The in-house profession has doubled in size in the UK over the last 15 years and gained once unthinkable levels of influence in delivering legal services to corporate Britain. And what have the profession and its watchdogs done to recognise that seismic shift in the legal industry, with all its far-reaching ethical implications? Pretty much nothing.
Continue reading “Comment: Going native – ethics and the modern GC”
Securitisation has taken a battering in recent years. A complex financing technique, little understood by the public, it was an easy scapegoat as a principal cause of the global financial crisis. For a while after the crisis it seemed as if various supervisory authorities would regulate it to the point of extinction.
On 7 May the nation faces one of the most unpredictable elections in recent history and one with high stakes given the issues on the table, including a potential EU exit, the break-up of the UK, big decisions on austerity and public finances and fundamental electoral reform.
The in-house profession has doubled in size in the UK over the last 15 years and gained once unthinkable levels of influence in delivering legal services to corporate Britain. And what have the profession and its watchdogs done to recognise that seismic shift in the legal industry, with all its far-reaching ethical implications? Pretty much nothing.
As Legal Business reported last month, a band of academics and in-house veterans are trying to fill this void with the report, ‘Legal Risk: Definition, Management and Ethics’, billed as the start of a wider conversation around the ethical standards and framework that in-house counsel employ.
On 7 May the nation faces one of the most unpredictable elections in recent history and one with high stakes given the issues on the table, including a potential EU exit, the break-up of the UK, big decisions on austerity and public finances and fundamental electoral reform.
The profession – like the City, like the electorate – largely doesn’t know what to make of it. But that doesn’t mean we won’t be wrestling with the implications of the 30-year journey of the UK from dual-party elective dictatorship to multi-party horse-trading and a series of disruptions to the UK’s constitutional arrangements since the early 1990s – disruptions that have often had unintended consequences.
Continue reading “Politics has changed – a high-stakes election for the nation and the City”
Richard McLerie of JLegal outlines the picture across the region.
When trying to predict what the legal recruitment market will look like in the Gulf region it is easy to be seen as sitting on the fence. There are conflicting signs at every turn and until every scenario plays out, it is impossible to tell how it will affect the region.
The Conservative Party manifesto states that the terms of British EU membership will be renegotiated and an in/out referendum held. The Human Rights Act will be ‘scrapped’ and replaced by a British Bill of Rights. As for legal aid, the document merely informs us that they would continue to review our legal aid systems, so they can continue to promote access to justice in an efficient way.
Continue reading “Guest post: The Conservative Party manifesto and human rights”
This election looks a close-run thing – very close run indeed. As I write, polls and forecasts suggest strongly that no party’s going to get near a majority. There’s a lot of talk about what could happen after May 7th. And an idea’s beginning to take hold that, in a hung Parliament, Ed Miliband would need some sort of advance promise of support from the Scottish Nationalists before the Queen would appoint him Prime Minister.
Continue reading “Guest post: Ed can enter No. 10 without Nicola’s keys”
For many participants in Europe’s leveraged market, 2014 on first impressions heralded something approaching a new normal.
Here are some of the ‘justice highlights’ in the Labour Party Manifesto for the 2015 General Election. The full manifesto is here and is summarised at Election 2015: Labour Manifesto at-a-glance.
Continue reading “Guest post: A very brief glance at the Labour Party Manifesto”
