On Saturday 25 February the first CityLawLIVE student conference was held in London, bringing together around 160 students keen on a career in the City with firm representatives and industry experts.

The Bar Council has warned that the government's plans to introduce competitive tendering for legal aid contracts and deny defendants the right to choose a lawyer will undermine the UK justice system's good reputation among the international community.

Students on Manchester Metropolitan University's BTPC course and police trainees recently took part in a full-scale mock trial, offering both sets of aspiring professionals the taste of their career future.

Pinsent Masons has been named the UK’s most inclusive employer by LGBT-rights charity Stonewall, while Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) and Baker McKenzie are the other law firms to rank in the top 10 in Stonewall’s top 100 employers index for 2019.

The City of London Corporation’s plans for a new development called the ‘Justice Quarter’, which will include an innovative 18-courtroom facility, new headquarters for the City of London Police and new east-west links through the site, as well as creating 400 new jobs, received the go ahead in April.

The new Solicitors Qualifying Exam that all candidates will have to pass to become solicitors will not be introduced until 2021, while fees to take the assessment could range from £3,000 up to £4,500, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has revealed.

International law firm DWF has reported that the impact of coronavirus was balanced out by the firm’s strong trading in the first three months of the new financial year.

Kingsley Napley LLP has announced its collaboration with legal tech startup Let’s Think to create a knowledge amplification tool, The Knowledge Exchange. According to the firm, the tool is the first behavioural science AI based knowledge amplification tool within the legal industry.

The Law Society has told the House of Commons Justice Select Committee that the Ministry of Justice's proposed fee cuts for criminal legal aid pose "significant risks" to the criminal justice system.

Scottish law firm Biggart Baillie has been tasked with advising administrators from Duff & Phelps regarding the case of Glasgow Rangers Football Club, which went into administration on 14 February.

The College of Law will provide a programme which combines Legal Practice Course and Master of Laws qualifications from 2013.

It’s been a rough week: Glastonbury is over for another year, England’s Lionesses were knocked out of the World Cup by the USA and to top it all off, Facebook and Instagram have been hit with a glitch that prevents images from loading on the social media sites.

Bishop & Sewell and Monro Wright & Wasbrough have announced their merger, as part of Bishop & Sewell’s planned expansion strategy.

Leading law firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Shearman & Sterling have joined the legal client list of Rare, the specialist graduate diversity recruitment company.

In an unprecedented day of action, hundreds of barristers and solicitors have marched on Westminster today, railing against Chris Grayling's recent confirmation that £215 million will be shaved from the criminal legal aid bill.

It’s been a bad week for Facebook, with news that 50 million of its US users may have had their data mined and misused, with Facebook’s knowledge. Zuckerberg has finally come out and made a statement about how sorry the company is about the whole debacle, but advertisers are demanding that Facebook change its ways. Could this be the catalyst for a sea change at the social media giant? For other commercially interesting topics, read on.

Details of the 22nd UK Pro Bono Week have been revealed, with the focus on bringing legal professionals together to make a sustained impact around three cross-cutting themes.