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Law schools are not taking advantage of the “enormous regulatory freedom” they have and instead are largely all offering the same kind of law degree, new research has found.

A legal secretary who claimed she felt humiliated and insulted by a colleague commenting on her 50th birthday has lost her claim for harassment and age discrimination against the law firm.

Transferring the ownership of law firms to employee ownership trusts (EOTs) boosts staff loyalty by giving them more security if the firm is sold, the chief executive of the latest firm to create an EOT has said.

Apprenticeships offer significant benefits to both young people and their employers, allowing law firms to plan their staffing several years in advance, a conference heard last week.

The profession needs to keep working to address unconscious bias, as “we have not yet reached the stage where a successful woman is accepted as the norm”, Dame Heather Hallett said last week.

An employment tribunal has rejected all the claims of discrimination, victimisation and whistleblowing made by a barrister who also acted as the chambers manager.

City clients will make allowances for a lawyer who has made personal health and taking steps to avoid burnout a top priority, a former corporate partner-turned-fitness entrepreneur has said.

A former senior in-house lawyer at Shell cannot rely on a leaked internal email or an overheard pub conversation in his discrimination claim against the company, the Court of Appeal has ruled.

Big law firms are more likely to introduce salaried partnership status if they have large numbers of women lawyers – but research finds no evidence that this is used to discriminate against them.

A partner at Eversheds Sutherland was found dead hours after being suspended from work for alleged sexual behaviour towards women colleagues at a Christmas party, an inquest heard last week.

Barristers from Exchange Chambers have teamed up with Lancaster University Law School to develop and deliver an undergraduate advocacy module for students.

LawCare has today launched a new advocacy scheme to mark World Mental Health Day. It has appointed 14 champions from a wide variety of legal backgrounds.

Leading trade union law firm Thompsons is facing a strike over pay – and pickets lines at its offices across the country – organised by a trade union. It blames the squeeze in PI for not meeting the demands.

A former salaried partner, permitted by an employment tribunal earlier this year to sue her law firm as an employee, has lost all but one of her claims.

Women lawyers returning to work after maternity leave face “not so much a glass ceiling as a sticky floor” and should recognise that a perfect work-life balance is impossible, a conference was told last week.