Headlines – Page 1525
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Disappointing response to SRA diversity census
An attempt by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to gain an accurate picture of the profession’s ethnic breakdown is in peril because nine out of 10 solicitors have failed to respond to a diversity census. Only 14,000 of the 140,000 individuals emailed a questionnaire in December ...
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SRA chief warns of cost of Smedley proposals for City
The Solicitors Regulation Authority would need ‘considerable’ resources to implement the recommendations of Nick Smedley’s report on corporate firm regulation, its chief executive said last week. Antony Townsend told an SRA board meeting that ‘rising demands’ are being placed on his organisation. ‘We have the Smedley ...
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Draft bill would create two new bribery offences
Practitioners have welcomed government proposals to reform ‘antiquated’ bribery laws to create a framework of two general offences of giving and accepting bribes. Justice secretary Jack Straw last week published a draft bribery bill, modelled on recommendations made in the Law Commission’s November 2008 Report, Reforming ...
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Worldwide deals, acquisitions and power stations
Warsaw bonds: Magic circle firm Allen & Overy advised the city of Warsaw (pictured) on a €1.3bn (£1.2bn) debt issuance programme, which will allow the city to issue bonds for the first time since the Second World War. ...
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Slaughter and May becomes latest magic circle firm to freeze pay
Slaughter and May has become the fourth member of the magic circle to freeze pay for all staff. The firm’s announcement today (2 April) comes three days after Clifford Chance announced it will freeze pay. Fellow magic circle firms Allen & Overy and Freshfields announced pay freezes earlier this year. ...
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Jurisdiction of adjudicators
Kompetenz-Kompetenz for adjudicators? The effect of Air Design v Deerglen Air Design allows an adjudicator much wider scope in determining the issues referred to him, even those relevant to questions of jurisdiction. The growth of ...
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The Smedley report – perception and reality
As you may have noticed, there was a summit of global leaders in London this week. Cue chants of ‘shame on you!’ (and worse) outside the Bank of England.
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Paperless lawyering – part two
My father worked for IBM for more than three decades. We were fortunate to see him make use of both electronic calculators and solar panels in the 1970s.
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First legal executive appointed partner
The Institute of Legal Executives announced that for the first time a legal executive has been appointed a partner in a legal disciplinary partnership. Nick Hanning (pictured), a legal executive with Poole law firm RWPS, took up his new status on 31 March, when LDPs came ...
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Straw announces date and details of family court openings
Family court hearings in county courts and the High Court will be opened to the media from Monday 27 April, subject to parliamentary approval, justice secretary Jack Straw announced today. Media representatives who wish to attend family courts will need to be holders of the UK ...
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Magic circle firms defer partner promotions
Magic circle firms Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance will defer announcing their partnership promotions for 2009 pending completion of their restructuring programmes. The two firms are the only magic circle firms still to announce partner promotions this year. Yesterday (6 April), Linklaters announced it will promote 18 to its ...
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Family barristers attack legal aid fixed-fee scheme
Family barristers have attacked plans for the payment of fixed advocacy fees in legal aid cases from 2010. The Family Law Bar Association (FLBA), which represents 2,300 barristers, alleges that the proposals take a ‘breathtaking risk with the most vulnerable in society, namely families and children at risk of serious ...
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Judges’ pensions and fiscal meltdown
The late Peter Cook famously lamented that he could have been a judge, but never had the Latin. One can understand his ambition from reading the report of the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB), published this week.
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Our paperless future, only partially assured
Yes, I know, you’ve heard it all before. One day soon, a day hiding perversely just out of sight, law firms will realise that shuffling bits of dead tree around is a pretty dumb way of organising their information
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Paperless lawyering, part three
As a lawyer of a certain age – ie I started out before PCs and emails, when cutting and pasting documents actually meant cutting and pasting typed documents and then photocopying them – I am more used to handling paper, printing out documents and scribbling handwritten notes on them
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You have the right to phone a solicitor – for now
The Legal Services Commission has published its second consultation paper on best value tendering (BVT) for criminal defence work in police stations and magistrates’ courts.
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Diversity and monitoring
One has to feel some sympathy for the Solicitors Regulation Authority in connection with its efforts to respond to concerns about diversity.
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We’ve got the technology – now give us law e-books
Some years ago, I plied this trade as an IT journalist and remember writing in breathless tones about e-ink/e-paper, and about how it could revolutionise how we look at the shifting balance between paper and computers for storage of documents and ad hoc notes.
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Ordering pizza and customer relationship management
It’s one of my missions to get it through law firms’ metaphorical skulls that just because they are unique businesses, it doesn’t mean they can’t learn a huge amount from how other business sectors work. Customer relationship management is a perfect case in point.
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Counselling the council
A few days ago saw a major gathering of the municipal great and good as local government solicitors converged on Warwick University for the Solicitors in Local Government annual weekend school.