the measure of the number of worker-bee lawyers it has chained to desks around the world, were disturbed by our report yesterday in which we described the practice as a “hybrid firm”.
The Brief’s view is that after a practice has merged so many times in so many corners of the world, using the opaque Swiss verein model, that even its own partners cannot remember when and where the business was founded, then hybrid is a fair enough description.
“I don’t think we would describe ourselves that way,” was the response.
Doubtless the firm’s management committee — wherever it is — would not. However, no sooner had The Brief completed that exchange yesterday that Dentons was at it again. The firm is “to combine” with Kampala Associated Advocates, which is billed as Uganda’s largest law firm. Private Eye would, of course, have a field day, but we will play this report straight.
The deal, which is still to be approved by both sets of partners, will add 26 lawyers including 12 partners to the Dentons roster. David Mpanga, KAA’s managing partner, seems to be someone who would appreciate the hybrid label. “The proposed combination with Dentons, with its polycentric philosophy, will enable us to maintain our deep connections in the local community,” he said.
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Independence worries as CPS bunks down with ministers
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Senior prosecutors struggle to convince the public that the Crown Prosecution Service is not an arm of government and takes its decisions independently from ministers.
This is about to become even more difficult. The Brief can reveal that that the CPS is moving into the Ministry of Justice headquarters at Petty France in Victoria, London.
The mammoth task of shifting all those lever arch files started last weekend. A CPS spokesman confirmed: “We have begun the process of moving all London-based CPS staff to 102 Petty France. The first staff relocated this week and the process is due to be completed by mid-2018.”
It is understood that Petty France will become CPS HQ, housing the London branch of the service and specialist casework divisions. Mindful of potential criticism, the CPS man added: “The CPS office space will be self-contained within the building.”
But that promise of Chinese walls does not really wash with practising lawyers. “Extraordinary," one senior solicitor commented at a Law Society reception on Tuesday evening. “Do they not appreciate the value of the perception of independence?”
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Chakrabarti lets rip at the comrades
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Is it time to start feeling sorry for Shami Chakrabarti, the professionally politically-correct shadow attorney-general?
Chakrabarti, formerly an in-house barrister at the Home Office and director of the civil rights group Liberty, was made a Labour peer by Jeremy Corbyn last year having only recently joined the party. She told a fringe meeting at Labour’s annual conference in Brighton this year that she was attempting to ban lawyer jokes. A tough task and one that is not likely to win her many friends outside the legal profession.
Later, our sister news bulletin at The Times, Red Box, reported that Chakrabarti was dining in a smart local restaurant during the conference when other delegates started mocking her.
Invoking top quality advocacy, Chakrabarti shouted “solidarity comrades” and flicked them the V-sign. Undeterred — and perhaps encouraged — the Labour stalwarts responded: “Welcome to the party, Shami, we hope you’ve enjoyed your first 12 months.”
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Quote of the day
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“It’s mortifying that the body representing the legal profession in England and Wales has been found to have broken competition law for commercial advantage”
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Robert Vidal, a partner in the competition law department at Taylor Wessing, a City of London law firm, speaking to Legal Business magazine about the Law Society’s settlement with an online training provider after it was found to have abused its dominant market position.
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Read the full story
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