JOHN WYN PRYS WILLIAMS, admitted 1969, practised on own account as G Roger Prys & Co, Rhyl, suspended for three years and ordered to pay £2,455 costs. Allegations substantiated he improperly used client money for his own purposes, wrongly withdrew client account money, failed to keep account books properly or file accountant’s report on time. […]
James Barnes is a property partner at the City firm Herbert Smith. He was born in Lisburn, Northern Ireland in 1955 and now lives in Blackheath, London. What was your first job? Window cleaner. What was your first ever salary as a lawyer? £94.76 a month (after tax and deductions) as an articled clerk. What […]
High Court action has been launched against Norwest Holst, Norwest Holst Construction, M Clarke trading as Marvel Services, and Marvel Services over flooding at London’s Kew Gardens. The writ, issued through the Attorney General on behalf of the Crown and Crown departments, the Property Services Agency and the Crown Suppliers, seeks damages for loss and […]
EVERSHEDS has built up its intellectual property group with two appointments, including partner Isabel Davies who becomes group head. Davies is joined by former Turner Kenneth Brown solicitor Lynda Farmer, who starts as head of the new IP unit in Birmingham. The firm has identified IP as one of its key business areas and it […]
PINSENT & Co and Simpson Curtis have merged to form a £35 million “super-practice” with a glittering portfolio of top corporate clients. Birmingham-based Pinsents and Simpson Curtis, of Leeds, ranked 39th and 57th respectively in The Lawyer Top 100 list, joined forces this week to form Pinsent Curtis. The new operation, with 97 partners and […]
Leading members of the UK legal profession have been signed to speak at this week’s American Bar Association conference in London. Lord Chief Justice Taylor, Law Society president Charles Elly and Lords Woolf and Mackay will address the conference – ‘New directions in civil litigation in England and the United States’ – which opens at […]
Lawyers are needed There is a heavy anti-lawyer slant in the Lord Chancellor’s divorce white paper. The agenda seems to be ‘get the lawyers out and the mediators in’. But much of the reason for the presence of lawyers in matrimonial work is because the current system encouraged, if not required it. The proposed change […]
LORD Woolf has been voted Legal Personality of Year by readers, in The Lawyer/ HIFAL Awards 1995. He was presented with the award at a gala function in London on Friday. National firm Eversheds was voted Law Firm of the Year and Doughty St Chambers was chosen as Barristers’ Chambers of the Year. The other […]
Labour’s legal affairs spokesman Paul Boateng MP says he will speak out against the draft regulations for conditional fees laid before the Commons last month unless the Government agrees to amend them to give greater consumer protection to litigants. Boateng says lawyers are in a “superior bargaining position” and litigants need greater protection. “Litigants, not […]
Contribution rates to the Solicitors Indemnity Fund are likely to be reduced by around five per cent this year. In an oral report to the Law Society Council last week the fund’s chair Andrew Kennedy said the projected reduction in contributions was due to management savings and returns on investment. The precise rates are due […]
THE LORD Chancellor’s Department will head a new inter-departmental working group on marriage as part of the Government’s plan for greater integration of policies on marriage and divorce. And responsibility for funding of marriage guidance and research organisations will transfer from the Home Office to Lord Mackay, under the provisions of his White Paper on […]
Lynne Curry looks at the structural changes in local government and finds out where they leave the lawyers On 1 April 1996 Ivor Davies, a local government lawyer for 33 years and head of legal services in one of the biggest counties in the country, will lose his job. So will the other 35 solicitors […]