The chair of Parliament’s justice select committee has called for fee-charging McKenzie Friends to be banned after the High Court ruled that an unqualified “legal adviser” was negligent in his handling of a clinical negligence case.

Leaked data reveals that top government lawyers have been offered an average 16% pay increase but a third of the Government Legal Department’s workforce have been excluded from the deal.  

A senior family court judge has admitted that it feels “shaming” to preside over cases where people are forced to represent themselves, in the latest warning about the social costs of legal aid cuts. 

Senior associates are reportedly the least satisfied cohort of fee earners at UK law firms, according to a recent Leading Teams report.  

What do trustees need to think about when selling their charity's property?

A decision by the Bar Standards Board on an unfunded pupillage has been upheld by the Bar's appellate body, the Inns of Court.

Sarah Walker, a barrister at Selborne Chambers, talks about the importance of mini-pupillages, the type of work she gets involved with as a commercial chancery disputes barrister, work/life balance and more in this Meet the Lawyer interview. 

Weighing in at around 700 pages of useful information, this year’s edition of The Training Contract & Pupillage Handbook (TCPH) is finally here, resplendent in eye-catching red. 

What is second-screen technology and how should it be regulated?

Transport is multifaceted and covers areas of the economy such as aviation, logistics, rail, shipping and infrastructure. As energy (eg, electricity and fuel) directly impacts how transport can be used, these two sectors are greatly intertwined. Transport is also heavily regulated, with the concerns of clients typically relating to regulatory change, increasing insurance risk and liabilities, and a need for innovation and new routes to finance.

As Bitcoin hit an all-time high of just more than $50,000 this February, cryptocurrency and blockchain technology inches ever closer to mainstream adoption. Like other industries, technology has been affected in countless ways by the pandemic. Although, unlike many, this hasn’t been negative. Despite global market uncertainty, the pandemic has presented a unique opportunity for an agile tech sector to pick up the pieces and fill market gaps. 

The hardest hit by both the pandemic and online revolution, the retail and consumer (R&C) sector is one of the most challenging to follow due to how rapidly it changes. For the same reason, the sector is one of the most exciting. 

Media is something that we, whether intentionally or unintentionally, engage with daily. From shuffling your Spotify playlist to waiting impatiently to skip past a YouTube ad – there are countless legal hurdles that players within the media industry must overcome to reach the public. But what does ‘media’ mean in this context? 

The financial sector is arguably the most intimidating and difficult to become acquainted with. Like technology, finance is surrounded by jargon and buzzwords: bonds, securities, hedge funds, capital markets, IPOs… Once you begin to understand one, something else equally as confusing rears its head. 

The first thing that comes to mind for many when contemplating the energy sector is traditional oil and gas. At once, this brings forth mental images of colossal, spider-like oil rigs burrowing into the darkness of our oceans. Although oil and gas indeed dominate the sector, they are just one cog in a wheel of energy sources including nuclear power, renewables such as wind, hydro and solar, as well as electricity. 

Let’s be honest, most people hate writing cover letters. They stare at the blinking cursor, wonder how to magically sell themselves and end up either writing a stiff, robotic essay – or a copy-and-paste template that sounds like it came straight from a 1998 careers handbook. However, here’s the thing – when done right, a cover letter is one of the few places in the job hunt where you get to sound like an actual human instead of a list of bullet-point achievements.

When's broker commission a secret?

An exciting new public legal education project called Take to Law has seen secondary school students across London meeting judges, solicitors and barristers to learn more about the legal profession.

The Bar Council and Bar Standards Boards have jointly published the second Bar Barometer, an annual report on statistical trends within the Bar.