Two leading City firms have delayed partner promotions due to pandemic pressures.

Ashurst has delayed partner promotions until later this year due to “continuing market uncertainty”. 

The planned Solicitors Qualifying Exam stage one skills assessment will be changed or abandoned after the results of a pilot showed that it disadvantaged BAME candidates.

Legal education provider BARBRI has collaborated with Hall & Stott Publishing on a series of law textbooks for UK law students.

Insurance specialist Horwich Farrelly has become one of the first UK law firms to appoint mental health ‘first aiders’ for the promotion of good mental health at work. 

Shoosmiths, Linklaters LLP and Weightmans LLP have each published record-breaking financial results for the 2023/24 financial year, with Shoosmiths’ revenue surpassing the £200-million mark for the first time. 

Home Secretary Amber Rudd is in contempt of court after ignoring the orders of successive judges not to deport an asylum seeker to Afghanistan, where he faced being killed by the Taliban.  

A well-established set in Lincoln’s Inn, Hardwicke Chambers, is set to change its name to Gatehouse Chambers because the “history did not sit comfortably with our values”, said Brie Stevens-Hoare QC, joint head of chambers.

UK and Ireland law firm Browne Jacobson LLP has announced a new pro bono strategy, in partnership with LawWorks, as part of the firm’s “active commitment to pro bono work”. 

We’ll keep it short this week as many of you are completing vacation scheme or pupillage applications. Commercial awareness is a key attribute that you must demonstrate in your applications as recruiters want to see that you have a knowledge of what is going on in the business industry, and how key issues might affect the law and the businesses that operate within it.

Wigs have been worn by the legal profession in court since the late 17th Century as barristers were viewed as being part of the middle-class society.

Law Students for Climate Accountability (LSCA) has released its 2025 Climate Change Scorecard, a report that grades 100 prestigious law firms from A to F based on their involvement in fossil fuel-related activities over the past five years. 

Crime barristers have threatened to walk out and leave the criminal courts in chaos in protest at a new legal aid payments scheme, with many barristers feeling overwhelmed and at “breaking point”.

Multinational law firm DWF will adopt the Solicitors Qualifying Exam from January 2022 and launch the firm’s new graduate entry-level apprenticeship programme in partnership with BPP University Law School.

Magic circle firm Linklaters has revealed plans to move graduate recruitment online this autumn subject to the UK’s lockdown restrictions.

The winner of the Future Legal Mind Award 2021 has been announced as BPP University Bar Student Elena Michael, who impressed the judges with her ideas on regulating the UK’s commercialised porn industry. Elena will receive £2,000 towards her career.

What are the principal obligations of a carrier under the Rotterdam Rules? How do these differ from the obligations of a carrier under the Hague-Visby and Hamburg Rules?

This week we launched the latest episode of The LawCareers.Net Podcast which covers all things commercial awareness. Give it a listen to find out more about the importance of being commercially aware, and to hear a case study in the airline industry that can be analysed in a commercial way.