The Law Reform Committee of the Bar Council has announced the topic for its annual essay competition, sponsored by the Bar Council scholarship trust.

A website which enables customers to get in direct contact with barristers has received the support of the Bar Council.

A joint statement was issued on 6 October by the Legal Services Board, the SRA and the Council for Licensed Conveyancers (CLC) to mark the first day that alternative business structures (ABS) and other new forms of legal service business are allowed to operate.

BPP University College of Professional Studies became BPP University on 6 August 2013.

Legal pro bono charity LawWorks is set to feature in a BBC Radio 4 Appeal fronted by the presenter and comedy writer Clive Anderson this Sunday, 22 January. 

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP has announced that its newly qualified solicitor pay will rise to £150,000, as the battle for legal talent in London continues. 

No preamble required: straight in with this week’s essential business reading.

The legal sector is set for another decade of change, with increased consumer protection and provision high up the agenda in the Legal Service Board’s (LSB) new 10-year strategy.

Top City firms Linklaters, Weil Gotshal & Manges and Mills & Reeve have all taken advisory roles in the leading Chinese food company Bright Food's acquisition of a 60% stake in the famous breakfast cereal brand, Weetabix.

Media organisations will be able to broadcast crown court judges’ sentencing remarks to the public for the first time under new draft legislation brought forward by the government.

The Direct Line Group has revealed its intention to branch into legal services, with an application for alternative business structure status set to be submitted before the new year.

On Sunday 1 January Mishcon de Reya LLP and Taylor Vinters LLP completed their merger after it was first announced in September 2021. A joint statement confirmed that more than 200 staff joined Mishcon de Reya, including 145 fee-earners and 60 business operations and legal staff as part of the merger.  

London firm Sprecher Grier Halberstam will merge with Birmingham-based Martineau on 1 December in a move that will take the new firm into the top 70 in the United Kingdom, it has been revealed.

Commerciality; as far as law firms are concerned, you can never have too much of it, nor start developing it too early.

Law firms will often stress that their lawyers need to be 'commercially aware'. This phrase often causes confusion as it means different things to different people. However, in essence, it means that commercial lawyers deal with more than just the law.  

Brexit has this week been interwoven with the appointment of a new prime minister and a major cabinet reshuffle, including a new chancellor of the exchequer. 

In the wake of the release of the Leveson Report last week, the Law Society’s last public debate event of the year will examine the report’s conclusions on British press culture, practices and ethics.

Much-needed domestic abuse legislation could be lost if the Prime Minister, Boris Johnson goes ahead with his plan to prorogue Parliament so that MPs are unable to influence whether the UK exits the European Union without a withdrawal agreement on 31 October.

More solicitors have been encouraged to contribute their views to the legal education and training review, after a disproportionately low number responded to an online survey.

Samuel Linehan, a criminal law pupil, has won £4,000 in the Bar Council’s Law Reform essay competition with his submission, “Putting the wheels back on: a better approach to compensation for miscarriages of justice”.