As reported in Legal Week, law firms Eversheds, HBJ Gateley Wareing and Trowers & Hamlins are advising football clubs Tottenham Hotspur and West Ham on their competing bids to take over the 2012 Olympic stadium when the games finish.

Several firms have been shortlisted for honours at the National Council for Work Experience Awards 2013, now in their 10th year.

Controversial plans to improve access to the legal profession by forcing law firms and chambers to publish internal diversity and social mobility data on their websites have been approved by the Legal Services Board.

A panel of 18 firms and chambers has been set up to provide free legal advice to athletes, coaches, team officials, national Olympic committees, national Paralympic committees and international federations at the 2012 Olympics.

The bodies representing solicitors, barristers and chartered legal executives have pledged to “achieve gender equality in the senior ranks” by getting firms and chambers to sign up to specific gender targets.

Law firms and barristers’ chambers need to improve the diversity of their workforces or face having quotas imposed on them, the Black Solicitors Network has said.

White & Case LLP recently published a 100% retention rate for its trainees who are due to qualify in September, bringing the firm’s overall retention rate for 2024 to 87%.

The Voluntary Code of Practice for the Recruitment of Trainee Solicitors has been changed to allow firms to recruit trainees from the second year of university onwards. 

The University of Law (ULaw) and leading law firm White & Case LLP have agreed an exclusive partnership, in which ULaw will deliver training and development to the firm’s future trainees to prepare them for the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) and legal practice. 

Law firms including Allen & Overy, Pinsent Masons and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner have increased the salaries for their newly qualified (NQ) lawyers in the UK in response to NQ salary surges in the US.

A survey run by the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) found that nearly 80% of respondents had gained some unpaid legal work experience, but that fewer than half believed that their experiences had benefited their career prospects.

Aspiring Solicitors, launched in November 2013 by former Norton Rose Fulbright associate, Chris White, has recently gained support from a number of high-profile law firms.

Not on quite the same scale as the desperate times of 2009, but a couple of firms have recently been asking their future trainees to defer their places in exchange for a cash payment, citing "business activity levels" as the reason.

Online application system provider Apply4Law reports that several of its client firms have opened their 2013 summer vacation scheme forms.

Staff at international disputes firm Hausfeld have been told they can work from home until at least the end of the year. This announcement comes after the practice acknowledged that many employees are not willing to commute into the office via public transport until there is a covid-19 vaccine. 

Nabarro LLP, Simmons & Simmons and Slater & Gordon have been singled out for praise at the National Council for Work Experience Awards 2013, marking them out as some of the UK's best internship providers.

While a number of big firms have begun to recall furloughed staff as coronavirus lockdown measures begin to ease, the year ahead remains uncertain for hundreds of solicitors.

Baker McKenzie has become the latest firm to reinstate newly qualified (NQ) lawyers’ salaries to pre-pandemic levels, after a reduction of 3% last June. Meanwhile, Irwin Mitchell is expecting to open its 15 offices at 50% capacity from 21 June. 

Law firms and their staff have been putting in extraordinary efforts to support their local communities during the coronavirus pandemic, according to reports.