The renewed interest of the Big Six accountancy firms in entering the legal marketplace should come as no surprise to anyone. Arthur Andersen’s foray into the field some years back through Garrett & Co heralded the first such move. Law firms at the time were slightly alarmed but sceptical that Garrett & Co would make […]
Travers Smith Braithwaite acted for UBS and James Capel & Co
Stringer Saul acted for Reunion Mining on its introduction to the Official List of the London Stock Exchange. Ashurst Morris Crisp acted for sponsor Societe Generale Strauss Turnbull Securities.
Alsop Wilkinson acted for engineering services company Norwest Holst Group in its taking of a 10-year lease of 35,000 sq ft at Orbit House, North London, and its subletting of 22,000 sq ft to the UK subsidiary of Delta Airlines for a similar term and rent. Finers represented superior landlord, Dancastle Properties.
Lord Mackay’s Courts and Legal Services Act threw down the gauntlet of higher court competition. Six years, 375 recruits later, John Malpas finds solicitor advocates still out on a limb IT is now seven years since Lord Mackay first parked his tanks on the judiciary’s lawn and threatened a legal services revolution. A key aim […]
A CAMPAIGN to ease the path to extended rights of audience for City firms has emerged as one of Law Society president Martin Mears’ new big ideas. The president has agreed to take up City lawyers’ complaints that the qualification requirements for obtaining higher court rights of audience established by the Lord Chancellor’s Advisory Committee […]
COURT staff unions are stepping up resistance to the Private Finance Initiative (PFI) after learning that the Lord Chancellor’s Department (LCD) is to tender work out to the private sector on 11 capital expenditure projects valued at a total of £172 million. The unions claim six of the projects, with a total value of £83 […]
The Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers is holding a public meeting to discuss the development of public law as part of its Justice 2000 campaign. The meeting, ‘How should the Left use public law?’, being held at the London School of Economics on 28 February, includes speakers Lee Bridges of the University of Warwick, and […]
Private Finance Initiative (PFI), the Government’s scheme for injecting private capital into public projects, is going to get a double dose of positive PR from City lawyers SJ Berwin and Tory MP Michael Jack, financial secretary to the Treasury, in two unrelated tours of the country. The slow take up of PFIs among businesses over […]
A JUDGE who used the term “nigger in the wood pile” in a case in which a black man was seeking damages for alleged malicious prosecution was cleared by the Appeal Court of race prejudice allegations. Judge Bernstein used the expression while summing up to a Liverpool county court in an action where the man, […]
LONDON firm Fisher Mere-dith is to set up its own international child abduction and adoption unit. The four-lawyer unit will be led by partner and child specialist Nina Hansen and will be geared to do both legal aid and private work. Fisher Meredith, one of London’s largest legal aid law firms, is well known for […]
Lord Chancellor Lord Mackay last week officially opened the new Preston combined court complex. The £25 million building houses 10 court rooms, including eight crown courts, one county court and one dual-purpose court. A network of corridors, staircases and lifts provides separate routes to ensure judges, defendants, jury members and the public do not meet […]