Freshfields and Slaughter and May have published their pay gap reports for the year, joining fellow magic circle firm Clifford Chance, which released its pay gap information last week.

The five ‘magic circle’ firms have revealed their partner promotions for 2019, with women making up just 29% of this year’s promotions.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP has announced that its newly qualified solicitor pay will rise to £150,000, as the battle for legal talent in London continues. 

Allen & Overy LLP has introduced an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot named Harvey to complete various tasks and save time “at all levels”. 

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is set to recruit its first solicitor apprentices in September 2025, joining Linklaters LLP and Allen & Overy LLP as the third magic circle law firm to embrace this alternative route. 

The newly qualified (NQ) solicitor ‘pay war’ continues as Linklaters LLP and Allen & Overy LLP each increase NQ lawyer salaries to £125,000 to match magic circle counterparts Clifford Chance and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP.

Clifford Chance and A&O Shearman become the latest magic circle law firms to increase pay for newly qualified (NQ) solicitors to £150,000, after their counterparts announced similar moves in recent weeks. 

Visualisation software StructureFlow, a tech start-up created by previous magic circle lawyer Tim Follet, has received a £3 million investment boost.

Members of the Public and Commercial Services are urging the government to rethink its plans to digitalise the courts through the launch of its Common Platform. 

Staff at the magistrates’ court are set to begin a nine-day strike from the 10th to the 18th of September, adding to existing disruption in the UK’s criminal justice system. 

I very much enjoy the variation, both in the type of work and the subject matter, and I like being able to work on my own and decide when I work.

A major 16-month judicial review of Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s decision to cut £321 million from NHS’s community pharmacy budget has ended with a High Court judgment in favour of the government. 

A personal injury solicitor has become one of the youngest people in the country to run a major law firm. 

Leading legal lender VFS Legal has gone into administration, leaving law firms at a loss for financing.

Some 70% of first-six pupil barristers in 2011-12 enrolled on the BPTC without having secured pupillage, according to the joint annual report made by the Bar Council and the Bar Standards Board earlier this month.

Reported instances of bullying and harassment at the Bar have increased in recent years, according to a survey of barristers’ working lives by the Bar Council.

Stress, workload and a lack of work-life balance caused by funding cuts are taking a heavy toll on barristers and are leading some to seek a career change, according to a new report. 

Is too much hype a challenge facing legal technology?