Does my physics degree make me more suited to a niche practice area such as patent law?

Magic circle firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has revealed new “ambitious” global diversity targets with all “key global leadership functions” set to have ethnic diversity and at least 40% women and 40% men by 2023.

The Social Welfare Solicitors Qualification Fund, which is backed by 18 major law firms, has secured funding for its first cohort of social welfare legal workers to begin their journey to qualifying as solicitors via the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE).

Pro bono charity LawWorks has celebrated the outstanding contributions of students and law school staff to pro bono work at its annual awards ceremony.

News of the Sainsbury’s and Asda merger has sent shockwaves through the supermarket sector this week. Designed to fight the pre-eminence of the giant Tesco, as well as helping to see off the Lidl/Aldi success stories, the merger would create a company with 330,000 staff and an annual revenue of around £51 billion. Both supermarkets have vowed that no jobs will be lost, nor stores closed, but MPs have raised concerned about the negative effect on suppliers. For other commercial news, read on.

Liz Truss has been replaced as justice secretary by David Lidington, the MP for Aylesbury who has consistently opposed LGBT rights and also voted in favour of repealing the Human Rights Act.

“I’ve had doors closed because of who I am, but I’ve also had doors opened because of who I am”, says Phil Steventon of The Neurodivergent Lawyer blog.

Law firms need to introduce quotas to make the representation of women at partner and management level more equal after “years of talking” about diversity have failed to effect real change, the founder of The First 100 Years project has said.

Recent research suggests that nearly half of the top 200 UK law firms have won business directly through social media engagement, though fewer than a quarter of these have so far integrated social media into their marketing strategies.

Trevor Sterling, a personal injury solicitor at Moore Barlow, has been elected as the first Black senior partner at a UK top 100 law firm.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has responded to pressure from women’s groups and MPs by promising that his government will revive a key domestic abuse bill that would have introduced protections for victims, but was cancelled due to his decision to shutdown Parliament.

The University of Law – one of the UK’s longest-established providers of legal education – has announced a new scholarship scheme to support students affected by the global pandemic.

Tottenham MP David Lammy has criticised members of the government for wrongly insisting that a lack of diversity among judges is due to a shortage of suitable black and minority ethnic (BAME) candidates.

As a new season and month dawns, your thoughts may be turning to the academic year ahead. If so, why not turn over a new (autumnal) leaf and commit to learning more about the business world that your future clients may inhabit. Here is a lovingly curated selection of news stories from the past week to get you started.

The small window of time between the football-related jubilation of Tuesday night and the football-related anxiety of Saturday afternoon is the perfect opportunity to distract yourself with some of this week’s biggest business stories. Here is our collection for this week.

Leading international law firm Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP has launched a series of ‘resilience’ workshops for university students, which are designed to prepare the next generation of lawyers for the pressures of City practice.

Student volunteers in Bristol have overturned 95% of the decisions made by the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) in their area regarding 200 claimants who had wrongfully been ruled ‘fit for work’.