Miami based firm opens offices in Amsterdam and Zurich Miami law firm Greenberg Traurig has blasted into Europe by launching offices in Amsterdam and Zurich simultaneously. The move follows the firm’s decision to abandon plans to open a City office because of the overheated London market. Greenberg Traurig’s president and CEO, Cesar Alvarez, told The […]
Thirty trainees asked to defer 2003 training contracts for £2,500; payment down from £10,000 for last band of deferrals KLegal has asked 30 of its trainees in London and Scotland to defer their 2003 training contracts for a year in return for a £2,500 pay-off. Names were drawn out of a hat because it was […]
Lord Chief Justice admits that litigants need more encouragement to go to mediation The Lord Chief Justice has admitted that his 1999 reforms have not gone “nearly far enough”.At the south east European regional conference on dispute resolution, Lord Woolf admitted that it is “going to take a substantial period of time until we get […]
Cambridge-based Hewitson Becke + Shaw has hired intellectual property partner Mark Elmslie from Minter Ellison in Australia Elmslie spent 12 years in London, including three years as partner with Finers Stephens Innocent, before returning to his native Australia in 2000 to become special counsel to the IP group of Minter Ellison. “Clients are increasingly realising […]
Meridian Law takes ACE’s share of the market Meridian Law has become the sole supplier of software to the Bar after buying out rival provider ACE last Friday. A number of sets had stopped using ACE and transferred to Meridian prior to the takeover when ACE had 30 per cent and Meridian 65 per cent […]
There is a question mark hanging over the future of Harvey Pitt, the recently resigned chairman of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), as to whether the former lawyer plans to return to private practice Pitt, a former partner at Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson, stepped down last week from the chairmanship he had […]
The Aarhus Convention aims to remove barriers to the public’s participation in key environmental matters. Kathy Mylrea finds out whether it’s all it’s cracked up to be The first meeting of the parties to the Aarhus Convention took place on 21-23 October in Lucca, Italy. Attendance at the first meeting was good (Michael Meacher went […]
Hammonds’ management team is gunning to raise profits per partner by at least 45 per cent, to more than £400,000, by April 2003 and has told partners that not achieving this will represent failure The ambitious statement has been made by senior partner Richard Burns and managing partner Chris Jones in a document seen by […]
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer (David Lewis) advised Scottish Widows on the £77.7m sale of Cannock Shopping Centre in Staffordshire, Green Lanes Shopping Centre in Barnstaple and Eastgate Shopping Centre in Gloucester. Eversheds (Richard Stephens) acted for the puchaser Dunwilco (951), a joint venture between HBOS, Merrill Lynch and Catalyst Capital. Lawrence Graham (Andrew Wade) advised the […]
The Lawyer seems to have missed an important name change. While perusing The Guardian last Monday, one of Tulkinghorn’s scribe’s spotted that Mark Stephens had been putting in his two pennies worth over the story of Victoria Beckham’s escape from kidnappers. “We have to make a decision as a society whether we want courts or […]
Unlike Israel and the US, the EU appears to have kept faith with the Palestinian Authority, with the European Commission (EC) spending e7m (£4.5m) on supporting its judicial reforms Brussels’ decision follows a new law guaranteeing the judiciary’s independence, which the aid will reinforce.EU money will fund: systematic training; new procedural laws; improved working conditions, […]
It’s great fun being a managing partner, as it seems all one’s little eccentricities can go unchecked. Take this unnamed example, who runs a large City firm, and plays games of ‘management bingo’ to amuse himself in meetings. His game involves first learning every example of management doublespeak, such as ‘proactive blue sky thinking’ or […]