Wall Street might finally have got its way. Reports in the US claim class action stormtrooper Bill Lerach may have cut a deal with investigating authorities to leave his practice in return for his firm Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robbins getting off scot free. See story. Wall Street might finally have got its […]
A top General Electric lawyer has filed a $500m (£252m) sex discrimination class action against the company and its chief executive officer. Lorene Schaefer is seeking damages for herself and 1,500 high-level female executives and attorneys at GE. Schaefer, filed her case after learning that she would be demoted from her post as general counsel […]
One of the most influential class action lawyers in the US, William Lerach, is considering leaving the firm he founded only three years ago. A meeting was called at the San Diego firm Lerach Coughlin Stoia Geller Rudman & Robins earlier this week, in which Lerach reportedly disclosed that he is mulling over a departure […]
DLA Piper has scored a victory for BBC television programme Mythbusters, which was dragged to court by an author of children’s books who claimed the show used his reputation as a platform for the show. The author Andrew Knight claimed that his series of children’s books published in the 1990s, each of which used ‘Mythbusters’ […]
The head of the immigration team at CMS Cameron McKenna has left to join accountancy firm PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) as Camerons merges its immigration and HR practice groups. After 17 years at the firm partner Julia Onslow-Cole has left with an associate. Head of commercial at the firm Nigel Moore commented: “Our immigration team will continue […]
The UK’s largest mutual life and pensions company Royal London has scooped a new group legal director and company secretary from Kaupthing Singer & Friedlander. Chris Aujard was head of group legal and compliance at Kaupthing. He will lead a legal team of nine at Royal London. Stephen Shone, Royal London group finance director, said: […]
The performance of Essex Court’s Gordon Pollock QC during the BCCI supercase has become a real millstone, ahem, milestone. Pollock set the record for the longest-ever opening speech in English legal history during BCCI – almost 80 days, leading to the case’s judge Mr Justice Tomlinson labelling his thorough discourse as “wasted”. Oops. Well, there […]
Alternative routes to qualifying as a solicitor will not be piloted this year as planned, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has revealed. SRA education and training committee chair Dr Jonathan Spencer said that “it would be wise to spend a little more time in developing” the proposed new alternative to the existing training contract system. […]
Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW) has continued its expansion in continental Europe with the hire of two new IP/IT partners in Hamburg. The firm has brought in Felix Wittern from AOL Deutschland, where he was deputy general counsel, and Alexandra von Bismarck from German firm Harmsen Utescher. Wittern will be responsible for developing FFW’s technology practice […]
The Lord Chancellor Lord Falconer today (31 May) outlined plans that will see lawyers who cause delays to court cases replaced. The move comes ahead of the post-BCCI working party’s interim report to the Commercial Court Users’ Committee in June. Mr Justice Tomlinson’s BCCI verdict labelled the behaviour of some of the lawyers as “unattractive”, […]
Darragh Fagan of Italian energy company Eni has been appointed as assistant general counsel at Reuters for the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions. Fagan will be reporting to current global general counsel Rosemary Martin. He is filling the position left by Claire Chapman, who left the post after just two years to head the […]
Linklaters is undergoing an overhaul of its computer systems after it awarded a multi-million pound contract to IT outsourcing company Unisys. Unisys is in charge of supporting and maintaining the magic circle’s global data centre and office server as well as storage infrastructure and Linklaters estate of computers and electronic devices. The three-year contract, which […]