There was good news from Eversheds this week, as the firm confirmed that it would reanimate the lifeless corpse of its  legal graduate recruitment programme.

In common with many firms last year, Eversheds deferred the start date for a bunch of its new legal trainees. Unlike many firms, however, it also announced a complete suspension of its graduate recruitment activities. A sorrowful note on the firm’s website  said that as a result of the downturn it had made “the difficult decision not to accept further applications for Training Contracts“. The firm said that it would assess the position again in 2010.

And, having duly assessed it, it’s game on at the ‘Shed. The firm confirmed yesterday that it would be taking on all 27 trainees it deferred from last year, together with the 49 other trainees who were due to start this year anyway – and who had themelves feared being deferred. It would also be inviting candidates to apply for future training contracts, was hoping to take on around 50 new trainees a year, would be announcing a manned space programme and would shortly begin drilling for oil beneath 1 Wood Street.

The news, coupled with some generally decent NQ retention rates across the board and even some meagre pay rises at some firms, all points to confidence finally starting to return to the legal services market.

Eversheds CEO Bryan Hughes said he was “delighted to be able to make this commitment to these talented people“, and that it was important that “we again invest in the next generation of lawyers to underpin future growth“. He declined to comment on the space programme*

Source : Roll on Friday

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Two solicitors have been charged with multiple offences related to a series of high-value commercial mortgage frauds worth around £50m in total.

Mark Knights of Cheshire, 45, who worked at Manchester firm Mace & Jones at the time the frauds took place, appeared last Friday at the City of London Magistrates Court alongside Kamran Malik, 31, of Birmingham, who worked at Birmingham firm A&H Solicitors at the time of the frauds.

Neither defendant is currently employed by Mace & Jones or A&H Solicitors.

Both were charged with three counts of obtaining a money transfer by deception contrary to the Theft Act 1968. The proceedings will be transferred to Southwark Crown Court.

Malik’s solicitor Julian Linskill, senior partner of Liverpool firm Linskills, said that Malik will contest the charges.

He said: ‘While he has clearly been guilty of relatively minor breaches of regulations, that does not support any finding of criminality against him. He is confident he will be cleared of the allegations.’

Manchester firm Pannone, which is advising Knights, declined to comment.

The charges against the pair were brought as part of an ongoing Serious Fraud Office investigation into the £50m of frauds, which saw six others, including four solicitors, charged in December 2009.

Source : Law Gazette

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Clients say that law firms are not doing enough to respond to the economic downturn. Law firms, meanwhile, say that clients are too focused on costs. These are two of the main findings of a recent study, commissioned by LexisNexis, on the state of the American legal industry.

Pricing emerges as the top issue, according to 71 per cent of the 150 in-house lawyers surveyed, and to 60 per cent of the 300 practitioners in private practice. Taking various findings together, American lawyers seem to agree that, in due course, hourly billing will be largely displaced by alternative billing structures — but not in 2010 and never entirely. Clients are keener on this shift than law firms.

My own research suggests that an analogous survey in the City of London would yield similar results. Here, many general counsel say that they are under pressure from their boards to cut legal budgets severely from between 20 to 40 per cent. Naturally, they are turning to their law firms to ask them to rethink their hourly rates and charging models.

In turn, firms have been proposing volume discounts, blended rates, fixed fees, various forms of value billing — and more. However, cynics say that when most firms present alternatives to hourly billing, the underlying modelling is still based on time spent. And, because they are not inclined to bid in a way that will reduce profitability, the proposals contain charging models that may seem more palatable but do not substantially reduce the final bill.

In the end, the key issue is whether charging differently will yield the savings that clients require or whether firms and clients need to start working differently. Intense recent interest in legal process outsourcing, in leasing lawyers and in sub-contracting to lower-cost jurisdictions, suggests that some clients are encouraging radical new ways of working.

The business case is clear. If routine and repetitive work can be undertaken in India at one tenth of the cost, this will bring savings far in excess of, say, volume discounts from firms that work in the traditional manner.

Given these changes in billing and working practices, opinion in the US, according to the survey (www.lexisnexis.com), is evenly split on the future of the legal industry — about half the clients and law firms believe that the recession will change permanently the way that legal business is undertaken.

Whether the profession is enduring a temporary blip or a longer-term upheaval is also a matter of discussion. Some City firms are embracing the hunker-down strategy of cutting costs, winning as much work as possible, keeping morale up and hanging on in there until the economy recovers when, it is assumed, pre-recession working and billing practices will resume.

Other firms believe that highvolume, low-margin legal work is being irreversibly changed but that, for their high-end work, clients will be happy in more buoyant times to revert to conventional ways.

A growing group of senior lawyers and clients is less sanguine. They believe that these troubled times are exposing many unjustifiably inefficient practices. They realise that new ways of working are emerging; that the costs of routine and repetitive legal work can be cut dramatically; that boards and chief executives are now aware that lawyering can be conducted differently; and that irreversible change is likely to extend to some parts of high end work, such as document review and due diligence.

This view holds that there will be no return when the economic storm passes. Even if the economy bounces back, clients will not want to go back to the old tariff.

What do these possible changes mean for the next generation of lawyers? According to the survey, 65 per cent of law students (100 were questioned) say that law schools do not teach the business skills needed to practise law in today’s economy. Ninety per cent of practising lawyers agree.

There is clearly a debate to be had about the extent to which law schools should teach about the practice of law alongside the substantive law. But the survey’s indictment of law schools, even if justified, obscures a bigger point — no one has much clue what we are training tomorrow’s lawyers to become.

A decade from now it is likely that lawyers will be undertaking at least some jobs that do not yet exist, using a range of technologies that have yet to be invented. Worryingly, it is far from clear who in the City is taking the time to think systematically about the long-term future of legal jobs and legal service.

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Hundreds of small independent solicitors across Scotland could be forced out of business after four of the biggest law firms in the country voted through reforms that will enable supermarkets and banks to provide cut-price legal advice on services such as house purchases and small claims.

Yesterday, opponents of the reforms, including the Scottish Law Agents Society, which represents independent firms, and the Faculty of Procurators of Dumfriesshire, expressed anger at the scope of the new measures, which they said would introduce a “Tesco Law,” and change the face of the high street.

The society called for protection for smaller solicitors, and said its members were unaware of the significance of the vote at the time.

The reforms, known as Alternative Business Structures (ABS), are due to be introduced this year under the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill. As well as allowing supermarkets to compete, they will give large legal firms the right to take on areas such as accountancy and financial services, giving them the ability to expand their businesses across Europe.

However, its opponents are incensed that a vote in 2008, made by less than a tenth of Scotland’s solicitors, has resulted in the most fundamental legal reform since the Law Society was founded in 1949.

The votes were cast at a meeting of the Law Society of Scotland, attended by fewer than 100 solicitors. They were bolstered by 801 proxy votes cast by solicitors from the four big practices, including such famous names as Dundas and Wilson, Shepherd and Wedderburn, and McGrigors, against only 132 votes. ABS was also approved by 49 to 18 on a show of hands in the meeting hall. Under the legislation, supermarkets and banks would have the power to force down fees for relatively simple and profitable work, such as conveyancing and accident claims.

Mike Dailly of the Govan Law Centre accused the bigger practices of “railroading” the changes through the Law Society. “This was the senior partners in the big firms who wanted to protect their vested interest. The rest of us were asleep. There are thousands of solicitors in Scotland — the difficulty has been in conveying to the profession how significant a change this is.”

Critics fear that the vote will threaten the independence of solicitors and inhibit the constitutional right of the consumer to access justice.

Under the proposals, which are likely to be enacted this year, legal firms would be able to raise capital from outside investors and expand their professional services into areas such as accountancy and financial consultancy. In a second radical change, inspired by earlier measures in England and Wales, businesses such as banks or supermarkets could offer a full range of solicitors’ services.

Opponents say the changes will see “Tesco law” swamp the market, cherry-picking the easiest, most profitable work, leaving only difficult, costly cases for smaller practices to pick up. The Scottish Law Agents Society yesterday said it had mooted a special general meeting to debate a motion calling a halt to the momentum of ABS, and for the work of the solicitor to receive statutory protection. The move was backed by the Faculty of Procurators of Dumfriesshire A Scottish government spokesman said that its Bill had been drawn up after extensive consultation and debate with the legal profession.

Alan Campbell, managing partner at Dundas & Wilson, said: “We offered ourselves as a collection point to submit proxy votes on behalf of our lawyers, who were encouraged to vote according to their preference. As a firm, however, we support the Law Society’s recommendation for reform.”

View the latest Legal Jobs in Scotland with Simply Law Jobs.

Source : The Times

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A law firm and Oxford academics are setting up a scheme to encourage a wider range of young people to enter the legal profession.

Social mobility is becoming an election battleground – with the government promising measures to break the “glass ceiling” that limits access to the most sought-after careers.

This follows a strongly-worded report from former minister Alan Milburn, which warned that in many professions social mobility was at risk of going into reverse.

There were fears that professions such as the law and medicine were becoming dominated by youngsters from the most affluent backgrounds.

“The typical doctor or lawyer of the future will today be growing up in a family that is better off than five in six of all families in the UK,” the report warns.

It describes law as “one of the most socially exclusive professions” in which “50% of solicitors and barristers attended independent schools, compared to just 7% of the population”.

Opening doors

So what can be done to open doors into the law?

The government is proposing mentoring schemes, outreach projects, work experience and a Social Mobility Commission.

But lawyers are also doing it for themselves.

International law firm Lovells is running a scheme called Ladder to Law, which is trying to get a wider range of youngsters to consider careers in the legal profession.

Run in partnership with the law faculty of the University of Oxford, the scheme is intended to reach out to pupils who might have never considered going to university otherwise, let alone seen themselves as potential lawyers.

With links with four secondary schools in London – and plans to involve four more – the company wants to provide sustained, long-term support for pupils who are interested in careers in law.

Clare Harris, head of recruiting in the firm’s London office, says “it’s about breaking down perceived barriers”.

Pupils might be living physically close to the big London law firms, she says, but “they may as well be living in another world”.

The idea of the Ladder to Law project is to send staff into schools to talk to pupils about the ways into careers in law and to invite interested youngsters into the law firm’s offices for work shadowing.

There will be chances to visit university law departments and advice about choosing A-levels and the applications process.

“It’s replicating the advantages that already exist for middle class families,” she says.

Early intervention

The intention is to intervene early enough to help give children the chance to raise their horizons – and for the support to be sustained. “It can’t be a flash in the pan,” she says.

Such contacts with law firms need to be made at school level, rather than waiting until the recruitment rounds at university, she believes.

Ms Harris says “social exclusion” can come in many different forms – but the end result is too often families in which youngsters have no expectations of going to university or entering a career such as law.

For them the idea of the legal profession never gets further than someone in a wig in a television drama, she says.

While seeking to encourage a wider range of applicants, Ms Harris is against using positive discrimination in the recruitment process for jobs.

Rather than any interventionist approach, she wants law firms and their associates to find their own ways to create opportunities.

Lovells has worked on the schools project with the Brokerage Citylink, an organisation which connects employers in the City of London with young people living in inner-London boroughs, who might otherwise never consider the careers available on their own doorstep.

Frank Funnell, business development manager for this not-for-profit organisation, says he wants Ladder to Law to “inspire many young people from disadvantaged areas to see law as a career they can aspire to”.

The dean of law faculty at Oxford, Timothy Endicott, said: “It is important for schools, universities and employers to work collaboratively to encourage bright and able candidates, who may feel socially excluded, to understand more about what university can offer and how a career in law can be achieved.”

Source : BBC News.

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Mishcon de Reya is opening its first office outside of London — in New York.

In an intriguing move, the firm is taking on 15 lawyers from Sheppard Mullin Richter & Hampton, who will be led by James McGuire, a fraud specialist and former Assistant US Attorney.

Kevin Gold, Mishcon’s managing partner, says is is motivated by the rise in litigation and regulatory work. “Opening our first international office in one of the major financial centres of the world is an exciting opportunity for both our business and our clients,” Gold says. “It is also timely. There has been a rise in the level of regulation globally. A presence in two of the world’s leading financial centres is exactly what clients of the expanded firm need.”

The move into Manhattan is unusually bold for a firm which in the past has preferred to remain under the radar.

Source : The Times

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Debenhams said it launched a divorce gift list service to reflect the increasing popularity of greeting cards, parties and cakes celebrating divorces as well as provide assistance to someone who has had to divide the assets.

“A divorce means that one partner will be leaving the marital home and therefore be left without any essentials in their new house,” Debenhams head of retail services Peter Moore said in a statement.

“Divorcing can be an expensive time and registering for a divorce gift list means that family and friends can help the newly separated begin their new life.”

London law firm Lloyd Platt & Company said before Christmas that it had been swamped with enquiries after it started offering gift vouchers for divorce advice.

Items on the Debenhams divorce gift list include cookware, cutlery, crockery, glasses, bed linen, towels, small electrical goods such as toasters and microwaves as well as non-iron shirts, large plasma screen TVs and computer games.

Forty five percent of British marriages are likely to end in divorce according to the Office for National Statistics.

Source : Yahoo News.

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Why are we asking this now?

This week Britain’s first crown court criminal trial to take place without a jury in more than 400 years started at the Royal Courts of Justice. The case, involving four men accused of a £1.75m armed robbery, is being heard by a judge, sitting alone, who will decide upon the men’s guilt or otherwise.

Why is the case being held without a jury?

Three previous trials have collapsed. During the first trial, one of the defendants, John Twomey, suffered a heart attack while in Belmarsh prison and was severed from the indictment. His six co-defendants were acquitted. At the second trial the jury was reduced to nine and was unable to reach a decision. At the third attempt the trial was stopped after allegations of jury tampering were heard by the judge. Because of the risk that the jury would be nobbled, the Court of Appeal decided last year decided that the only way to prevent this would be to hold the trial without one.

Is it controversial?

Hugely. The right to a trial by a jury of your peers is a fundamental principle of the British justice system and has been in place since the Magna Carta was signed in 1215. Yesterday’s trial prompted a small demonstration outside the High Court where banners were erected with messages reading “No Jury, No Justice”, and “Secret Evidence = Secret Injustice” were displayed. Those protesters fear that this is simply a way of going through the motions before eventually convicting the men.

But isn’t there a history of trials without juries?

The Court of Star Chamber was used in the 1600s and tried people charged with serious crimes without a jury. The Diplock Courts in Northern Ireland are the most recent examples of regular criminal trials being held without juries. They were introduced in 1972 to overcome the issues of jury tampering and intimidation commonly associated with the Troubles. The courts were intended only to deal with offences committed by Republican or Loyalist paramilitaries but in 2005 they heard the case of Abbas Boutrab, a suspected terrorist who was jailed for six years for downloading information on how to bomb a passenger jet.

The Diplock Courts were abolished in July 2007. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 came into effect at the same time, allowing for trials to be heard without juries where there are fears that jury tampering would take place or where measures to protect jurors were inadequate. The Twomey case is the first trial to make use of the provisions.

What difference does it make?

The protocol is very similar and should even make the process simpler because legal arguments about what the jury can and cannot hear are dispensed with and the process of swearing in a jury is done away with too. It should also shorten the lengthy amounts of time it often takes for juries to reach decisions.

Although, as the barristers and the judge discovered on Tuesday, a trial without a jury presents its own problems. There is the issue of, when deciding what is admissible and not as evidence, the judge will have to read all of the background to the case. If he decides something cannot be used by the prosecution the problem exists that he has already seen it. It could be used to the advantage of a prosecutor who, knowing he will fail, could submit an application for a defendant’s previous convictions to be aired in court. The judge will have to consider it and by doing so will therefore become aware of the information anyway. Opponents would suggest that for the judge to put this out of his mind when coming to a verdict is difficult.

Why do we have juries?

The idea is that criminals should be judged by a panel of ordinary men and women who will be able to view the case through untrained eyes rather than the forensic lens of a legal professional. Aside from the fact that it is completely open and so nullifies the threat of any type of establishment conspiracy against particular individuals, one of the many benefits attributed to it is that it allows a certain amount of discretion which the letter of the law does not. The phrase “a jury would never convict” is an oft-used one which suggests that those who are on trial for a crime where they have technically broken the law stand a better chance in front of a jury. The best example of such a case is that of Clive Ponting, who admitted leaking military documents, a criminal offence under the Official Secrets Act, but pleaded not guilty and was acquitted.

What are the flaws in the system?

The obvious flaw that is present in many juries is a lack of understanding. Many trials for offences such as theft are cut and dry and are easily tried by a jury. Part of the problem nowadays is that many trials are very complex and include numerous defendants and charges, some dependant on others. A fear in the legal profession is that, because a jury has to be 100 per cent sure of guilt before convicting, criminals are being acquitted simply because the jury does not understand the case and interprets this as “reasonable doubt”, the threshold needed for exoneration.

There is also a question over the standard of juries. With many cases cases lasting for weeks and months, people are reluctant to sit on a jury. And, as it is not compulsory, it can be avoided. People who have holidays booked or business or family commitments which cannot be altered are usually excused. This leaves the possibility that juries are made up of unemployed people or housewives or simply those who cannot think of an excuse to get out of sitting.

Could juryless trials have repercussions elsewhere?

Juryless trials also throw up the side issue of reporting restrictions. If there is no jury to prejudice does the press have carte blanche to write what it wants? Technically the answer is no. A judge can still claim to be prejudiced by press reports although in reality he is unlikely to do so. It would be embarrassing for a judge to effectively admit that he is so weak-minded that, having read a newspaper report, he has been prejudiced against the defendant and cannot now try case fairly. Also, in all probability, the judge will already be aware of any revelations made in the media during a trial.

Will we now see plenty more such cases?

The fact that this case has gone ahead without a jury will not now mean that cases are regularly heard this way. The Criminal Justice Act 2003 allows for this in cases only when the integrity of the jury is threatened. What the Twomey case will do is set a precedent which others may now be readier to repeat. Of course it could be argued that it will now mean that prosecutors, fearful a jury may be more likely to convict, will be keen to raise the issue of jury tampering in the hope that the trial will become juryless.

Should we have juryless trials in Britain?

Yes…

* In complex trials it is better that a legal professional judges the facts

* They essentially do away with reporting restrictions which hinder the freedom of the press

* Jury tampering could produce perverse results and this is the only way to eliminate it

No…

* Trial by one’s peers is what makes British justice the best in the world

* A judge deciding upon all aspects of a case is neither right or fair

* Having a jury allows for discretion that the letter of the law does not

Source : Independent

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