Eduardo Reyes, Law Society Gazette
Patrick Bullen-Smith, of broker Hera, speaks for the group: ‘It’s hard and, if anything, it’s got harder since October with reduced capacity and lots of claims.’ He relates increases in the cost of PII cover of 10-15%, which come on top of last year’s rises of 30% for many. Insurers ‘are not necessarily offering renewal terms to firms, so you really do need to put yourself in the best possible light’, he adds. ‘Property development work is a real catch-all area that they are really shying away from. So, if you do property development work [you must] really, really explain it. Go down to the nitty gritty of what it is you actually do.’
Eduardo Reyes reports
News headlines on 6 May 2020 reflected a series of grim milestones arising from the pandemic. Global confirmed cases hit 3.65m, while youth unemployment was predicted to climb to a million in the UK.
England may have been six weeks into its first lockdown, but letters were about to start flying between the Junior Lawyers Division and the Solicitors Regulation Authority on a very different topic. When JLD chair Charlotte Parkinson attached the committee’s letter and hit ‘send’, it was to inform the regulator that junior lawyers had reached ‘the point where we do not have confidence in its approach to regulatory matters’.
Eduardo Reyes reports
The low down
The high contracting parties of the government and EU have spent the time since Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement was rejected by parliament wrangling over sea fish, state aid and ‘regulatory alignment’. Our hugely valuable legal and financial services sectors have looked on with bemusement as London and Brussels edged towards trade arrangements that may not even allow an unfrozen sausage to travel from Belfast to Dublin. With a ‘thin’ deal in place, nevertheless, agreement could be reached on the mutual recognition of judgments and qualifications. That would allow the disputes and deals of individuals, families and companies to be resolved, whatever your outlook on ‘taking back control’. A long and complex process lies ahead if we are to attain that critical goal.