Real estate and infrastructure

document assess inquiry

Top 100 UK firm fined £100,000 over money laundering breaches

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has fined a UK firm in excess of £100,000 after it was found to have not taken steps to mitigate sanctions risk in historic conveyancing transactions. Ashfords, which has offices in Bristol, Plymouth, Exeter and London, was subject to an SRA investigation after reporting itself to the regulator in 2019. […]

London towers, office City

Trowers redundancies: Another 25 roles at risk

Trowers & Hamlins has kicked off a second round of redundancies in its real estate team, following another consultation in the firm earlier this year. It emerged last month that the first round of cuts had resulted in 25 lawyers, including some partners, exiting the firm.  The latest development means Trowers could be letting go […]

22 Bishopsgate

US firms lead the charge in hunt for new office space

As firms including King & Spalding and Proskauer Rose agree new office deals in London, real estate data for Q3 shows there’s no let-up in demand for plush City space. Data provided by Knight Frank shows that law firms leased over 380,000 sq ft of space in Q3, which was 70 per cent higher than […]

Trowers makes cuts in real estate

A wave of redundancies continues to hit the legal market as Trowers & Hamlins and Mishcon de Reya are the latest to make cuts within their firms. First reported on RollonFriday, Trowers has begun a redundancy consultation that will thin the real estate and real estate finance teams by 25 lawyers, with partners also understood […]

Axiom Ince moves: Two teams join RPC and Mezzle

As the fallout from Axiom Ince continues, UK and UAE firm Mezzle has hired a team from the firm in Birmingham and RPC has bagged a quartet of corporate lawyers in London. Former Axiom lawyer Agnes Gay, who is moving to Mezzle, has spent five years at Axiom Ince (or Axiom DWFM as it was). Her practice […]

Analysis

How not to lose your associates

The exits we saw last year may have slowed a little since the most recent salary war cooled down, but the wider trend is one that dates back years: workers are less loyal than they used to be. Law firms are finding it increasingly difficult to retain their associates at a time when employers offer […]

WhatsApp-ing clients: fair or foul?

Do you WhatsApp your clients? It’s a more divisive question than you might expect. According to a recent poll of conducted by The Lawyer on LinkedIn, while 66 per cent of fee-earners don’t use the messaging service for this purpose, 34 per cent do. And it’s not split along seniority lines: partners, associates, trainees and […]

Beyond the Bubble: Even managing partners need a side-hustle

West Midlands: Everyone’s all about the wellbeing now, but some aspects of it are harder to crack than others – not least, the increasing prevalence of technology in our lives. Lawyers in particular are often desk-bound or required to constantly check their smartphone, and work long into the night in front of a laptop. But […]

National pro bono week: Quinn and Covington lawyers take on Russia

It has been 625 days since Vladimir Putin appeared in a televised broadcast and addressed Ukraine, Russia and the international community to say he would be conducting “a special military operation.”  Putin has refused to call it anything but since then. What we did see on that day was, in fact, the largest military invasion […]

Featured Briefings

End of consultation on the abolition of ASTs – response awaited

By David Perry The recent Government consultation on ending no fault terminations of residential tenancies, which will effectively abolish assured shorthold tenancies, came to a close on 12 October. Many people will be looking to see what, if anything, results from that process. As a generational change in residential letting, many stakeholder groups are likely […]

NPPF: changes to national planning policy on minerals

By Fergus Charlton On 24 July, the government released the long-anticipated revised National Planning Policy Framework (NPPF). Setting the emphasis on building new homes, Secretary of State for Communities, the Rt Hon James Brokenshire MP said: “Fundamental to building the homes our country needs is ensuring that our planning system is fit for the future.” […]

Breaking the chain: Why do Jersey property transactions fall apart

Much focus has been given of late to gazumping and the potential pitfalls of the Jersey conveyancing process. Thankfully in practice the vast majority of transactions do eventually make it across the line and in most cases, completion occurs within the allocated window agreed through the estate agent at the outset. Gazumping, while a genuine […]

Housing white paper – ‘unprecedented steps’

By Hugh Richards The Government has published its Housing White Paper “Fixing Our Broken Housing Market”. It will be recalled that in his speech to the party conference in October 2016, the Secretary of State, Sajid Javid, called for “unprecedented steps” to increase the delivery of new homes – his “number one priority” and a […]