Law Humor

The Week: Short and Sweet but A&O Requests Trainee Deferrals

Posted on May 08, 2009
Another week of joy flies by as we head towards the wet warm season that is traditionally regarded as Summer. Some signs of the current recession have been apparent as Camerons join virtually everyone else in having to make some redundancies and Halliwells becomes the first to release figures showing retreating revenues...

Filthy Fraudsters

Posted on May 08, 2009
Wedlake Bell has released research showing that the number of directors being disqualified for financial crime is soaring as the recession takes hold. There has been a 72 per cent increase in the year to the end of March in director disqualification at insolvent companies where directors have been implicated in [...

Need a Bit of ?Client Contact??

Posted on May 08, 2009
This being from the perspective of a ?down-and-dirty, entertaining inside look? at BigLaw, you might question where it’s going from the Legal Tease "Bring on that Client Contact "… I?ll admit, this is probably a bad idea.  But I?m sorry, I can?t help it any longer...

Big Deal: Links, DLA, Camerons, Ashurst, Osborne Clarke and Jones Day

Posted on May 07, 2009
Something’s got to keep the tanks full on those gin palaces this summer… Linklaters has acted for Riva Gaming on a restructuring deal with lenders to write off £100m of its debt. The company agreed a debt-for-equity swap with banks and slod off part of the business to ­former chief executive Simon Hannah who used [...

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You What - Sex for Fees!?

Posted on May 07, 2009
Lawyers - professional, upstanding, the highest standards of work ethic… Sex is the last thing one expects to see referred to in a firm’s boilerplate client care letter. Well, such written conditions might just have been avoided but sex still somehow appears to have been slipped into a couple of legal bargains recently...

Halliwells? Retreating Revenue

Posted on May 07, 2009
Halliwells is the first firm out of the blocks with revenue figures of £83m for the 2008-09 financial year. Although it represents a drop of 4.6 per cent on last year?s total of £87m, it seems pretty good given the downturn. It is understood that the firm also predicts profitability to have been maintained...

Lawyers? Lateral Thinking

Posted on May 07, 2009
We love a bit of cheap and cheerful especially when it comes to gags about our beloved profession… A priest, a doctor, and an lawyer were waiting one morning for a particularly slow group of golfers. Lawyer: What’s with these guys? We must have been waiting for 15 minutes! Doctor: I don’t know but I’ve never [...

Redundancy Watch: Camerons and BLP. Norton Rose on Flexi-time?

Posted on May 06, 2009
CMS Cameron McKenna has announced that around 80 London jobs are at risk following a firmwide review of the business. Those in the firing line may include 20 fee earners and 60 support staff positions in London. The firm has also announced a flexible working programme across its network of offices which introduces a [...

Lawyer Classifieds Confusion

Posted on May 06, 2009
We naively thought that most lawyers were fairly conservative types, the sort of folk who go on dates arranged through friends, or maybe even a bit of speed dating if one was really daring. However, we’ve had a couple of classified ads pop up on the radar recently that have altered our perception somewhat...

Hill Dickinson Ties the Knot with Middleton Potts

Posted on May 06, 2009
Northwest firm, Hill Dickinson, has a announced a merger with London-based Middleton Potts. Hill Dickinson is well known for its shipping team which has a long-held reputation for dealing with all aspects of shipping-related work. Middleton Potts currently has 11 partners and focuses its practice on international trade, commodities and shipping...

Courtoons: Court Verdicts

Posted on May 06, 2009
Ever wondered what one of those jury verdict forms looked like? So did we; until now… Thanks to Courtoons for unveiling that mystery.

A&O Revamp Inspires Lady Law Firm

Posted on May 05, 2009
Having recently made over 400 job cuts globally, there may be a bit of cheer for some former A&O employees. Females across the City might also be buoyed by the news that twenty-three lawyers and support staff jettisoned from Allen & Overy?s private client practice are setting up their own firm which will mainly [...

Lawyer Advert: LA?s ?Dopest Attorney?

Posted on May 05, 2009
You’re not likely to see ads like this over here any time soon, one suspects. This particular young lady is a Columbia University and Harvard Law School graduate whom the Wall Street Journal says describes herself as Los Angeles’s "dopest attorney"...

Anonymous Assistant: Insider Dealing

Posted on May 05, 2009
Some of you may already be familiar with the Anonymous Assistant . For those that aren?t, it?s the diary of a young, down-trodden solicitor, which featured for many years in The Times. Helen Bailey is a junior litigation lawyer at CWS (Craven Wiley & Sharpe) a medium sized law firm in the City of [...

The Week: Mainly Gloomy but a Bit of Brightness for A&O and Eversheds.

Posted on May 01, 2009
Just in case some of us manage to survive swine flu or H1N1as we are now supposed to call it, there is still a need to prepare for the future isn’t there? As insolvencies have soared by 56 per cent in the first three months of the year and the number of people [...

Pulled Over - Listen to the Law!

Posted on May 01, 2009

It?s All Mine - £13m Compensation Lawyer Struck Off

Posted on May 01, 2009
Andrew Nulty, former model, BBC presenter and now lawyer has been struck off by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal for his part in the miners? compensation scandal. Nulty, who launched Avalon Solicitors in 2001 is the third lawyer to be booted from the profession for his conduct in the compensation scheme...

Big Deal: SJ Berwin, Skadden, Dewey & LeBoeuf, Norton Rose and Charles Russell

Posted on May 01, 2009
Proving that the UK legal scene is still alive and kicking, here is a bunch of deals that will have partners rubbing their hands and associates fearing for their weekends sighing with relief… Given the state of the commercial property market, this transaction is notable for its size - SJ Berwin has advised British Land [...

Redundancy Watch: A&O and Nomura. Misery in Moscow

Posted on April 30, 2009
Allen & Overy has completed its redundancy programme launched in February. Over 247 employees have left the firm including partners, fee earners and support staff at an estimated cost of £44m. Today is the deadline for those leaving. In addition to removing 47 partners, 100 fee-earners and 100 members of support staff, the firm [...

Lawyer Favorite (Of the Moment) - ?You?re Fired? I?m Sorr-Jealous?

Posted on April 30, 2009
Something of a recurring theme right now. What you think might be the appropriate reaction to an event widely perceived as unfortunate, is not always what you get. The reaction to redundancies from those in the firing line can leave those left behind a little jealous bewildered...

BPP Makes Rich Pickings

Posted on April 30, 2009
At a time when many businesses are clinging on for survival, BPP’s shareholders could be about to see the true value of education. BPP Holdings, which owns BPP Law School, has announced that it has received a buyout-approach from US education provider Apollo Global...

Promotion Pleasure

Posted on April 29, 2009
Although this year is seeing less partner promotions than last year, the good news is that there are still a significant number happening. In the latest round-up: Denton Wilde Sapte has promoted six to partnership: energy and infrastructure - Udayan Mukherjee, Tammy Samuel and Almas Zhaiylgan; banking and finance - Matthew Cox and Sarah Dyke [...

Judges and Short Tempers

Posted on April 29, 2009
So whilst a US judge gains renown (see below ) for bringing dry humour and excellent wit to the proceedings; closer to home, District Judge Margaret Short has been removed by the Lord Chancellor and the Lord Chief Justice for her ?inappropriate, petulant and rude? behaviour towards solicitors...

Judges and Sex Toys

Posted on April 29, 2009
Richard Allen Posner is currently a judge on the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in Chicago. He helped start the law and economics movement while a professor at the University of Chicago Law School and he currently serves as a senior lecturer at the Law School...

Simmons-BPP MBA: Proper Popular

Posted on April 29, 2009
Last month Simmons & Simmons brought forward plans to launch the first dedicated legal MBA which is to be run by by BPP College of Professional Studies? new City branch. Simmons September 2009 and March 2010 trainee intakes were being offered the course and the take up seems to have been pretty strong...

More Outsourcing: A&O and Simmons & Simmons

Posted on April 28, 2009
Cutting costs is the order of the moment - Allen & Overy has become the latest firm to look at contracting out more back-office work. The move sees the magic circle firm planning to send due diligence and litigation discovery to an external provider...

The Force of Law is Strong in these Ones - Scotland?s Jedi Knights

Posted on April 28, 2009
A Freedom of Information request by Jane’s Police Review found that 8 police officers serving with Strathclyde Police, Scotland’s largest force, recorded their religion as Jedi in voluntary diversity forms. Strathclyde Police said the officers and two of its civilian staff claimed to follow the faith, which comes from the Star Wars movies...

Deidre Dare Sues A&O for £3.45m

Posted on April 28, 2009
Deidre Dare ex-senior associate from Allen & Overy’s Moscow office is suing her former firm. After enjoying several years as an expat in Moscow she wrote a fictional account of one female expat, Dasha, that included lots of alcohol, drugs, sex, donkeys, and dwarves...

SRA Under Fire

Posted on April 27, 2009
The Law Society has told Lord Hunt?s independent review of legal regulation that the Solicitors Regulation Authority ?lacks the sufficient skills, understanding and flexibility to effectively regulate all parts of the profession?. Legal education has also come under fire as ?divorced from legal practice in a way that is damaging to the profession? whilst the SRA exercises ?very little [...

Breathalyzers - A Layman?s Guide to the Law

Posted on April 27, 2009
Just as we are expecting new legislation relating to alcohol limits, here is a demonstration of what not to do if you do happen to get pulled over one day.  

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