The Employment Bill 2001 makes a number of changes to the legislative framework of individual employment law. The most startling relate to unfair dismissal cases. Part 1 makes significant changes to parental leave and pay, to take effect from 2003. Ordinary maternity leave is extended from 18 weeks to 26 weeks. Statutory maternity pay (SMP) […]
The London office of US firm Altheimer & Gray has beaten City competitors to win work from the Privatisation Agency of Serbia. London office partner Nick Towle has been seconded to the agency for three months to prepare for a wholesale privatisation of state assets.Towle will advise on building a database of transaction documents and […]
At a particularly jolly lunch last week, three partners from a thriving mid-size City firm were hooting with laughter about the number of pointless takeover approaches they had had. “Mind you,” confided one of the lawyers wistfully, “it’d be great to get a big cheque from a load of Americans, and then wave goodbye. The […]
Clifford Chance partners like to have a bit of a laugh – even at the due diligence stage of deals, which is not particularly known for its entertainment value. Apparently, a while back, one set of lawyers based in the firm’s Brazilian wing decided to have a bit of a wheeze with a non-Portuguese-speaking partner […]
On the subject of food, Tulkinghorn was chatting to Mark Stewart, banking partner of Clifford Chance, recently about cooking. Stewart, who claims that his wife has cooked for him just once in 18 years of marriage, is a bit of a whizz in the kitchen. How did he learn to cook? asked the culinary flop […]
If Allen & Overy wants to move to Spitalfields it will have to win over the residents. Jon Robins meets the protesters mounting the campaign against the magic circle firm The long-running saga over the development of Spitalfields has been billed as the battle of the ‘beads and bangles’ – people of the East End […]
Radical shift to merit-based pay structure as management looks outwards to Europe Eversheds is voting on a new system of profit sharing that will move the firm dramatically away from the present lockstep system.The new setup will make the merit-based element in excess of 30 per cent of the balance after fixed-share and bonus elements […]
Birmingham sets 4 Fountain Court and Coleridge Chambers are set to merge, producing greater competition for the enormous St Philips Chambers and 5 Fountain Court. The new set will be called Citadel Chambers and will cover crime, civil and licensing work.The heads of the two chambers, Coleridge’s Simon Brand and 4 Fountain Court’s John Saunders […]
Ashurst Morris Crisp has moved a group of assistants out of corporate to help cope with the slowdown in M&A. The firm says that the move will also help with a steep rise in international finance and energy and projects work.Senior partner Geoffrey Green said: “We’ve redeployed some people from less busy parts of the […]
Fyfe Ireland is a small firm that is thinking big and thriving off its captive market Founded in the 1830s, Edinburgh firm Fyfe Ireland developed organically until the mid-1980s, when it became one of the first Scottish mergers, creating Bird Semple Fyfe Ireland. But the synergy between the Glasgow and Edinburgh firms was not what […]
The Norton Rose lawyers gathered last week with The Lawyer reporters were no shrinking violets. Clearly knowing their interlocutory relief from their asset tracing, they could navigate a courtroom with the fearlessness of a predator. With an elegance reminiscent of a Roman army victory, champagne and the finest wines were served alongside the tastiest meats […]
When Tulkinghorn was young, food was beef and potatoes followed by bread and butter. Choice was rather limited then. Now it seems that the younger generation is overwhelmed by the multitude of frivolous foreign foods available in restaurants.Take the children of Bird & Bird chief executive David Kerr, for example. Living in Chelsea, on the […]