I took a little time to browse the Bar’s working life survey. It’s a large survey. Although it’s not immediately clear how representative it is, almost 3,300 barristers completed it. Here are some of the things I noted (this is a rather idiosyncratic list so read the report if you want a fuller view):
One of the interesting sub-plots of the Big Law vs New Law debate is the way in which workers (partners and their equivalents, salaried partners, employees) are motivated.
I recently finished Wolf Hall by Hilary Mantel, a truly brilliant novel about the ascent of Thomas Cromwell to political and legal power in Tudor England. There is something of the intrigue and drama of that in Confidence Games: Lawyers, Accountants, and the Tax Shelter Industry by Tanina Rostain and Milton C. Regan. The book is …
Continue reading “Guest post: Snake Hall – the games tax lawyers have played”
The ethical dimensions of in-house practice are a significant source of academic and practical interest, as the recent investigation of GM suggests. I have the pleasure of doing two projects where I engage with in-house lawyers on ethical questions: one on the ethics of legal practice and the other on legal risk. So it was …
Continue reading “Guest post: Is sustainability improving corporate and professional ethics?”
The practice of law has flipped from vocation to business. Law firms and individual lawyers are measured explicitly in predominantly economic terms.
UCL’s Richard Moorhead argues the integrity and professionalism that City lawyers take for granted is all too easily swayed The practice of law has flipped from vocation to business. Law firms and individual lawyers are measured explicitly in predominantly economic terms. Profit per equity partner (PEP) and other indicators trickle down firms through targets and …
There’s an interesting tension between Sir Nigel Knowles prediction of legal behemoths straddling the globe with investment bankers outriders (or is it the other way round) whilst the remainder squabble over the scraps, downsize or fail (I may have sexed it up a bit, which it does not need; it’s a very interesting piece) and …
Continue reading “Guest post: The New World of Legal Work vs Global Behemoths”
Nigel Hudson has written an interesting post on LPC numbers. He says (among other things): ‘The number of students enrolled on full-time LPCs has shrunk by 8.4% this year. In 2012/13 enrolments fell 4%, so the trend is downward and falling fast. In all, 5,198 students enrolled with the 27 LPC providers for 2013/2014, according …
Lawyers and banks are in the news again. Lawrence Tomlinson, Entrepreneur in Residence at the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, has reported various abuses by RBS in particular and has this to say about the way banks instruct lawyers: ‘Any law firm that does business with the banks will have a clause in their …
Continue reading “Guest post: Independence matters – banking and big law in the news”
The Cabinet Office and the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel have published a very interesting report criticising the complexity and quality of legislation and suggesting a much greater willingness to do something about it through an initiative dubbed Good Law. This section gives a flavour:
