All articles by James Dean – Page 29
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News
KBF executives set up new legal lending firm
Executives behind the Iceland-funded legal lender that collapsed amid last autumn’s banking crisis have launched a new venture, offering a similar service based on what they say is a more robust funding model. Key Business Finance (KBF), which supplied nearly 15% of law firms in ...
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Top city firms tight-lipped on future of graduate training schemes
Two top City firms have remained tight-lipped over the future of their specialist graduate training schemes after asking prospective trainees to start work a year later than planned. Magic circle firms Clifford Chance and Linklaters, which have asked prospective trainees to volunteer to defer for a ...
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News
MoJ and Insurance Fraud Bureau to share data on fraud
Data on criminal syndicates and solicitors involved in personal injury compensation scams will be shared between the Ministry of Justice and the Insurance Fraud Bureau (IFB) under a new agreement, the Gazette has learned. The agreement will allow the MoJ and IFB, the insurance industry-funded fraud ...
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Olswang to make patent attorney partner in LDP move
City firm Olswang has become one of the first big corporate firms to take advantage of new business structure changes enabled by the Legal Services Act. The firm has applied to have one of its patent attorneys made a partner in the firm following the promotion ...
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Taylor Wessing asks staff to buy extra holiday
City firm Taylor Wessing is to cut up to nine associates and nine support staff and has asked all staff to buy extra holiday by means of a salary cut. The firm said today (21 April) that the latter proposal is ‘one of a number of ...
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News
City giant announces job cuts
City firm Herbert Smith will cut up to 84 London staff and freeze salaries across its London office, the firm announced today (20 April). Up to 30 fee-earners will be made redundant as part of the cuts, while the pay freeze, which comes in to force in September, will ...
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Green shoots
I hate the phrase ‘green shoots’, mainly because it was being used months back by a few economic commentators who only really wanted to be the first to say it. Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have joined the dole queue, while the great British pound has fallen towards ...
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EU threat to client money protection
Plans to enhance the security of client money held in solicitors’ bank accounts could be scuppered by an EU proposal to cap payouts following bank failures. The UK’s Financial Services Authority last week suggested increasing to £500,000 the upper limit of compensation for ‘temporary high balances’, ...
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Copyright Tribunal overhaul will fast-track small claims
The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) today proposed to streamline large-scale Copyright Tribunal cases and allow smaller claims to be fast-tracked, as it launched a review of the tribunal’s rules. The IPO said the changes will make the tribunal quicker and cheaper to use, particularly for individuals ...
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News
FSA hires investigators to take on ‘boiler room’ scams
The Financial Services Authority is to boost its ability to combat ‘boiler room’ scams by recruiting 20 additional investigators to its enforcement division, the Gazette has learned. The extra staff will supplement the planned recruitment of 40 investigators by the FSA’s director of enforcement, Margaret ...
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News
Attorney general promotes diversity in the profession
The diversity agenda must be pushed forward but positive discrimination in the legal profession is not the answer, according to the attorney general, Lady Scotland. In an interview with the Gazette, Scotland said there is ‘clearly lots to do’. The profession must ‘consolidate the work we ...
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News
Firm appoints first legal executive partner
Legal executive advocate Nick Hanning became the first legal executive to be made partner in a law firm under the Legal Services Act’s new business structure changes, according to the Institute of Legal Executives (ILEX). Hanning, a personal injury lawyer at Poole firm RWPS, took his ...
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News
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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News
Solicitor jailed for insider dealing
A solicitor was jailed this week at the climax of the Financial Services Authority’s first criminal prosecution for insider dealing. Christopher McQuoid, 40, former general counsel at TTP Communications, and his father-in-law, James Melbourne, 74, were both found guilty of one count of insider dealing. At ...
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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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News
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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News
Big four mortgage lenders reassure conveyancing panel firms
Four of the UK’s biggest mortgage lenders have reassured solicitors that they have no plans to cut firms from residential conveyancing panels. Last week, Abbey cut the number of law firm offices on its panel from 12,000 to 6,050, provoking dismay from those affected. Halifax, Nationwide, ...
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News
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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Only 14 firms become first-wave LDPs
The legal profession has largely snubbed the first wave of the Legal Services Act’s business structure reforms, with only 14 legal disciplinary practices up and running as the new regime came into force on Tuesday. The takeup remained low despite a one-month extension to the original ...
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Clifford Chance freezes pay
Magic circle firm Clifford Chance today (31 March) announced a pay freeze for all lawyers and business services staff worldwide. Around 3,800 lawyers will be affected, across the firm’s 30 global offices. In a statement, Clifford Chance said it will hold salaries ...