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. 

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.

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. 

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. 

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

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. 

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.

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. 

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

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

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.

Two magic circle firms have broken ranks with their peers to include partners in their gender pay gap reporting.

Magic circle law firms are taking different approaches to their trainees’ Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) exam results, following the recent round of results released for those who took the SQE1 assessment in January.

In the wake of reports of increasing elitism in the legal profession, magic circle firms Allen & Overy, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Slaughter and May have backed a website designed to boost social mobility.

Magic circle law firm Clifford Chance has announced plans to monitor employee office attendance.