Development of the High Street Starter Kit (HSSK) software – one of Law Society president Tony Girling’s flagship schemes – is to be discontinued because of a “clear loss of confidence” in the project. Law Society council members voted overwhelmingly last week to cut their losses and ditch the software, whose brief history was dogged […]
Two mercantile courts to be set up in Newcastle and Leeds will be headed by long standing Clifford Chance partner Christopher McGonigal. The courts, at Leeds and Newcastle district registries, have been welcomed by practitioners and businesses in the region who have been campaigning for them since the end of 1994. At the moment practitioners […]
City shipping firm Sinclair Roche & Temperley made an out-of-court settlement to a second former assistant solicitor in its property department, it has emerged. It is believed Olienka Shaw was paid around £4,000 in settlement of a claim of race discrimination last November against the head of the commercial property department Anthony Hurndall. Two weeks […]
h The £248m shortfall in contributions to the Solicitors Indemnity Fund (SIF) is not due to a mathematical error but to a new “pessimistic” way of forecasting, according to David Ward, chair of the SIF review committee investigating the miscalculation which was announced in January. Ward was presenting an interim report to concerned Law Society […]
Chris Fogarty reports
M Lambeth Council chief executive Heather Rabbatts has been forced to give up a £60,000 private directorship job after objections from councillors. Rabbatts, a barrister, wanted to take up an offer to sit on the board of Centrica, the gas supply and trading arm of British Gas, for a three-year term. However, Conservative and Liberal Democrat councillors were concerned about potential conflicts of interest and the impact on her council work.
Barclays lost 44 lawyers in its legal team over 2023, almost four times the average number of leavers across the UK’s top banks. The banks with the second highest number of leavers is tied between HSBC and NatWest, with 12 lawyer exits each, according to indicative data. On the other end of the scale, Royal […]
CMS’s promotion numbers have ebbed slightly in its latest round seeing 10 elevated to the partnership in the UK and a total of 54 globally. In 2023, CMS promoted 65 lawyers to partner globally, with 16 of these in the UK, compared with 40 in mainland Europe. For this year the UK cohort is made […]
Another partner from Milbank’s financial restructuring team is set to leave the firm, this time joining Allen & Overy ahead of its merger with Shearman & Sterling. Karen McMaster is the latest partner loss from Milbank following last month’s news of a structured finance team led by partner John Goldfinch moving to Allen & Overy, soon […]
Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has promoted 27 lawyers to partnership, with eight making the grade in London. This year’s cohort is smaller than last year, when 32 promotions were announced, but it brings the figure back in line with pre-pandemic rounds. Over half of this year’s cohort has been promoted in the UK and Australia, […]
Nearly 200 law students were incorrectly told they had failed their first set of Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) exams, in what the chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has called “the most serious operational mistake that we’ve made in the last two and half years.” Kaplan, the exam administrator for the SQE, has […]
This report contains: an overview of the history of UK and US firm in Russia an analysis of the opportunities, challenges and litigation brought on by sanctions regimes a summary of the firms acting in Russian litigation in London
This report contains: an analysis of 15 UK firms’ cash flow management and lock-up trends over the past five years lock-up correlated with profitability to demonstrate the impact of strong financial management for firms’ bottom line details on the adoption of technology by firms to make their financial management more efficient
This report contains: an overview of the international strategies of the Iberian firms in The Lawyer‘s European 100 an analysis of the expansion strategies of Spanish and Portuguese-heritage firms in key jurisdictions outside of Iberia
This report contains: an analysis of the Scottish legal market as a whole, covering key locations and sectors the challenges and opportunities of doing business in the country analysis of the Scottish independent firms’ efficiency
This report contains: a look at the profitability and growth of Quinn Emanuel’s London office since its opening in 2008 an analysis of Quinn’s bench strength and how it weighs up against competitors an overview of Quinn’s practice in London
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On Tuesday last week (9 April), the SRA sought to quell a rising tide of discontent around the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). In its most recent SQE annual report, SRA chief executive Paul Philip said the public and profession could have “confidence” in this “rigorous assessment”. That confidence was short-lived. Yesterday (15 April), Philip was […]
For one firm, the pan-Nordic dream is dead. For another, it’s just begun. Hannes Snellman’s announcement that its Stockholm and Helsinki offices will be going their separate ways later this year represented the end of a strategic gamble that started 16 years ago. Back then, its leadership bet that opening in Stockholm (2008) and Copenhagen […]
It seems that one of the chief attributes of managing partners is wild optimism. You can’t move for law firm leaders committing their firms to hardcore five-year targets – particularly in the upper mid-tier, where we’re hearing of plans to double or even triple revenues by the end of the decade. We’d like some of […]
What do Southend-on-Sea and Slough have in common? The answer is that they are the largest urban settlements in Britain without a UK200 law firm. The denizens of these benighted places have to make do without so much as a solitary capital markets lawyer to keep the wheels of commerce turning. Can you imagine? Perhaps […]
It’s new partner season for UK firms, when hundreds of happy associates are granted new status, obligations and bragging rights. Most firms lag behind Kirkland & Ellis, though, which made up 26 in London this year alone. Like the Roman Empire, Kirkland has always made generous grants of citizenship to expand its borders; the more […]
Barclays lost 44 lawyers in its legal team over 2023, almost four times the average number of leavers across the UK’s top banks. The banks with the second highest number of leavers is tied between HSBC and NatWest, with 12 lawyer exits each, according to indicative data. On the other end of the scale, Royal […]
CMS’s promotion numbers have ebbed slightly in its latest round seeing 10 elevated to the partnership in the UK and a total of 54 globally. In 2023, CMS promoted 65 lawyers to partner globally, with 16 of these in the UK, compared with 40 in mainland Europe. For this year the UK cohort is made […]
Another partner from Milbank’s financial restructuring team is set to leave the firm, this time joining Allen & Overy ahead of its merger with Shearman & Sterling. Karen McMaster is the latest partner loss from Milbank following last month’s news of a structured finance team led by partner John Goldfinch moving to Allen & Overy, soon […]
Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has promoted 27 lawyers to partnership, with eight making the grade in London. This year’s cohort is smaller than last year, when 32 promotions were announced, but it brings the figure back in line with pre-pandemic rounds. Over half of this year’s cohort has been promoted in the UK and Australia, […]
Nearly 200 law students were incorrectly told they had failed their first set of Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) exams, in what the chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has called “the most serious operational mistake that we’ve made in the last two and half years.” Kaplan, the exam administrator for the SQE, has […]
