In career terms, appointment as a partner represents both an end and a beginning. It ends the period of ambition to achieve the goal of partnership as it begins a new era when motivation is based on a new set of personal and professional goals. Instead of satisfying internal judges, in the form of partners, […]
Roger Pearson
SIMMONS & Simmons partner David Sandy is being extradited to New York to face three charges relating to suppressing evidence about the collapsed Bank of Credit & Commerce International (BCCI). The Sandy affair has also led to Simmons & Simmons being replaced by Macfarlanes as solicitors to the BCCI majority shareholders in Abu Dhabi, after […]
I am writing to correct the article that appeared in the 18 July issue of The Lawyer, ‘Malaysia orders probe into UK Law courses’, which misrepresents the current situation regarding UK law degrees offered to Malaysian students. What the article describes as a ‘probe’ is in fact a survey being undertaken into all UK law […]
Is the Legal Aid Board’s flag-bearing, area number one office not a happy ship? I ask this question because, as readers may recall, there are rumours of all sorts of comings and goings (mainly the latter) in Red Lion Street. Chief target is the gossip that failure to reach performance targets is a disciplinary offence, […]
Fennell Betson reports In reply to Microsoft’s attack on the legal marketplace, Novell UK has introduced PerfectOffice Legal Suite. This is a version of its PerfectOffice 3.0 package recently launched for the general business market. The software group has joined with Laserform to provide its legal forms package and includes access to Link, the legal […]
PRAN HANDA, self employed, unadmitted associate with London SW9 firms of Melichior & Co and Procaccini & Co at material times banned from working for any further solicitors without written consent from Law Society. Allegations substantiated that Handa misused money held by him on behalf of clients by using it for his own purposes and […]
* ‘Crime and punishment’ is the title of a one-day conference on sentencing at the Lincoln’s Inn Old Hall on 24 April. The conference will feature leading judges, barristers, solicitors and other professionals involved in sentencing policy. They include Judge Stephen Tumin, Chief Inspector of Prisons, Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal […]
AROUND 850 pensioners of collapsed company Belling, victims of an alleged solicitor fraud, must wait longer than expected for a Law Society decision on whether they receive u2.25 million in compensation. Their wait comes despite pressure from the High Court in their favour, a high degree of national newspaper interest and subsequent signs from the […]
Kuszek v Clarke – QBD 29 April 1997 Claimant: Ruth Kuszek, 45 Incident: Road traffic accident Injuries: Claimant, a competitive horsewoman and livery stable owner, suffered disabling whiplash injuries in a road crash which caused her grave problems with running her livery stables. Her sporting activities were also interfered with Award: £55,000 (agreed damages) Judge: […]
John Malpas reports A JOURNALIST who filed complaints of unethical conduct against a barrister and a solicitors’ firm following a libel action has lost round one of his fight. The Solicitors Complaints Bureau’s primary investigation unit has rejected Peter Cotterell’s complaint that Macfarlanes pursued an unmeritorious libel action against him (see The Lawyer 4 April). […]
Birmingham firm Lee Crowder has deliberately appointed a younger partner to the senior partner post in recognition, it says, of the “radical change” the profession has undergone over the last 10 years. Commercial lawyer Stephen Gilmore, 39, succeeds John Baron who retired from partnership on 31 March.