Allen & Overy and US firm Shearman & Sterling have raided Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy’s staff, leaving the American practice’s London office almost entirely depleted of partners. Milbank has lost nine of its lawyers, including five partners, to the two firms in the past month. Nicholas Buckworth, Kenneth MacRitchie and Stephen Peppiatt leave for […]
Personal injury lawyers have welcomed firm signals from the Labour Party that it will exclude personal injury litigation from Lord Woolf’s proposed fast-track system. Addressing the Society of Labour lawyers in Leicester last week, Labour’s legal affairs spokesman Paul Boateng said he had serious doubts that personal injury cases and the fixed costs proposed under […]
When Candida Beevers was forced to take three months’ paid leave before leaving Hammond Suddards to join Ashurst Morris Crisp her colleagues thought she was mad to complain. But Beevers, who was only two years qualified at the time, said she found it very difficult to adjust. “If I’d wanted to take a sabbatical I […]
The image of clerks as wheeler-dealers is hardly up-to-date according to a recent survey, reports Ravinder Singh Chahal Not many people would accuse barristers of being stupid – they might not be street-wise, but they are not dumb. However, the legal press has recently suggested that one particular group has been taking advantage of our […]
Peter Ross, the new director of the new Law Society watchdog, the Office for the Supervision of Solicitors, told lawyers that an independent watchdog was undesirable. A body completely separate from the Law Society would have to report to government, he said. “If regulation rests in the hands of the Government, the policing of the […]
Lord Chief Justice Bingham and NatWest chair Lord Alexander of Weedon were among speakers at the third conference of the Centre for Dispute Resolution/CBI this Monday. “With the backdrop of the recent Woolf Report, alternative dispute resolution is here to stay,” said CEDR chief executive Professor Karl Mackie.
The Law Society has admitted it is impressed with examples of more user-friendly tax legislation but says it still has reservations about the proposed £25m legislative rewrite. The Inland Revenue has released examples of the new-look legislation and is seeking feedback from organisations such as the Law Society. “We will be commenting on them but […]
THE GOVERNMENT is shooting itself in the foot by refusing to do away with the doctrine of ultra vires, a seminar staged by specialist commercial chambers Verulam Chambers heard. Derek Wheatley QC, the former chief legal adviser to Lloyds Bank, told the seminar on current banking problems that the existence of the doctrine was threatening […]
Pinsent Curtis has commenced a headhunting drive for its London office with the recruitment of Lovell White Durrant’s assistant solicitor David Levin as a corporate partner. The announcement of the move comes just two weeks after the firm revealed that it had poached Linklaters & Paines litigation partner, Graeme Brister, to replace Paul Downing as […]
Two European companies that took legal action over a dispute with Davies Arnold Cooper over fees, are said to be shocked and angered by the firm’s behaviour after securing a reported £40,000 refund. Davies Arnold Cooper represented the two companies in a successful arbitration case on a fixed-fee agreement. The bill for the work was […]
The “new school” of junior counsel prepared to work as a team with the solicitors instructing them receive high praise from law firms around the country. The partner of one top London firm explains: “What you really want is to have good working partnership where you are not afraid to pick up the telephone and […]
Family lawyers are in favour of accreditation, according to the first count of questionnaires on the issue returned to the Law Society. A rough count of the 1,000 responses to the Family Law Committee’s consultation paper on accreditation shows that about two thirds of lawyers would support it in some form. The result is only […]