We are covering this track too - is the best "video" I can find and better than looking at the label of Aaron Neville's '73 45

Just had a Fixed Fee CCA result returning the firm to category A1. The central issue we have discussed before and deals with the "requirement" to record the DSCC reference number.

We retrospectively supplied this on some cases and were consequently sucessful. However the LSC have maintained the nil assessment on a case where we could not. Unfortunately this has dropped on my desk out of time for a Point of Principle.

Two things - record your DSCC ref. numbers and I will happily assist with a PoP for anyone in similar circumstances.

I grabbed a book for my journey to "that" London. I chose it, at haste, because it was set in Tudor times - about which I am (sadly) interested. Turns out to be about a mediaeval Legal Aid Lawyer, Court Duty being described as a "serjeancy in the Court of Requests".

Bet someone out there knows the author, and that you all knew about his work already.

Andy is today in the deep south, with clients. This is a firm we have know for long years and with whom we get along really well. Despite this they very nearly put our Webinar advertising in the bin due to a disastrous experience with a major training supplier (I will not name them).

They booked on last Fridays course, very much last minute, and found it completely trouble free and actually enjoyed the content too. If you have had previous bad experiences of internet based training we think that at least, with the help of our friends at Freedom Technical, to have got technology right. As for the content - that's for you to decide.

We are working on the June programme now (which will include some Legal content and at least one more SCC Rule 5.02 Management training point).

If you have been to one of the LSC's presentations on CDS BVT you might also like to hear Richard Miller from the Law Society giving what I anticipate will be something of an alternative perspective.

We are beginning to prepare for our local summer live music event "Grovestock". It is our annual electric performance with the kids, and others, providing the rhythm section - we are even looking for some brass this year. We intend to do a Style Council set starting with this:

I have had lots of costs queries over the phone in the last 2 days - significantly more than I normal I think. This is probably just coincidence but such events do make you ponder if there is an underlying cause, if only for a moment or two. Is greater caution being exercised due to increased audit activity? Is the economic climate having an opposite effect and people are more costs maximisation conscious? Whatever the reason direct costs queries and requests for training are on the up.

We are dealing with costs, Civil and Criminal, in the next 3 Friday Webinars.

We can however also do "Webinar on Demand". For instance I have just had a request, this very morning, for just the Litigators Fee section of our CDS Master-class. This lends itself beautifully for a 1 hour webinar which we can book in at the most convenient time for the firm. Compared to the venue based or in-house alternative it is amazingly more flexible and cost effective. I have a feeling that this will increasingly become a part of my working week.

Proposed new PACE boundaries have been announced, have a look here and find your regional Consultation document and your local scheme post code map.

Happy reading.

*For those interested in early UK punk/new wave rarities

I wondered at the time if Andrew Keogh had been misquoted in in this letter from John Sirodcar of the LSC.

Seems he was

I have a message to ring our friends at No.6 Chambers in Leeds this morning. I am not sure I should after this, which seems set to intensify the dispute we originally commented upon here. It does seem that the issue will "Run and Run" not least given a similar likely impact of the Family Advocacy Scheme.

As Harry Hill would say "Who is better the Bar or Solicitor Advocates? - there is only one way to find out......"

I can now link you with one of the Manics tracks from last weeks Later. (You need to go 59 mins in for the track in the title). Below is the same song but without moving pictures.

The new album "Journal for Plague Lovers" is out on Monday. I shall not buy mine from a supermarket due to this nonsense.

If you don't know their story founder member Richey Edwards disappeared 14 years ago and was declared presumed dead last year. The lyrics for this CD are all his - it has taken the remaining 3 members the intervening period to turn them into a fitting tribute.

Sorry it has been a poor week for posting here - been out talking about BVT and CLS procurement all over the place.

That said little else is going on.

A new set of civil forms, which become mandatory on 1st June, have turned up and you can view them here. You are also urged to mark all packages sent to the LSC with you own sender DX number.

Preparing for the Webinar launch now - there is still time to book for today or for any of the next 3 Friday sessions ahead.

Good luck for the CLSA event too!

Well b@£$*r me. Get home, check e-mails and leave telly on in the background. It is the 7 O Clock Show which I never watch. Then a piece about that Legal Aid comes on presented by that bloke who does one of those house move programmes on daytime TV. Gave wrong advice about means testing mind.

Yesterday ran out on me before I got round to posting here.

I got caught between appeals various (Peer Review, CCA and an Internal Review), new computers and a traipse to the bank as we are experiencing another on-line/off-line fiasco.

CDS BVT continues to dominate much of our world and I shall be out of the office for the remainder of the week - until Fridays WEBINAR launch. The test run went well so get your places booked.

Also just noticed this Press Release regarding family phone advice - pretty much as predicted to the firms I spoke to about at the time.

It is in the car form me now then.

Was hoping that someone might have put up one of the 2 songs performed by the Manics on Jules on Tuesday night. But no. The new album is supposed to be great and the above performance was pretty good (not loud enough) and sounded to me like a return to the "everything must go" era. Here therefore is an oldy from that album as an alternative:

Next Friday is Webinar launch. You can read a more detail
here.

Next Fridays course is CDS BVT and you can book a place using this form via the phone, e-mail or fax.

The annual "naming and shaming" of Legal Aid top earners begins here in the Gazette. (I now know why one of yesterdays delegates had his copy with him at yesterdays highly enjoyable training in Notts). One imagines political spin, perhaps of that highly peculiar New Labour/Daily Mail type, will follow. Governmental criticism may focus on the Bar however they have no legitimate grip with private practice given this is what the BVT proposals seek to create - fewer larger firms.

There is however one thing I do notice - three of the "Fat Cat" firms are not firms at all but Not For Profit organisations. Two, The IAS and the Refugee Legal Centre, roughly shared £27 million between them and the 4-office Public Defender Service cost £4.5 Million. I have no data to compare the NfP immigration suppliers to private practice but you will notice that the PDS took, near as damn it, half as much as top earning CDS firm Tuckers.

I have no doubt that they did an equivalent number of cases to Tuckers for that price.

Spookily the PDS cost just over half the £8 savings the DSCC has made to the fund and which is "reinvested into the legal aid scheme to enable more people to get help".

No substantive post today (nor in the morning I think) - was late up after a bad nights sleep and straight on the road. This is a Champions League, half time post from a Nottingham hotel after a day with gloomy Manchester lawyers.

For the sake of those not present at today's discussions can I emphasise;

the Manchester/Avon Somerset "pilot" is not a pilot it is Phase 0 - long built professional service businesses will be destroyed.

Today was my first face-to-face with firms facing the possible opening of hostilities in October this year. (Andy has been doing this so far). I have more of this next week. Not good times.

Amongst recent gripes has been the page count process central to calculations of the Crown Court Litigators Fee.

As anticipated in the above link, a new page count process has been launched from May 1st.

In addition to the instigation of "running totals" of PPE there is a new end of case "validation" process. The Advocate will complete a form confirming agreed PPE for entry onto CREST. Where there is disagreement between the defence and the CPS the Court officer will decide and if necessary a post determination appeal can be made.

Happy claiming!

The Decemberists album (see last Friday) put me in mind of this and I have blown the dust off "Automatic for the People" and had a listen. In my humble opinion (or IMHO as the kids text it) this is REMs best track ever:

As we enter the second day of e-mail blight it feels as though we are being returned to the dark ages. I for one never thought we would become so e-mail dependent. Our apologies to anyone anticipating an urgent reply to anything. (The carrier pigeons are however fed and ready to fly).

Given the volume of phone calls this morning perhaps people have worked our problem out for them selves.