Liberalisation of legal services is proving a thorny issue for the legal profession worldwide. In Europe, the debate has taken almost two decades to achieve any type of agreement with the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) leading the way. In the US, many states stubbornly cling to Dark Age views on […]
Being a subscriber to your paper for two to three years, I believe I must write and state my experiences of the post-year of passing the Bar Vocational Course. It is not a happy story and I hope that if you publish this, it will put off anyone seeking a career at the Bar and […]
FEARS among magistrates court staff that the number of Magistrates Courts Committees (MCC) will be slashed have been confirmed by the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine. He announced an amalgamation programme – reducing the existing 96 MCCs to 86 – in a ministerial statement to the House of Lords last Wednesday. Lord Irvine said that his […]
Leading equal opportunities barrister Margaret McCabe has called for law firm partners to undergo training to open their eyes to bullying and harassment within their firms after winning a £50,000 out of court settlement for a trainee from a three-partner Manchester firm. Andrea Harrison, a trainee at Whitfield firm Laurence Murphy & Co, told an […]
THE EUROPEAN Commission has promised to consider demands from in-house lawyers that their advice should enjoy legal privilege during competition investigations. In-house lawyers have seized on the promise, which was made in a speech last month by Jonathan Faull, director of general competition policy, as a sign that their long-standing campaign to secure professional privilege […]
Another bumper year for Bermuda. David Lines looks at the latest innovations. David Lines is a solicitor at Appleby Spurling and Kempe in Bermuda. For Bermuda’s ever-growing international business sector, 1995 and 1996 proved to be bumper years. 1997 is also showing signs of being a substantial year of growth. While Bermuda continues to build […]
THE SOLICITORS Indemnity fund (SIF) has finally paid a £1,000 claim against a criminally-convicted solicitor last week, two years after it was originally filed – and will face costs likely to be six times the original claim. The settlement follows a story in The Lawyer two weeks ago in which the solicitor acting for the […]
Salaries paid to company lawyers in the US are on the decline, according to US legal consultants Altman Weil Pensa. Its latest survey of in-house legal departments, which is published jointly with the American Corporate Counsel Association, showed a 5 per cent drop in compensation paid to legal department heads. It also found there had […]
Birmingham firm Wragge & Co has appointed Peter Keith-Lucas as partner in charge of its public sector practice. Keith-Lucas, a former director of legal and administration services for Swansea City and County, will join the firm on 17 November to head a 60-strong legal section. Wragge & Co also hired Taylor Woodrow legal director Peter […]
The Labour MP for Leeds North East must face a private prosecution which he says is purely political.Roger Pearson reports. Allegations of politically motivated use of the law are likely to surface in a forthcoming private prosecution against Labour MP Fabian Hamilton. Hamilton, who represents Leeds North East, has already accused his own accusers of […]
Law Society deputy vice-president Michael Mathews has moved to quash suggestions he has endorsed Equal Opportunities Commission chair Kamlesh Bahl in her bid to become deputy vice-president in 1998. Bahl revealed to The Lawyer two weeks ago that she would be standing for the post after being approached by Robert Sayer who stood with Mathews […]
We are glad to see that the Chambers Directory is being used by journalists at The Lawyer and that our comments about leading lawyers are being quoted. However, these quotes are not always attributed correctly. The front-page story on Andrew Wilkinson and Clifford Chance last week contained several direct quotes from Chambers but were described […]