Oh the iniquity of it all. Not even lawyers, it seems, are immune to the Government’s wide-ranging slashing of civil liberties. For, with less than two days to go before the smoking ban comes into effect, poor Lovells is being forced to shut the door on its skiving… sorry… smoking room for the final time. […]
Charity specialist Bates Wells & Braithwaite has hired athletes1 partner Mike Townley as head of its sports law team. Townley was a pioneer in the field of sports law. He founded sports boutique Townleys Sports Lawyers from 1991, which later merged with Hammonds in 2001. Townley left Townleys to form athletes1 in 1999. Townley boasts […]
A Law Society council member has admitted to five breaches of professional rules in relation to his dealing with the coalminers’ compensation scheme. Glyn Maddocks, council member for the West Country and Gwent and a partner at Welsh firm Gabb and Co, was fined £15,000 at the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) and ordered to pay […]
The Sports Dispute Resolution Panel (SDRP) appointed four independent directors to its management board today (29 June). Peter Crystal, Memery Crystal’s founder and corporate finance and sports partner, joins as a non-executive director after fending off 100 rivals for the position. Former Lovells partner Ros Reston and Clarke Willmottsports partner Trevor Watkins will also be […]
With less than two days to go until England becomes a smoke-free zone, City law firm Lovells is being forced to close the doors on its smoking room for the last time. The firm has housed a designated room for smokers at its Atlantic House headquarters since moving into the building in 2000. However, under […]
Clifford Chance won a High Court victory with a decision ruling that raids carried out on two IVF clinics run by fertility doctor Mohamed Taranissi were unlawful. The Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA), accompanied by the police, searched the London clinics in January. The High Court quashed both search warrants obtained by the HFEA […]
Allen & Overy (A&O) has continued its aggressive expansion plans by opening a Düsseldorf office with a former German managing partner from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. This is the third office A&O has opened in six weeks, following launches in Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi. A&O’s Düsseldorf offering will be spearheaded by corporate partner Thomas Austmann, […]
It’s all been kicking off in Warsaw of late. First of all Baker & McKenzie‘s former local managing partner Tomasz Ujejski was leaving to join Squire Sanders & Dempsey. Then he wasn’t. Then he really was (see story). Oh, and he took a load of colleagues with him. At the same time Squire Sanders’ former […]
CMS Cameron McKenna Warsaw partner Michal Zieniewski is to join two former Squire Sanders & Dempsey partners in DLA Piper‘s fledgling Warsaw office. As reported by The Lawyer (18 June), Krzysztof Wiater and Pawel Grzejszczak have joined DLA Piper to set up the Polish office as office head and partner respectively. Zieniewski, who will join […]
Allen & Overy has cemented its relationship with Europe’s UniCredit Group, advising group member Bank Austria Creditanstalt (BA-CA) on the purchase of Kazakhstan’s ATF Bank. Corporate partner Pervez Akhtar, who has been the UniCredit relationship manager for the past five years, led the deal alongside associates Gary Booth and Andrew Deane. London-based tax partner Chris […]
White & Case has made a triple hire for its London banking and capital markets group, raiding Allen & Overy (A&O), Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). Clare Calver, until now an associate at A&O, joins the firm’s partnership while former EBRD counsel Massimo Galli and former Cadwalader […]
Former House of Commons leader Jack Straw is to take over as the secretary of state for justice as the new prime minister Gordon Brown shuffles the former lord chancellor Lord Falconer out of his first cabinet. Meanwhile, the former minister of state for crime reduction Baroness Scotland QC has been made attorney general, replacing […]