Monckton Chambers junior Jon Turner had a key role in the biggest competition case this year – the Competition Appeal Tribunal’s (CAT) hearing of JJB Sports and all:sports’ appeal against the Office of Fair Trading’s (OFT) decision in the football shirts price-fixing case. Turner was led by Stephen Morris QC of 20 Essex Street for […]
Colin Nicholls must win the accolade of humanitarian barrister of the year. In his capacity as chairman of the prestigious Commonwealth Lawyers Association – which exists to maintain the rule of law in the Commonwealth – he acted in 2004 as joint amicus curiae in the case brought by detainees at Guantanamo Bay against US […]
Testimony to the breadth of Clare Montgomery QC’s skills as a barrister is exemplified by her involvement in two of 2004’s leading cases, one commercial, the other criminal. Montgomery continues to act for the liquidators of BBCI in its mammoth ongoing malfeasance action against the Bank of England, and was also instructed to act for […]
A man rarely afraid of a fresh challenge, John McDonnell this year managed to set up from scratch a new set of chambers, Thirteen Old Square, house it with 14 tenants and equip it with ultra-modern technology while maintaining a first-class practice. A bold move in the current climate, but in 2005 McDonnell expects the […]
It was a vintage year for patent disputes, with two House of Lords judgments and the titanic Cambridge Antibody Technology v Abbott Biotechnology rounding off proceedings. A select bunch of intellectual property silks have dominated proceedings, but David Kitchin QC just gets the nod after winning the landmark Kirin-Amgen v TKT on behalf of TKT. […]
Not satisfied with being one of the bar’s top earners, with an annual take-home pay of some £2m, this year Dame Elizabeth Gloster rose further up the slippery ladder when she was appointed the first female judge of the Commercial Court. The post has particular kudos, as the court oversees the country’s largest cases in […]
Linda Dobbs hit the headlines in early autumn when her appointment to the High Court bench was announced. Taking her seat in the Queen’s Bench Division, Dobbs became the first person from an ethnic minority to reach this level of the judiciary and is one of only 10 women in the High Court. The significance […]
No 5 Chambers in Birmingham owes much of its turnover growth in the past year (up 21.3 per cent on the previous year to £21m) to the improvements handed down by Anthony Barker QC, the set’s current head of its criminal group, from his time as chambers head between 1995 and 2002. His pioneering work […]
A good year for the College of Law was topped by its capture of Allen & Overy (A&O), Clifford Chance and Linklaters for its new bespoke LPC courses. Professor Scott Slorach, director of vocational programmes, is responsible for the strategic planning and management of the LPC, which has around 4,000 students at its five branches […]
BPP Law School has had a storming year under the guidance of chairman Carl Lygo. In March, legal education was all shook up when three firms broke away from the consortium of eight top firms signed up to the ‘City LPC’, with both the College of Law and BPP winning out. While Allen & Overy, […]
Nearly five years ago, a heavily pregnant Yolande Beckles marched into Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and told Hugh Crisp that his firm was suffering for its failure to recruit non-white, non-privileged trainees. She walked out with a £10,000 cheque and Global Graduates was officially off the ground. Today, Beckles commands a staff of 15, and Global […]
It was one of the highest-profile cases of the year, and well and truly put Clintons partner Liz Vernon on the map. Not that she was anonymous beforehand – Vernon played a key role in the divorce of another reasonably famous couple: the Prince and Princess of Wales. But it was the divorce of Arsenal […]