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Twin sisters are being prosecuted after one posed as her lawyer sibling while the other was sitting as a judge.

Solicitor Gabriela Odisio found herself double booked as both a judge and an advocate on the same day – so asked her identical twin to stand in for the court hearing.

Twin Patrizia – who has a law degree but is not qualified – and her sister kept the deception working for three years swapping between courts in Vigevano and …

Déjà vu?! Up to 40 staff at Halliwells are to undergo a second volley of redundancy consultations

That makes it two within the last 12 months.

The ‘consultation will affect 40 staff in the firm’s real estate practice. It is set to affect around 20 fee earners and 20 support staff across the firm’s offices in Manchester, Liverpool, Sheffield and London.

An angry woman driver is seeking compensation after police said she looked like a man.

Short-haired Pauline Synnott, 59, was caught speeding and admitted it in a letter to police, reports The Sun.

She expected a £60 fine and three penalty points for doing 52mph in a 40mph zone. But officers who looked at the speed camera photo were convinced the driver was a man.

An Australian company has invented a suit that can be worn in the shower.

The garment has been specially designed so that it can be cleaned under the shower head with no soaking, dry cleaning – or even soap.

Australian Wool Innovation says it has already received 170,000 orders from Japan for its revolutionary shower suit.

The collapse of so many major financial institutions in the past year, and over the past few days especially, is hard to fathom in its enormity.

Sometimes you need a good visual to put things in perspective. The New York Times has an interactive graphic up on its site that pretty much says it all. It shows that $4 trillion has been wiped off the total market capitalization of the U.S. stock market since last …

Research for The Lawyer UK 200 Annual Report appears to contrast last weeks report by the Equality and Human Rights ­Commission which found the number of women who held senior positions at law firms had fallen.

It seems more women are breaking into the top ranks of the UK’s leading law firms than ever before.

Although this is all good news, there are still far fewer female lawyers than male, but ratios are improving, 19.6% cent of partners in the top 100 …

South West firm Withy King has merged with Oxford-based
Marshall & Galpin.

Ranked #141 in The Lawyer’s UK 200 Annual Report 2008 Withy
King posted turnover of £13.3m at the 2007-08 year end.

Marshall & Galpin will add £2.7m to Withy King’s turnover, putting the
combined firms turnover at £16m

Just one year after Australian law firm Slater & Gordon became the world’s first law firm to float. they have just announced a jump in turnover of 27 per cent to hit a revenue of AUS$79.7m (£37m)

Slater & Gordon recorded a 42 per cent growth in net profit over the same time period, while it also grew away from its personal injury core and into practices including commercial litigation and private …

BT, Virgin, Orange, Tiscali, BSkyB and Carphone Warehouse have all signed up the deal, which will see hundreds of thousands of letters sent to net users suspected of illegally sharing music.

Geoff Taylor, chief executive of the BPI, which represents the music industry, said: "All of the major ISPs in the UK now recognise they have a responsibility to deal with illegal file-sharers on their networks," and added, "Conversations are ongoing between record labels and ISPs."

Mr Taylor continued: "The focus …

Giuliani appears to be alleging that his golf scholarship at Duke is a contract, in which the University has to provide four years’ tuition, room and board, not terminable at the will of Duke. As a consequence, Andrew will probably have to forego the lucrative PGA career that may have awaited him, and maybe go to law school instead. This is the full version of the complaint.

Andrew Giuliani is suing based on promises allegedly made by his former (deceased) …

A cable repairman from Bakersfield in the US had his cherry picker stolen from under him whilst fixing overhead lines.

Police said the Brighthouse Networks truck was pinched on Saturday while 50-year-old Curtis Bartell was elevated 25 feet in the air.

Whilst making his escape, the thief tore down several phone lines before crashing into a utility pole. Police confirmed that the lucky Mr Bartell did not suffer any major injuries.

The bad news just keeps on coming in the world of property with job losses for lawyers and support staff across the country. Barnetts and Dickinson Dees are consulting on potential redundancies and Shoosmiths has seen 23 voluntary redundancies in its Northampton residential conveyancing team. Rumours abound about other ‘voluntary’ redundancies in some of the regional firms property departments.

As one agent put it: ‘We’re seeing both newly qualified and highly experienced residential property solicitors who’ve been made redundant. And …

This may not come as a surprise to many but a recent study discussed in the Journal of Consumer Research has shown that bikinis and other sexy stimuli can make men more prone to seek immediate gratification. Such impulsive behaviour can lead to blown diets, budgets and bank accounts.

Although most firms are not likely to have dress down policies liberal enough to allow bikinis in the office, some men are more easily affected than others. However, don’t assume …

On a darker note….. Our friends across the pond are preparing their partners for sinking revenues as they take stock of their financial progress at the half-year stage.

With US firms having their best year ever in 2007, the top 50 firms generating a collective revenue of $46.8bn (£23.4bn).

However now, With the sky falling in on over zealous mortgage folk, and the ever present end of the economic world predictions, 2008 seems a lot tougher. 

Are we nearly there yet? The UK’s top law firms led by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance and Linklaters are driving through the credit crunch achieving double-digit revenue growth for the third year running with average profits per equity partner (PEP) rising by 7.3%.

Others including Ashurst, CMS Cameron McKenna and Simmons & Simmons all grew their top line by more than 15%, with Herbert Smith and Norton Rose growing their revenues by more than 20%.

A Japanese pin-up model declared that her big breasts have not only boosted her career but they also helped her overturn a court verdict. The bikini model, Serena Kozakura, was cleared after a court decided she was too well-endowed to squeeze into a room through a hole, which she had been found guilty of earlier.

“I used to hate my body so much,” she told the private Asahi network in an interview aired Tuesday. “But it was my breasts” that won …

A Stockholm man wanting to stay sober volunteered to serve some of his friend’s one-month drunk-driving sentence. The 51-year-old Swede only managed to last two weeks before the authorities dicovered the deception.

Charles Ray Fuller from Fort Worth, Texas was thinking big. The 21-year-old North Texas man was arrested last week having attempted to cash a $360 billion check. His aim was, he stated, to start a record business; watch out Richard Branson.