Safe hands Slaughter and May has had a stranglehold on advising the Government since armageddon hit the banks two years ago. After the collapse of Northern Rock, Slaughters was seen as the only magic circle firm not conflicted because of ties to financial institutions. Although the Treasury is not the biggest payer, last year Slaughters received £22 million in fees assisting the Government wade through the financial mess and working for the Treasury has obvious kudos.

Now that the initial …

Not wanting to be doom mongers or anything but this week the bad news continues after last week’s rubbish GDP figures. Even the mighty Slaughters has opted to cut associate bonuses in half from 10% of salary to 5% whilst continuing with a salary freeze until the end of this year.

More widely, the prognosis for patient UK is looking horribly poor as the public sector faces massive cuts. Centre for Cities said in the Guardian that graduates would find …

We’re no advocates of law breaking here for obvious reasons but if there is one thing that Bernie Madoff has taught us then it’s this. If you are going to get busted and put away, then a surefire way of getting remembered for it is to go big. Very big.

Which leads us to… Neil Purves, 27, of Cockburnspath, who was detected by police as he travelled at 166mph on a 60mph stretch of the A702 near West Linton in …

The surly TV chef has won an a appeal that will allow him to go ahead and pursue a case against his estranged wife’s divorce lawyers. He claims that his wife removed 42 documents under instruction of her lawyers, Withers, for use in the proceedings relating to their financial dispute. Mrs White alleged that she took the documents because Mr White said he would leave the country, that she would never find him, that he would "pull …

Showing banking contemporaries how to do a bit of restraint…

Pinsent Masons, DLA Piper and CMS Cameron McKenna are among a number of firms that have held back or reduced profit distributions this year. Meanwhile Slaughter and May is considering whether or not to pay out its annual firmwide bonus at the end of the year and Shoosmiths have convinced 90% of staff earning over £25,000 to agree to take a 2.5 per cent pay cut.

Pinsents and DLA have both …

In an interview with the Lawyer recently, Shoosmiths’ Head of social housing Andy Ballard joked whilst discussing the expansion of his team:

“Anyone who’s under 50 and reads The Guardian gets brought on.”

Two elements of this were deemed offensive by commenters – the ageist bit and the stereotyping of social housing sector employees as Guardian readers bit.

So upset was one reader who claimed to be an instructing housing association employee in the West Midlands, that he apparently contacted the Lawyer …

No not the one being had by bankers preparing themselves for their Christmas bonuses but the one that has managed to even overshadow that little controversey (and everything else this week). The BNP’s appearance on Question Time last night caused all sorts of excitement. Anti-fascist protestors scuffled with police outside BBC TV Centre in west London before the show was filmed. Peter Hain said earlier in the week that the BNP is currently "an unlawful body" as it operates …

BPP fans can rejoice.

In March Simmons & Simmons brought forward plans to create the first dedicated legal MBA. The course is due to be taught at BPP College of Professional Studies’ new City branch which was officially launched this week.

BPP’s new City school will be running the bespoke MBA for future Simmons & Simmons trainee solicitors and a Masters in Law and Business for SJ Berwin trainees. The MBA course is expected to be more widely available in coming …

There are plenty of law graduates and qualified lawyers struggling to keep their legal career on track these days. We have heard some fairly desparate stories of application after application being knocked back. News that firms have instructed recruiters to search only from the ranks of the employed and not from the large pools of redundant solicitors is galling for those out of a job but not wholly surprising. With a surfeit of candidates to choose from it’s an …

The much anticipated litigation boom may finally be upon us; Legal Week has published the results of a survey of in-house lawyers which reveals strong expectations of an upturn in litigation work – 40% of respondents expect an upturn in the next year. Hope or expectation we shall wait and see. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops though, a new round of redundancies burst through all the economic cheer flooding the business rags this week. Dentons broke the seal with …

With the surging stock market and continual recovery, green shoots, recession exit messages plastered across the morning papers you’d be forgiven for thinking that the R word had retired from this economic chapter.

Erm model?

This might not be an option over here (specifically) but we do have similar opportunities…

Above the Law reports that:

Faced with the dismal legal job market, yet another law student has decided to earn extra cash by taking it off [her wardrobe] for the camera.

…thanks to a horny diligent reader, we’ve learned that Kennedy James, a law student at Florida Coastal School of Law, has joined Playboy.com’s “Cyber Club.” Kennedy was recently honored as “Coed of the Week” …

We love a bit of ranking – a couple of interesting reports on the current shape of law firms have just come out. A joint research project between The American Lawyer and Legal Week found total revenues at the world’s 100 highest-billing law firms have crept up 1.7% from the previous year, from $78.53bn to $79.92bn. Average fee income for a Global 100 practice was $799.2m, up from $785.3m in 2008 but average profit per equity partner (PEP) was …

Nominations for the 2009 Awards have been released by Legal Week . Here’s a selection of nominations for what we think are the most interesting categories (there are many, many).

Law Firm of the Year
Allen & Overy
Bird & Bird
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton
Clyde & Co
Kennedys
Norton Rose
Stephenson Harwood

Assistant Solicitor / Associate of the Year
Ben Allgrove (Baker & McKenzie)
Sarah Rushton (Forsters)
Vanessa Wix (Geldards)
Melanie Gavin (Hill Dickinson)
Anna Mills (Lovells)
Emma Osbaldeston (Paul Hastings)

Young In-house Lawyer of the Year
Helen Koerner (BASF)
Toby Hornett …

The judicial system is not normally known for its fleet of foot and willingness to embrace rapid change. But the High Court has led the way in a recent case by allowing service of a court order using Twitter.

Right-wing blogger and lawyer, Donal Blaney, who blogs at a site called Blaney’s Blarney was given permission by the court to serve an injunction against an unknown Twitter user who anonymously Tweeted using his name. And the order has apparently acheived …

After the apparent success of Clifford Chance’s outsourcing efforts, it appears as thought one of the most conservative of City firms could join the trend. Slaughter and May are now considering outsourcing some of their low level legal work according to The Lawyer . Given the polarised views outsourcing tends to provoke; that Slaughters is considering it will certainly raise a few eyebrows.

Last week Legally India , noted that 12,000 hours of work were farmed out to Clifford Chance’s …

Ok so we won’t offer any more puns on the Sun going down on Labour but there is a bit of legal-political mix that deserves attention this week. One of Labour’s crowning acheivements was completed yesterday with the formal opening of the Supremely expensive Court (estimates vary between £70-100m depending on the accountant). The President of the Supreme Court, Lord Phillips said: "This is the last step in the separation of powers in this country." And he wasn’t referring …

Some lecturers here may claim to use the Socratic Method of teaching but when it comes to crunch few go to the same lengths as American law schools. Law schools in the States commonly use the teaching method to stimulate rational thinking and to illuminate ideas from their students. All jolly exciting. What we are drawing attention to is the embarrasing moment that everyone encounters at some point in their educational and professional career which is not knowing the …

More Barristers raise the pay bar. This time Four New Square is to increase its current pupillage award from £45,000 to £50,000.

The 2011-12 year will see the award jump even higher to £60,000, putting it on a par with One Essex Court .

In the meantime commercial law firms have retreated on salaries through the downturn – Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer was the first major firm to announce back in February that it was reversing its associate salary bands, with NQ …

Too much of a good thing…?

News that BPP had requested volunteers to leave its Bar Vocational Course (BVC) and take up places next year with a £2,000 incentive was widely reported in the legal media at the end of last week. It is understood that the move was made at the request of the Bar Standards Board (BSB) which oversees the limit on the number of students that providers are authorised to admit onto BVC courses.

(This at a time …