Practice Management
M&A: Big firms buy small as listed legal practices swap advisory business
Large firms swallowing up small practices has been the theme of a spate of mergers and acquisitions, while one listed law firm has picked up a corporate advisory business sold by another.
Flood of lawyers swapping traditional firms for fee-share alternatives
Lawyers continue to leave traditional law firms for fee-share practices in large numbers, with one of them hiring more last year than any law firm in the land.
1,000% interest income rise masks profit falls at SME law firms
Interest income at small and medium-sized law firms surged by 1,000% last year, research for the Law Society has found, masking a significant fall in profits.
Four out of 10 big law firms have ‘energy-burning’ websites
More than 40% of the top 200 law firms have been awarded an ‘F’ rating (the worst) for the energy used by their websites.
Simpson Millar buys personal injury practice out of administration
National firm Simpson Millar has rescued personal injury firm Novum Law out of administration, with the funder that owns the former also a creditor of the latter.
Big firm moves away from PQE in bid for 50% female partners by 2029
National law firm TLT is “confident” that it will reach its target of having equal numbers of male and female partners in five years’ time, moving away from PQE as a metric.
“Herd instinct” of barristers can help close gender pay gap
The “herd instinct” of barristers can be used to help allocate work fairly and close the gender pay gap in the profession as a result, a chambers director has suggested.
Seven out of 10 professionals experience “discriminatory behaviour”
More than seven out of 10 professionals have experienced “discriminatory or exclusionary behaviour in the workplace” in the past five years, a major study that included lawyers has found.
Failure to engage on diversity “should feature in performance reviews”
Failure by lawyers to engage on diversity issues should be “taken into account” and have “consequences” in performance reviews, a report has recommended.
Partner caution and client demands “limiting law firm growth”
The combination of a challenging economy, partner caution about investment, and changing demands of clients will be drags on growth this year, according to a survey of large law firms.
Blog
Change in regulator shouldn’t make AML less of a priority
While SRA fines for AML have been climbing, many in the profession aren’t confident they will get any relief from the FCA, a body used to dealing with a highly regulated industry.
There are 17 million wills waiting to be written
The main reason cited by people who do not have a will was a lack of awareness as to how to arrange one. As a professional community, we seem to be failing to get our message across.
The case for a single legal services regulator: why the current system is failing
From catastrophic firm collapses to endemic compliance failures, the evidence is mounting that the current multi-regulator model is fundamentally broken.
