Last 3 months headlines – Page 1568
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Bulgaria opens up to foreign law firms
Bulgaria is to amend its anti-competitive Bar Act and allow international law firms to practise within its borders following a two-year campaign by City firms and the Law Society. Bulgaria’s Bar Act, which will now be amended, prohibits international law firms from practising under their own ...
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Refugee and Migrant Justice clients lose High Court bid
The High Court has rejected a bid to allow collapsed immigration advice charity Refugee and Migrant Justice to carry on representing its clients until their cases are transferred to other firms. Eight clients of RMJ, which went into administration last month, had sought a judicial review ...
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Munby calls for more openness in family courts
Legislation intended to open up the family courts is a ‘lost opportunity’ that will fail to bring about the openness needed to improve confidence in family proceedings, a leading judge has said. Giving the 2010 Hershman-Levy memorial lecture last week, Lord Justice Munby called for ‘radical ...
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Linklaters reports fall in turnover
Linklaters, the biggest law firm in the UK by revenues, has reported falls in turnover and average profits per equity partner (PEP) as it became the second of the magic circle to unveil full-year financial results. Turnover at the firm fell by 8.8% to £1.18bn in ...
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Exclusive: surge in merger activity as firms seek strength in numbers
Merger activity at small and medium-sized firms climbed by a third in the first half of 2010, according to new research published by the Law Consultancy Network in association with the Gazette. Three-quarters of firms surveyed said they had actively considered the option.
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What about the European courts?
Courts have problems, like everyone else. In the UK, there will be much heat over the coming months over the closure programme announced by the government.
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Family lawyers warn against dangers of cost cutting
Family solicitors have welcomed the government’s aim of encouraging alternatives to court in its review of the family justice system, but warned the focus must not only be cost cutting. The Ministry of Justice launched a ‘comprehensive review’ of the family justice system last week, ...
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Human rights
Terrorism – Control orders – Right to liberty and security Secretary of State for the Home Department (respondent) v AP (appellant): SC (Lord Phillips, Lord Saville, Lord Rodger, Lord Walker, Lord Brown, Lord Clarke, Sir John Dyson): 16 June ...
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Criminal law: new offences, amendments and provisions
Significant parts of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009 took effect during the spring of this year. On 1 February section 59 was brought into force amending the Suicide Act 1961. For the old offence under section 2, there is now substituted a provision that ‘a person (D) commits an ...
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New ombudsman service Is ‘good value for money’
The new legal ombudsman service set up to investigate and resolve complaints made by users of legal services will open on 6 October this year. Established by the Office for Legal Complaints and based in Birmingham, the service will replace the Law Society-run Legal Complaints Service ...
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Big screen actress sends law reeling
Obiter sat in rapt silence while a young Roma man, for reasons unexplained, wrestled with a German shepherd dog before throwing himself off a cliff into the roiling waters below. Obiter was at the Strasbourg launch of the exquisitely named Fanny Ardant’s six-minute ...
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Birmingham's legal sector unites to battle effects of recession
They may not have much else in common with the Liberal Democrats, but Simmons & Simmons and Birmingham-based firm Shakespeare Putsman know the value of power sharing. They are both looking to a coalition – if that’s the right word – with Mayer Brown and Needham & James respectively. Consolidation ...
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Lawyer strikes a chord
Playing at the blues end of the musical spectrum this week we had Roger Bolt, senior partner at London firm Bolt Burdon Kemp, strumming his six-string on Saturday at Jazz after Dark in London’s Soho with eight-piece ensemble The Big Girls Blues Band. Elsewhere, we had the Gazette’s own City ...
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Rainmaker turns haymaker
Magic circle lawyer turned boxer Laura Saperstein (right) has been offered a European title fight. The British Boxing Board of Control made the offer earlier this week, the day after Saperstein won a points victory over Bulgarian bruiser Borislava Goranova at York Hall, Bethnal Green.
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When nations saw red
The traumas of the current sporting season are a far (battle) cry from the football war fought between El Salvador and Honduras in 1969, says Russell Evans, a partner at Southampton firm Eric Robinson. An immigration dispute between the two South American nations, coupled with ...
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Halliwells fallout: will banks be wary of lending to partnerships?
Recessions always have a long tail for professional services businesses. And as competitors pick over the carcass of Halliwells, the downturn’s biggest casualty yet in the legal sector, there is great anxiety among industry observers. Is this the thin end of what may turn out to be a very thick ...
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The Law Society is meeting the needs of members in difficult times
In my very first Podium last August, I wrote of the challenges facing the profession in what I anticipated would be one of the busiest years in the Law Society’s history. In my final article as president, I can state with confidence that the Society has met and dealt with ...