It is difficult to imagine that anyone has escaped the hype surrounding the World Wide Web. Many organisations have invested time and money in setting up web sites and, although the take-up has been slow among law firms, a number of sites have got off the ground. Masons’ is one of them. The first tranche […]
The owners of a historic country house in Lincolnshire who say their home life is being ruined by the noise of jet fighters from nearby RAF Wittering flying late into the night are taking the Ministry of Defence to the High Court. Darby and Catherine Dennis, of Walcot Hall, Barnack, Stamford, Lincolnshire, claim that the […]
Lovell White Durrant acted for property company Shaftesbury on its £63m debenture issue to re-finance part of the £90m it borrowed to buy the Carnaby Estate from Dutch property group Wereldhave. Linklaters & Paines advised Kleinwort Benson, the arranger and underwriter of the issue. It was the first issue to be completed in Crest, the […]
Law Society deputy treasurer Robert Sayer has compiled a “wish-list” of changes he wants implemented at Chancery Lane as he comes closer to forging a deal for the presidency with Phillip Sycamore and Michael Mathews. But a similar two-page wish-list Sayer earlier compiled for Martin Mears has come back to politically embarrass him. Last Friday, […]
Nabarro Nathanson is to spend £3m over the next 12 months on updating its computer systems across all its offices as part of its “Nabarros 2000” restructuring exercise. The firm is to replace its word processing software Wordperfect with Microsoft Word and its operating system OS/2 with Windows 95. At the same time it is […]
Former crown prosecutor Tony Engel received just under 40 per cent of the vote in the election for the secretary generalship of the top civil servants union, the Association of First Division Civil Servants. Engel mounted a surprise challenge against Jonathan Baume, the man chosen by the FDA’s executive committee to succeed Baroness Liz Symons […]
LAW firms will have to hire out their specialist support services such as IT and finance as part of a fundamental change in the way they operate, delegates assembled at a conference in Amsterdam were told last week. Wendy London, managing director of New Zealand law consultancy Infotech, told the Rethinking the Law Firm conference […]
David Foster (pictured right), former senior partner of Newcastle firm Watson Burton, has been elected president of the Newcastle-Upon-Tyne Law Society. The new vice-president is Iain Nicholson, senior partner of Iain Nicholson & Co in Ponteland. He is also a director and treasurer of the Association of Solicitor Investment Managers.
As one leading solicitor comments, counsel should have a proper grounding and know how to win a trial from the outset. For junior counsel of this calibre, 5 Stone Buildings’ Andrew Simmonds, Christopher Tidmarsh and Alastair Norris all rate a number of mentions. Also mentioned are Michael Sullivan at 5 Bell Yard, Christopher Parker and […]
Barbara Hewson is a barrister at 12 Gray’s Inn Square. A landmark ruling by Judge Wilson in the Family Division on 19 February 1997 adds a new twist to the relationship between the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act 1990 and EU law. In U v W, the court was asked to make a declaration of […]
Coroners will no longer hold inquests into disaster cases which are subject to a public inquiry except in exceptional circumstances, under a proposal published by the Home Office last week. The proposal to end overlap between inquests and public inquiries, designed to shorten investigation times, is the key recommendation in a report prepared by a […]
Merger talks between Manchester commercial firms Cobbetts and Halliwell Landau have broken down following protracted negotiations. In public statements the firms said the decision not to go ahead with the merger, which would have created Manchester’s largest commercial law firm, was amicable. But although they played down the significance of the move, at one stage […]