The Bar Council has been forced to suspend a controversial rule change barring non-practising barristers from acting as advocates after the Lord Chancellor, Lord Irvine, said he should have been consulted. On 1 June the Bar Council changed rule 212 of its code of conduct to remove rights of audience from about 3,000 barristers not […]
Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) lawyers have reacted with disappointment to Solicitor General Lord Falconer’s departure from the Attorney General’s Department to take up a more senior post. The ebullient former barrister and close friend of the Blairs was one of the winners in last week’s reshuffle when he was promoted to become Jack Cunningham’s deputy […]
Midlands firm Needham & James has opened a Spanish law unit in its Stratford-upon-Avon office. The move coincides with the recruitment of solicitor Anne McMahon, who is a fluent Spanish speaker and a qualified legal translator. McMahon will work with John Hughes, the managing partner of the firm’s Birmingham office, in advising companies and private […]
Although the Bar opposes altering the circuits, some in the profession think change is desirable, says Rebecca Towers. Rebecca Towers is a freelance journalist. Circuit leaders are preparing to vigorously oppose any government plans to dismember the six-circuit system. Although the Lord Chancellor’s Department (LCD) has assured The Lawyer that the judges’ circuits are not […]
Osborne Clarke senior associate Andrew Gowans led a team advising on one of Thames Valley’s largest ever private company deals – John Madejski’s £260m sale of Hurst Publishing, the publisher of top-selling magazine Auto Trader. Gowans hailed the deal as vindication of the firm’s decision to open a Thames Valley office in Reading last January […]
David Morley of Allen & Overy is advising British Aerospace on the £750m syndicated credit facilities arranged by a group of international banks
“In our judgement, the summing up in this case was such as to deny the appellant that fair trial which is the birthright of every British citizen.” – The Lord Chief Justice, Lord Bingham, on his predecessor, Lord Goddard’s handling of the trial of Derek Bentley and Christopher Craig. “I felt at Hill Dickinson that […]
Neil Gerrard At 16, Neil Gerrard’s ambition was to hold the world record for the triple jump. Shaun Pye finds that, as a lawyer, he is no less determined to be the best. Not many lawyers can claim to have run the 110m hurdles in 14.03 seconds or to have been embroiled in street battles […]
Justice’s latest report examines the legality of certain surveillance methods and looks forward to the new Human Rights Bill, says Madeleine Colvin. Madeleine Colvin is director of legal policy at Justice. Modern policing no longer relies solely or mainly on detection, confession and the hope that witnesses will come forward. Increasingly, police, customs and Excise […]
Allen & Overy is understood to be in merger talks with leading Paris banking firm De Pardieu Brocas Maffei & Associes in a bid to catch up with its City rivals in France. A source close to the negotiations said A&O’s ten-lawyer Paris office would merge with nine-partner De Pardieu in September if the City […]
French plans to regulate MDPs have a sparked a debate between lawyers and accountancy firms which could lead to all-out war, reports Richard Tyler. Wherever you encounter the debate, the subject of lawyers and accountants working together has always been prickly. But in France, famed for its red-blooded defence of traditional working relationships, the exchange […]
Home counties practice Taylor Walton is to join the top 200 law firms by size via the acquisition of Woolley & Weston. The 65 fee-earner St Albans firm, which last year merged with Hemel Hempstead firm Wainwrights, is taking on nine of competitor firm Woolleys’ lawyers. The rest of Woolleys’ practice is likely to go […]