Last 3 months headlines – Page 1642
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India’s fastest emerging cities targeted for investment
The UK government has drawn up a list of emerging Indian cities that it will target for British investment, opening the door for City lawyers to advise British businesses heading to these locations. A report by the UK India Business Council (UKIBC), a government-sponsored trade organisation, ...
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Equity partners’ earnings plummet
Equity partners at top law firms will earn £110,000 less on average this year, early figures have suggested at the outset of the City’s reporting season. To date, the three major firms that have released a figure for profit per equity partner (PEP) have seen a combined average fall of ...
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Road works, IT contracts and property rights
Road works: Magic circle firm Linklaters advised 16 commercial banks, the European Investment Bank (EIB) and 15 investment banks on a £6.2bn contract for the M25 motorway. Connect Plus, a consortium of Balfour Beatty, Skanska, Egis Projects and Atkins, will widen the M25 ...
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Employment law: bonus culture and the court of public opinion
During the G20 demonstrations outside the Bank of England I received several texts from assorted City types. In each I was urged to join them on the roof terrace of the Coq d'Argent restaurant, where apparently one could watch the riot below while drinking half-decent champagne and even participate at ...
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Lawyer executives
In last week’s news item ‘Licensed conveyancer made partner’ (see [2009] Gazette, 28 May, 1), there was a reference to ‘legal executives [making] up the other 16 non-lawyer partners’.
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Restraint orders
In an article that appeared in the In Practice section of the Gazette (see [2009] Gazette, 30 April, 16), John Masters questions whether the Crown Prosecution Service has locus standi to apply for a restraint order under the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002 (POCA 2002) while a case is still ...
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Fact is not stranger than fiction
I cannot leave uncorrected certain remarks made by Sir Geoffrey Bindman, solicitor for Amnesty International in the Pinochet case (see [2009] Gazette, 21 May, 9). As is well known, my firm acted for Senator Pinochet.
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Mr Clean's mission
One upside of the MPs’ expenses saga gripping the nation is that lawyers should make a better showing in league tables of the country’s least trusted professional group. If you can’t be more palatable than politicians at times like this, then you may as well give up. ...
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Acting the part
Chris Partington (pictured, right) loves a challenge. Over the past three years, the wills, trusts and probate lawyer at Sale firm Slater Heelis Collier Littler has climbed Kilimanjaro, tackled the National Three Peaks climb and has now cycled 100 miles coast to coast in a day – all in aid ...
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Hot under the collar
After a half a decade studying sexism in the criminal justice system, those doughty campaigners at the Fawcett Society say they have found ‘clear examples of attempts to make female workers fit the male mould’. Quite literally, in the case of some police forces, which have been caught trying to ...
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Is speedy hi-tech justice necessarily better justice?
Since 2006, ‘simple, speedy, summary’ justice has been the mantra of successive justice secretaries. It is at the heart of government reforms to ‘rebalance the criminal justice system and increase public confidence’. The latest method to achieve this is the virtual court, which enables (and will ...
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Defendant escapes confiscation because no advocate would take legal aid fee
A defendant has escaped confiscation proceedings because she was unable to find an advocate willing to accept the legal aid rate to represent her. The court’s decision, upheld in the Court of Appeal, will fuel an ongoing dispute over the levels of legal aid fees. ...
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Solicitors believe judicial appointments ‘not for me’, JAC research finds
Official research published today reveals a ‘widespread and underlying perception’ of ‘inherent prejudice’ in the judicial application process and suggests that solicitors still see the bench as a career for ‘other people’. The study, sponsored by the Judicial Appointments Commission, surveyed barristers and solicitors eligible for ...
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Sole practitioners condemn SRA risk-assessment plans
Sole practitioners have condemned as ‘outrageous’ and ‘totally intrusive’ plans by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to require commercially sensitive information to carry out risk assessments. SRA head of policy Bronwen Still told the annual general meeting of the Sole Practitioners Group (SPG) that firms ...
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Local authorities face action over obstructing property searches
Private search companies are threatening to get tough with councils who block access to property search information or fail to comply with the government’s charging guidance. The Council of Property Search Organisations (CoPSO) said this week that it would take action against local authorities that ...
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BVT ‘threatens criminal chambers as well as solicitors’ firms’
Criminal chambers as well as solicitors’ firms will go to the wall under best value tendering (BVT), practitioners have warned while calling for the profession to unite on the issue.
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Pro bono – not U2!
Every so often, someone comes up with the idea of coining a modern English phrase for the term pro bono. None of the suggested replacements has caught on – and doesn’t everyone understand pro bono anyway? Apparently not, Cherie Booth QC told the launch of nominations for the Law Society ...
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Phil Shiner: top human rights lawyer shows no sign of slowing down
‘We have the most powerful democracy in the world because our state will use public money through legal aid to pay me to take these cases,’ says Phil Shiner, the human rights lawyer as much abused by some in the media as he is revered by his peers.
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High street firms need to proclaim their virtues to survive
Now that I am in the last two months of my presidency, I have started to look forward to returning to my own firm in Surrey and to resume the life that I put on hold three years ago – that of a regular high street solicitor.