A legal offshoot has been launched by trade union United Voices of the World (UVW) in order to represent all workers in the legal sector. Legal Sectors Workers United (LSWU) claims to “organise workers in the legal sector, for the benefit and protection of the less privileged”.

Why should businesses register a trademark?

Companies around the world have taken a hit following the outbreak of covid-19 last year. But what aspects of the pandemic impacted these companies? What can they do to facilitate their recovery? And what might they need to prepare for going forward? These are all questions you can be asking yourself to help you think more commercially. Read this week’s commercial round-up below and then start analysing one of the stories in more depth.

US trade sanctions: should non-US reinsurers be running scared?

The department for business, innovation and skills has published new assessment plans and standards for legal apprenticeships following ministerial approval. 

A US law firm which only acts for companies in the cannabis industry is set to launch a UK office, in a move which is bound to put some anti-marijuana campaigners’ noses out of joint.

The 15-strong intake of trainee solicitors at Knights LLP have all been recruited from the firm’s paralegal workforce.

Both Shearman & Sterling LLP and K&L Gates have confirmed that they will take on more trainees in the upcoming recruitment cycles.

How does agile working impact trainees who are beginning their careers in commercial law?

A survey has found that the proportion of trainees who stay with their firms after qualifying has recovered to 80% in 2011, marking a 5% increase on the figures from 2009 and 2010.

The Law Society Gazette reports that this year, the proportion of trainees being retained at the top City firms has increased to an average of 83%.

A trainee solicitor has taken the well-trodden path from law to politics by becoming the mayor of Frodsham in Cheshire.

Leeds-based firm Walker Morris has announced it will award travel bursaries of £1,000 to three of its future trainees as part of a wider support programme.

Mishcon de Reya has confirmed that it will offer training contracts only to those attending its vacation scheme.

Herbert Smith Freehills LLP has confirmed that it will allow trainee solicitors from its London and Hong Kong offices to do an overseas secondment in Australia.

Trainees from DWF Group Limited, Shoosmiths and Squire Patton Boggs (UK) LLP share how they’re finding LawCareersNetLIVE – from speaking to students on the stand to reflecting on the value of the day. Some also look back on attending earlier in their legal journey as delegates, and the support it offered during the application process.

Junior lawyers can now defer compulsory Professional Skills Course modules for 12 months, as the Solicitors Regulation Authority responds to the pandemic and relaxes professional training rules.  

Law degrees are offered at Queen’s University Belfast and Ulster University in Northern Ireland. 

The ‘standard’ route to qualification that most Scottish solicitors take is to do a four-year undergraduate degree in Scots law, followed by a mandatory one-year course called the Diploma in Professional Legal Practice and finally a two-year ‘traineeship’ at a solicitors’ firm.

I'm finishing my final year of a non-law degree. Is the application process for a vacation scheme or training contract more difficult or different for non-law students?