All News articles – Page 1656
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Clifford Chance regains status as biggest firm by revenues
Clifford Chance has retaken its place as the biggest law firm in the UK by revenues, pipping fellow magic circle firm Linklaters to the post. Clifford Chance also reported a strong resurgence in average profits per equity partner (PEP), which jumped by a quarter to £933,000 ...
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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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The time has come to scrap the minimum salary for trainees
LPC graduates face a pretty tough time getting training contracts at the moment. Not only is there an ever-increasing number of students graduating from the course – with training providers only too happy to offer more places – but the number of firms prepared to offer the training contract is ...
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Where is the value?
The recent research on mergers prompts me to ask you a direct question: is your firm an attractive takeover target? Whatever your initial response, I have a second question: how do you know?
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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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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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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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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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Insolvency practitioners overpaid £15m a year
Insolvency practitioners are overpaid £15m a year because unsecured creditors are unable to rein in their fees, the Office of Fair Trading reported last week. In its study on the market for corporate insolvency, the OFT recommended that the government create an independent complaints-handling body to ...
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Lawyers warn that court closures could threaten access to justice
Lawyers have warned that government proposals to close nearly a third of the courts in England and Wales could threaten access to justice and increase pressure on legal aid practitioners. In a consultation launched last week, the Courts Service proposed shutting 157 out of 530 ...
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Acoustic 'youth dispersal' devices ‘a danger to children's hearing'
Acoustic ‘youth dispersal’ devices are a danger to children’s hearing and should be banned immediately, the parliamentary assembly of the Council of Europe ruled unanimously last week. The devices, designed to be audible only to people under the age of 20, are installed in public places such as shopping centres, ...
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Lord Lester demands 'urgent action' on CFA 'scandal'
Libel reformer Lord Lester has called on the government to take ‘urgent action’ on the ‘scandal’ of 100% success fees charged by lawyers working on conditional fee agreements (CFAs) in defamation actions. The barrister and Liberal Democrat peer asked justice minister Lord McNally last week ...
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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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Cuts on the agenda of family justice review
The Ministry of Justice has launched a ‘comprehensive review’ of the family justice system, appointing a panel of experts to hear evidence on how the system can improve. However, the panel chair has admitted a principal catalyst for the review is the government’s desire to make spending cuts. ...
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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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Profits surge as A&O rides out recession
Magic circle firm Allen & Overy increased average profits per equity partner (PEP) by 10% in 2009/10 on the back of falling revenues, the firm reported today. The first of the magic circle to report full-year financials in 2010, Allen & Overy announced PEP up to ...
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Satellites, lingerie, mobile phones and entertainment attractions
Satellite finance: City firm Herbert Smith advised Gazprom Space Systems, a subsidiary of energy company Gazprom, on guaranteeing the financing of two telecoms satellites, Yamal 401 and Yamal 402, due to be launched in 2011. Magic circle firm Linklaters advised a consortium of ...
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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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Barristers and solicitors must work collaboratively
by Nicholas Green QCchairman of the Bar Council Budgetary cuts of seismic proportions; economic slump; legal aid revolutions; Jackson on costs; alternative business structures; quality assurance for advocates... it never ends. Myriad pressures are forcing the legal profession to look deeply into itself.