14 July
Allen & Overy became the first magic circle firm to report its annual results, posting a 9% rise in pre-tax profit to £900m. Profit per equity partner reached £1.95m, a 3% increase on last year when PEP leapt 17%. Other firms posting bumper trading figures included Herbert Smith Freehills, which announced a record profit of £381.2m and a 6% bump in PEP to £1.16m. At Simmons & Simmons, PEP climbed above £1m for the first time, following an 8% increase in profits to £185m.
The Bar Standards Board is to conduct research into how solicitors choose barristers amid concern that clients are not given a choice.
13 July
An Italian engineer trying to recover around £2m of stolen cryptocurrency has been given permission to serve High Court proceedings via a non-fungible token (NFT) on the blockchain, in what his lawyers have said is an English legal first. Fabrizio D’Aloia, the founder of online gambling company Microgame, is suing ‘persons unknown’ who are said to have misappropriated around £1.8m worth of Tether and about £190,000 of USD Coin.
12 July
A Leicester-based firm with an all-female management and Marcia Willis Stewart, of Birnberg Peirce, were among the winners at the 20th Legal Aid Lawyer of the Year awards. ‘A team of fabulous women,’ said Baroness Helena Kennedy as she presented the award for regional legal aid firm/not-for-profit agency to Johnson Astills. Willis Stewart, who has represented victims of the Hillsborough disaster and is currently representing victims of the Grenfell fire, received a ‘winner of winners’ award.
More law firms have handed one-off cost-of-living bonuses to staff. They include magic circle giant Clifford Chance (£1,500, for trainee lawyers and business services staff) and Stockport-based crime specialist Howards Solicitors (£500 for all non-fee-earning staff).
Claims in the online whiplash portal are now taking an average of nearly six months to settle, as claim numbers remain at a historical low. Official Injury Claim’s latest data, for April to June, shows that the average time from claim to settlement was 175 days, up from 139 days in the previous quarter. One of the major selling points of the portal, launched in May 2021, was that it would provide quicker and more efficient routes to justice. OIC said the latest increase was to be expected as cases settle with more complex injuries and longer prognoses.
Most conveyancers have to raise a post-offer query with lenders, according to the findings of sector research to determine issues that are slowing down the home buying and selling process. As part of the Conveyancing Association’s annual lender survey, members were asked about post-offer queries and how the process could be speeded up. A quarter of the 66 respondents said they usually had to raise a query with the lender, while 57% said they sometimes had to raise one.
11 July
Key issues relating to costs in personal injury work will take at least another three months to be resolved. The long-awaited Court of Appeal hearing in CAM Legal v Belsner was due to be held over three days but was relisted until after 1 October because one of the counsel contracted Covid-19. Judgment is unlikely until the end of the year.
An Australian firm operating on a fixed-cost membership model for business clients has opened for business in the UK. LegalVision, based in Manchester, claims to be an industry-first provider offering access to unlimited, on-demand legal services. The firm has a team of around 20 in the UK but aims to increase that number to 80 within a year.
The Law Society responded to a warning about the role of solicitors in paying off cyber blackmailers by stressing that members should steer clear of any such action. ‘We do not advise members to pay ransoms, nor suggest that is what they should advise their clients,’ a spokesperson said. Chancery Lane was responding to an unprecedented joint letter of 7 July from the government’s National Cyber Security Centre and the Information Commissioner’s office warning legal professional bodies about so-called ‘ransomware’ attacks.
8 July
US firm Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld has increased newly-qualified London solicitor salaries by 9% to £179,000 a year – the highest rate in the capital.
Magistrates’ court staff who are members of the Public and Commercial Services Union are voting on possible industrial action over the use of the HMCTS Common Platform. The union said the decision of the HMCTS Crime Programme Board and senior judiciary to continue the national roll-out came despite months of inaction over concerns about the system and its effect on employees.
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