Memory lane 4 March 2022

Gazette, 1 March 2012

No solicitors among new QCs

Not a single solicitor was among the 88 new Queen’s Counsel appointments announced this week. Dame Joan Higgins, chair of the QC selection panel, said: ‘There appears to be a considerable hesitancy on the part of solicitor-advocates to apply for silk, even where they may be well qualified to do so.’

7 March 2002

City solicitors face big salary slowdown

May’s annual salary review will see belts being severely tightened, firms and recruitment consultants warned this week. A survey of 38 firms and 162 in-house teams found that newly qualified lawyers in a top tier London firm earn an average of £50,000 – 11% up on last year - while newly qualifieds in industry have seen average salaries increase 10% to £28,750.

4 March 1992

MP’s remarks anger solicitors

Solicitors have reacted angrily to remarks by Labour MP Austin Mitchell that the service they provide to legal aid clients ‘falls off the back of the practice’. Writing in the Guardian, Mr Mitchell charged both branches of the profession with having an ‘insatiable and ever-growing demand for money’.

3 March 1982

Injury on a canal boat

A client was on holiday on a canal narrow boat. He was sleeping on the upper tier of a pair of bunk beds. In his sleep he rolled over, fell to the floor, and was injured. The insurers say it is not common to fit safety restraints to bunk beds in these boats. Do any readers have experiences either (a) of similar claims, or (b) as passengers?

1 March 1972

Status of salaried solicitors confirmed

In Alfred Crompton Amusement Machines v Commissioners of Customs & Excise, the Court of Appeal has firmly upheld the important principle that legal professional privilege attaches to salaried legal advisers in government departments, local government, commerce and industry and elsewhere, just as it does to solicitors in private practice.