Amy Jenkins has a lot to answer for. As the author of BBC2’s This Life programme, she is responsible for the new image of young lawyers as therapy-dependent dope-smokers. Yet it is hard to think of anyone better qualified to write about life as a legal trainee. Jenkins, 29, read law at University College London […]
Slaughter and May has held on to its position as the most popular legal adviser among UK companies, according to a league table produced by Crawford’s, publisher of the annual Directory of City Connections. Changes in the way the table is compiled means Eversheds comes third in 1996, unlike the previous year when the firm […]
Fladgate Fielder has completed its biggest City deal by advising Regal Hotels on acquiring 60 hotels from Forte for £122 million. The transaction, completed last week, is the high point of an impressive foray into corporate finance which Fladgates launched three years ago. The firm has boosted corporate work fee income from £950,000 to nearly […]
Pressure from some larger City firms has brought forward the review of the Legal Practice Course. The results of the review, which has just started, will be implemented in the LPC starting in September 1997. The LPC was introduced in September 1993. It represents change (and was deliberately designed to do so) and some of […]
What can you do if you aren’t getting promoted at work because you didn’t pass all your Law Society exams in the past? This is exactly the situation faced by 38-year-old John Wilkinson, who works for west Yorkshire firm Foy & Co handling family law work and personal litigation. He earns good fees for the […]
Alsop Wilkinson’s head of business development, Stewart McRorie, quit the firm shortly after the appointment of new chief executive Christopher Honeyman Brown. Honeyman Brown, who is undertaking a far reaching review of Alsops’ operations, denied there was any connection with his arrival from accountancy firm Binder Hamlyn where he was a partner. “It is purely […]
The Warsaw office of City firm McKenna & Co has moved to larger offices following rapid expansion. US lawyer Andrew Kozlowski, resident partner in Warsaw, said the firm had grown to 15 lawyers since opening with two lawyers in May 1994. “We’re projecting to grow to 18 to 20 lawyers by the end of the […]
AFTER nearly 22 years apart, Robin Thompson & Partners and Brian Thompson & Partners reunited last week to create the largest personal injury firm in the UK. The two firms were separated for “administrative reasons” when their founders, the Thompson brothers, retired in 1974. Robin Thompson’s son, David Thompson, will chair the new partnership with […]
Can’t secure a training contract? Then work in a Citizens’ Advice Bureau is worth considering. Not only will you clock up useful and relevant experience, but it can count towards qualification. Under a scheme recently agreed, the Law Society will now consider reducing the two-year training contract period for students with certain types of work […]
PROPOSALS from Lord Woolf for reforming civil justice could lead to further public disillusion in the legal system, as well as encourage shoddier work from law yers, the Law Society warned this week. The society broadly supports Lord Woolf’s objective to make the civil law more accessible to litigants and less expensive. But it is […]
The legal profession has been rocked by the announcement that Lord Taylor has cancer and is retiring as Lord Chief Justice after four years in office. Criminal Bar Association chair Anne Rafferty QC said Taylor’s announcement had come as an “enormous shock” to the profession. “I thought he combined the ability to command respect and […]
Legal recruitment firm Wellman Smith has been awarded an Investor in People award. The company, which has offices in Nottingham, London, Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester, specialises in headhunting for law firms.