Trainee and newly qualified solicitors think that firms should do more to provide training and support on stress at work, a survey by the Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) has revealed.  

In addition to legal knowledge, firms expect their lawyers to have commerciality and business nous – a failure to do so leaves clients unhappy and deals undone.

The first charity in the UK to provide legal aid to the social care sector has been launched in partnership with leading City law firms.

The Law Society has published its Annual Statistical Report for 2013, which has confirmed that the number of training contracts on offer has increased up to 5,302 following the decline of previous years.

Former competition lawyer Mia Forbes Pirie has been named UK Independent Mediator 2021 by Corporate International.

The Solicitors Regulation Authority has approved alternative business structure licences for the AA and over-50s specialist Saga.

CILEx president Nick Hanning has urged Justice Secretary Chris Grayling to make further concessions to his controversial plans to change legal aid, following a partial U-turn on the government’s proposal to deny legal aid recipients the right to choose a lawyer.

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 Solicitors Regulation Authority has called for itself to be made fully independent from the Law Society as part of the governance review being carried out by the legal profession’s super-regulator, the Legal Services Board.  

The SRA will be making unannounced visits to 100 "randomly selected" law firms in order to assess their compliance with diversity reporting requirements, it was announced at the Law Society Firms Diversity Forum meeting in September.

The second Law Society free public debate of 2012 will focus on intellectual property and ambush marketing, which are both hot topics this year as a result of the European football championships (Euro 2012) and the impending London Olympic Games.

A new skills and training initiative for the legal profession has made over 100 paralegal apprenticeships available across nine law firms in the Greater Manchester area.

Magic circle firm Linklaters LLP has announced redundancies across all three of its China offices, reducing staff by 15%.  

Manchester law firm Croftons has created an iPhone app designed to help claimants gather accurate evidence and information at the scene of an accident at work or on the road which could result in a personal injury claim.

The bodies representing solicitors, barristers and chartered legal executives have pledged to “achieve gender equality in the senior ranks” by getting firms and chambers to sign up to specific gender targets.

The National Accident Helpline has launched the Future Legal Mind Award 2016, an essay competition open to undergraduate law and Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) students. 

Lawyers at magic circle firm Linklaters LLP are now able to work from home without having to provide an explanation why. The changes to policy mean that trainees and junior lawyers will be able to request working from home, while previously the firm followed the statutory requirement of employees having to have been employed for 26 weeks before being eligible to make a request.

As lawyers become increasingly sucked into the phone-hacking scandal, law firm Harbottle & Lewis has been given permission to defend itself over Rupert Murdoch's claim that the firm made a "major mistake" in the legal advice it gave the corporation in 2007 in respect of an internal investigation into phone hacking.

Magic circle giant Clifford Chance is piloting a new flexible working scheme where some lawyers at the firm will be invited to apply for a two-month unpaid sabbatical.