Securities and Futures Authority (SFA) legal adviser Susan Dunnett is the latest to join Hammond Suddards expanding banking and financial services group, following the recruiting of Bruce Gardner from SJ Berwin. Dunnett was assistant solicitor at Theodore Goddard before becoming senior legal adviser at the SFA. The group also recently recruited barrister Iona Levine, a […]
Surrey solicitors are planning to set up a property centre to directly compete against estate agent Hambro Countrywide’s new in-house convey- ancing service. And, in a separate development which will increase the pressure on solicitors to respond to growing competition, the Halifax Building Society is poised to unveil a new title insurance service which would […]
The Land Registry has tightened its rules for solicitors taking statutory declarations on lost or destroyed title deeds. The move follows a case in which a pensioner was conned out of his home when someone impersonated him to obtain a certificate from the registry. The registry has issued guidelines requiring solicitors or licensed conveyancers to […]
Unlawful restriction on talking to journalists on prison visits R v Secretary of State for the Home Department ex parte (1) Ian Simms (2) Michael Alan Mark O’Brien (1997) QBD (Latham J) 19/12/96 Summary: As to the lawfulness of a blanket restriction on oral communication between prisoners and journalists during prison visits, in the absence […]
Merger talks between Bailey Shaw & Gillet and Wedlake Bell have broken down. The two medium-sized London firms had confirmed they were in talks last November. Now, in a joint statement, Mark Hodgkinson, the Baileys partner in charge of negotiating the merger, and Bob Salter, managing partner at Wedlake Bell, have announced a halt to […]
Katherine Cawthorn, the trainee suing her employer Freshfields for loss of career after she contracted dysentery on a business trip to Ghana, has made a further claim of sex discrimination against the firm. In her discrimination pleading, Cawthorn alleges that while she had to ask to return home from Ghana and was left to make […]
Lord Carlisle QC, chairman of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board, attacked the government’s planned sentencing reforms in a speech last Friday at the University of Hertfordshire’s Law School. He described the government’s Crimes (Sentences) Bill as “unnecessary and unjustified”. He added: “Whatever may happen, one thing one can predict with certainty is that the prison […]
Lovell White Durrant has expanded its Chicago office from 11 lawyers to 17 in the past three months. The latest recruit to Lovells’ niche reinsurance and consumer credit litigation practice in Chicago, which opened just under two years ago with the poaching of two partners from Chicago firm Sidley & Austin, is Anne Fortney. Joining […]
John Powell QC has been elected unopposed as the new head of chambers at 2 Crown Office Row. He will take over from Rupert Jackson QC. The chambers has a policy of electing a new head every three years in order to share the workload. Powell, who specialises in fraud and professional services negligence litigation, […]
THE leadership of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (Apil) has yielded to the demands of its membership and watered down a key clause in a new code of conduct designed to stamp out “ambulance chasing”. The organisation’s executive was forced to revise clause 10 of its new code of conduct, concerning referral fees, following […]
Ashurst Morris Crisp has acted on the winding up of its oldest client, the River Plate and General Investment Trust. Roger Walsom, for 10 years contact partner for the trust, which was originally set up to invest in the South American economic boom of the 1880s, said: “The transaction was rather poignant for us. The […]
Former Arthur Andersen partner Jeremy Arnold has been hired by Jersey law firm Ogier & Le Masurier to act as a non-executive adviser to the partners. Arnold, 58, spent nearly 40 years working for major accountancy practices before his recent retirement from Arthur Andersen. Ogiers’ chairman Malcolm Sinel said Arnold would be able to use […]