This week’s selection of headline-grabbing business news runs the spectrum from large-scale infrastructure projects to tumbling profits at household brand names and on to pension rule changes. For more detail, read on.

Law firms and lawyers have a “collective responsibility” to reduce the pressure people feel to drink alcohol at social and networking events, the body representing junior solicitors has said.

The four-day weekend looms and while it’s hard to imagine doing anything much other than gorging on chocolate and hot cross buns, it’s also an opportunity to catch up on some light reading. 

The Bar Council is moving the timetable of the Pupillage Gateway application system so that it will open in January instead of April from now on, starting in January 2017.

The legal advice centre run by Nottingham Law School has launched a new service to support small businesses, entrepreneurs and charities.

Irwin Mitchell looks set to become the first UK firm to float on the Stock Exchange when Legal Services Act 2007 provisions allowing firms to restructure their partnerships as alternative business structures come into effect in October 2011.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has approved a range of changes that aim to reduce administrative duplication, improve regulation and provide new ways to qualify as a solicitor.

All Bar courses approved by the Bar Standards Board prepare students to pass the same centralised assessments.

Paralegals will regulated for the first time through a voluntary scheme which it is hoped will prove their credentials to wary employers and members of the public.

Magic circle law firm Allen & Overy’s targets to reduce its absolute annual global carbon emissions by 50% by 2030 have been approved by the Science Based Targets initiative (SBTi).

International firms Herbert Smith Freehills and Hogan Lovells are moving to encourage more experienced women lawyers who are on extended career breaks to return to practice.

An interim deal has been agreed between the Ministry of Justice and barristers over a fee dispute, which had disrupted complex fraud trials.

The Law Society recently celebrated International Women's Day with a speed networking event, but within the context of a warning that women solicitors are still not "making it as far as the boardroom in their legal careers".

The Government Legal Service, which is offering opportunities to trainee solicitors and pupil barristers, has been promoted by Attorney General Dominic Grieve to university career advisers.

The College of Law (CoL) has been appointed as the preferred provider of the Professional Skills Course (PSC) for Accutrainee, the legal training organisation.

The London Legal Support Trust is celebrating 10 years of work with legal advice centres, as it plays host to a ‘dazzling decade’ party in October.

Hogan Lovells, one of the leading global law firms, is due to leave its City of London headquarters where it has been based in Atlantic House since 2001. 

Barristers are being encouraged to donate money to an emergency hardship fund, following a prediction from the Bar’s representative body that the demand for financial help will exceed supply.

A team from the University of Law's Manchester centre has won the fourth annual DAC Beachcroft Mooting Shield.