Issues

Taylor Joynson Garrett acted in the £11m sale of 25 of Lloyds Bank properties and two Woolworths stores for clients including British Aerospace Pension Fund and Value and Income Trust.

Dibb Lupton Alsop advised convenience store operator Dawn Til Dusk on its £4m flotation on the AIM. Hammond Suddards advised the nominated adviser Butterfield Securities.

ONE of Law Society president Tony Girling’s flagship projects – a Law Society computer kit for High Street firms – will be scrapped if he cannot secure an extra £770,00 for the scheme. Girling will back the High Street Starter Kit’s request for the money at this Thursday’s Law Society council meeting, just weeks after […]

The European Court of Human Rights may be asked for the first time to decide if barristers can be sued for negligent conduct in court cases. The possible challenge follows the House of Lords Appeal Committee’s refusal to give Mohammed Patel leave to appeal against immunity rules which prevent him from suing his barrister, Ghulam […]

From lithe trainee solicitors trying to maintain their youthful fitness to tubby senior barristers seeking to shed fat as a New Year resolution, the legal profession is being consumed by the work-out bug. Lawyers are heading for the gym in increasing numbers as they realise that staying healthy makes them enjoy life more and perform […]

Legal aid practitioners are claiming thousands of people could be deprived of legal advice if the Government goes ahead with new proposals to remove criminal advice from the Green Form scheme. The Lord Chancellor’s Department has written to the Law Society asking for its comments on the proposed change, which has taken practitioners by surprise. […]

Thames Valley 11-partner firm Blandy & Blandy has recruited two private client solicitors from City firms who are both mothers and who will both work partly from home. Family law partner Sian Blore joins from Farrer & Co, and tax and financial planning lawyer Jackie Watson joins from the Paris office of Simmons & Simmons. […]

Law firms will have to give 9 per cent rises to their salaried staff merely to keep them on the same wage when tax relief on profit-related pay is phased out in two years’ time. Many City law firms have been running profit-related pay schemes as a tax break for their staff, rather than as […]

The English lawyer who helped overturn the Hague Convention to allow an English mother to gain early custody of her Spanish-born son during separation proceedings has now secured permanent custody for her. Last year Christopher Lee, who runs a small practice in Barcelona, led a Spanish legal team which overturned a Hague Convention Order made […]

JUST 20 sets of chambers have decided to break tradition and publish details of their barristers’ fees in the new edition of the official Bar Directory. This year is the first time chambers have been invited by the directory, published by FT Law & Tax, to include their fee rates. The vast majority declined to […]

The Disability Discrimination Act 1995 came into force on 2 December 1996. It outlaws discrimination against people with disabilities when providing them with goods and services and in virtually all areas of employment. Many law firms are affected because all employers with 20 or more employees are covered by the Act. However, a surprising number […]

The Law Society of Scotland has published a new code of conduct for criminal practitioners in a defensive move designed to stop “unmerited criticism” from the Government and Scottish Legal Aid Board. The code, which has left some Scottish criminal solicitors “astonished” and “insulted”, is understood to be a pre-emptive move, designed to end threats […]