Gazette 18 November 2013

‘Failure to embrace’ flexible work

The absence of flexible working is one of the biggest barriers to women becoming partners, says a prominent in-house lawyer who made the switch from private practice. Funke Abimbola, managing counsel at pharmaceutical company Roche, was commenting on research from the Black Solicitors Network indicating that there are formidable barriers to female associates becoming partners.

20 November 2003

Two-thirds of crime firms face cull

Two-thirds of criminal firms will be axed from the legal aid system within the next five years through a regime of competitive tendering, the Legal Services Commission announced. Top of the hit list will be London, where half the existing 500 firms will be culled.

17 November 1993

Curbs on solos to be referred to OFT

The Law Society is to ask the Office of Fair Trading to examine the practice of institutional lenders refusing to instruct sole practitioners. A dossier of evidence, including a list of lenders that have either shunned sole practitioners or restrict their dealings with them, is expected to be ready for submission by the end of the year.

14 November 1973

Dealing with shoplifters

The Home Office minister was asked in the Commons last week what percentage of women who plead not guilty to shoplifting charges were acquitted by juries. He replied that in 1971 the proportion was 62%. His questioner retorted that this showed ‘too many’ women were being wrongly charged.

November 1963

An over-simplification

People often imagine that if only one understood how complex things worked they would soon become simple. The Economist made its own contribution to the promotion of this heresy when it wrote in favour of having a national land register open to the public. This, it argued, would ‘demonstrate to the public the comparative simplicity of dealing with nearly all registered land’.

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