The Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs is pleased to announce the winner of our 2015 Scholarship. Congratulations to Karina Gindhay, who has successfully gained a place on our Legal Secretaries Diploma course.

We received a good selection of applications for our scholarship, but Karina Gindhay shone out above the rest. Karina made a particularly special effort to tell us about her background, why she wanted to study on ILSPA’s course and what gaining the qualification would mean to her. 

Those of you who are starting out in your legal secretary careers may be considering looking for employment in one of the larger law firms. We have provided some information about five large law firms which have offices in the UK and overseas.

Pinsent Masons

Online resources for legal research can often be hard to navigate. If you are searching for a specific case summary or information on one particular act, you may find yourself looking for a very small needle in a very big haystack. The recently relaunched Emplaw website, however, seeks to change that by offering a clean, easy-to-use interface and focusing on one area of law rather than all of them.

The Emplaw service offers a vast repository of employment law data, including thousands of searchable case summaries and law cards. While the service is subscription only, there is a lot of useful information available for non-subscribers. Non-subscribers can read summaries of all content, which on its own is quite a useful feature.

Thousands of women throughout the world celebrated International Women’s Day on 8 March. Events were held by organisations, charities, educational institutions and groups to celebrate achievements and inspire women of all ages and nationalities. The first International Women’s Day was held way back in 1911 and was celebrated by over a million people in countries across Europe.

There has been a significant shift in our society’s attitude to women in the past century. It is amazing to think that women of 21 years and over were allowed to vote only after the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act was passed in 1928. Some of our grandmothers will have been around at that time.

In an ever-changing legal landscape, the traditional attitude to legal services has been turned on its head. The main reason behind this is the requirement to comply with the regulatory objectives of the Legal Services Act 2007. The prime objective of this statute is to open up the legal services sector, making legal services more accessible and less costly to the consumer.

Three of the statute’s eight specific objectives are improving access to justice, promoting competition and increasing public understanding of legal rights.

With the virtual eradication of legal aid, there is a huge gap. The public will, now more than ever before, need cost-effective and accessible legal advice and assistance. Paralegals are now filling that gap.

The UK Legal Services market is undergoing dramatic transformations instigated by various influences, including market liberalisation, technological developments, new business structures and an increasingly knowledgeable and professionally demanding calibre of client. 

ILSPA is proud to support the LegalEx exhibition and conference, which is entirely dedicated to the business needs of your legal firm, and designed to drive growth and efficiency. Our Tutor, Seamus Ryan, will be speaking at the event about why the Legal Secretary is such an important asset to a firm. You can view information about the talk here: http://www.legalex.co.uk/speakers/seamus-ryan/.

Over the past year or so, the government has been trying to introduce cuts to the legal aid budget which could have a drastic impact on the number of people entitled to legal aid and the amount of support to which they have access.

The Law Society launched a sustained campaign against these cuts, determined to protect the most vulnerable from cuts to a vital support line for victims. On 11 March 2015, it was officially announced that the Court of Appeal had failed to pass the cuts which the government had proposed in relation to legal aid.

The cuts would threaten those who are unable to pay for their own legal representation. They could leave vulnerable people at risk by denying them access to legal representation following criminal accusations.

On the evening of 4 March 2015, the House of Lords discussed and approved the amendment to the Civil Proceedings and Family Proceedings Fees Order.

This has brought about several changes to the court fees incurred by different claims. As of 9 March 2015, these are the fees which claimants will be obliged to pay in order to receive the money won in court:

•           Any claim of a sum of money between £10,000 and £200,000 will be subject to a fee of 5% of the total amount claimed. Claimants will be able to benefit from a small discount on this amount if they issue through Secure Data Transfer (SDT) or Money Claims Online (MCOL).

•           Any claims worth a total amount over £200,000 will incur a fixed fee of £10,000.

As a Legal Secretary, you will be aware that confidentiality is essential in the legal field. Issues concerning confidentiality arise when information is disclosed by one person to another in a situation where it could be reasonably expected that that information would not be disclosed to anyone else. Confidentiality is protected as a fundamental human right and is expected to be observed in a very extensive range of circumstances.

When it comes to effective team working, are you an Efficient Emma, an Improving Imogen, a Not Bad Nora – or a Struggling Susan? These fun stereotypes have been created by specialist matter and case management software company Iken as part of its campaign to highlight and share best practice for team working, especially amongst in-house legal departments.

Iken’s 10-point checklist highlights the increasing challenges Legal Secretaries and PAs face as they work to co-ordinate team activities. The questionnaire, titled “Are your information management systems helping or hindering best practice in your in-house legal team?”, is available for free download here.

Iken business manager James Garland explained the thinking behind the questionnaire: