Herbert Smith Freehills and Charles Russell Speechlys post autumn trainee retention scores8/31/2018 Results of 82% and 88% Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) and Charles Russell Speechlys have posted their 2018 autumn retention scores. From a September qualifying cohort of 38, HSF confirmed 33 rookies applied for permanent roles and 31 received offers. All accepted, handing the 27-office-outfit a solid autumn rate of 82%. The firm, which offers around 60 training contracts annually, did not provide details of the departments its new recruits would be qualifying into. Today’s result marks a slight drop on its spring score. On that occasion, HSF retained 37 of its 34 newly qualified lawyers (NQ) or 92%. The firm posted a result of 80% (28 out of 35) this time last year and 77% (27 out of 35) back in the spring of 2017. HSF’s latest recruits will start on a recently improved salary of £85,000. Up from a previous rate of £82,000, Legal Cheek‘s Firms Most List shows that the new and improved pay band is based on average NQ earnings and can climb to as much as £93,000 with maximum bonuses. Trainees currently earn a salary of £44,000 in year one, rising to £48,000 in year two. News of HSF’s retention score comes just months after it confirmed it was moving a large chunk of its operations to east London. The new digs, located on Canary Wharf’s Bank Street, will house almost 500 business and alternative legal services staff, who are currently mostly based in office space in Finsbury Square. HSF will retain its main London HQ, Exchange House, on Primrose Street. Elsewhere, Charles Russell has retained 23 of its 26 autumn NQs or 88%. The City player confirmed three trainees will join dispute resolution, three to real estate and three to tax, trusts and succession. Meanwhile, corporate, commercial, employment, immigration, property litigation and contentious trusts and estates will gain two newbies each. The final two NQs will start lawyer life in Charles Russell’s family and financial services divisions. James Carter, managing partner, said:
The outfit’s fresh-faced lawyers will start on a salary of £65,000. Trainees currently earn £40,000, rising to £42,000 in year two. The post Herbert Smith Freehills and Charles Russell Speechlys post autumn trainee retention scores appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/herbert-smith-freehills-and-charles-russell-speechlys-post-autumn-trainee-retention-scores/
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Could the reality TV star be Oz bound? Her time on the Spanish island may have been cut short, but rumour has it we could see Rosie Williams swap sun loungers for camp beds and strut into the Aussie jungle when the show returns later this year. Coral bookmakers have tipped Williams to appear on this year’s I’m A Celebrity… Get Me Out Of Here, after dramatically slashing her odds from 8/1 to 3/1. Williams shot to fame on this year’s series of the hit reality TV show Love Island. Before appearing on our screens, the 25-year-old worked as a solicitor at Manchester law firm Just Costs Solicitors. The Welsh-born lawyer isn’t the only Love Island star rumoured to be joining this year’s show. Fellow housemate Dani Dyer, who won the series with beau Jack Fincham, has since been tipped to enter the jungle. It has also been reported that former Love Island contestant Olivia Attwood is in talks for a possible stint on the show. Other celebs linked to join the jungle include Jamie Laing of Made in Chelsea fame, axed Strictly Come Dancing star Brendan Cole and ITV’s Good Morning Britain host Kate Garraway. Now in its 18th series, I’m a Celebrity is a reality TV show in which celebrities camp together and complete challenges known as Bushtucker Trials to win food. The eventual winner is crowned King or Queen of the Jungle. Last year’s Jungle Queen was Westminster law grad and Made in Chelsea star Georgia Toffolo. Though we can’t be sure whether we’ll see a muddied Williams camping outdoors or chomping down witchetty grubs when the show airs this autumn — we do know it’s not her first rumoured TV appearance post-villa. Speaking exclusively to Legal Cheek in July, Williams told us she was in talks to appear on a new legal TV show scheduled for later this year. This series of I’m a Celebrity is the first not to feature longstanding host Anthony McPartlin. The show will be hosted by Declan Donnelly, and new co-host Holly Willoughby while McPartlin takes a break from TV duties following a drink-driving incident earlier this year. The post Bookie slashes odds for Love Island solicitor Rosie Williams to enter I’m a Celeb jungle appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/bookie-slashes-odds-for-love-island-solicitor-rosie-williams-to-enter-im-a-celeb-jungle/ A first-seat trainee on what she learnt along the way My quest for a training contract pushed me to consider what commercial awareness actually is and attempt to come up with an explanation more tangible than some of the articles that I read during my journey. While we have all seen the phrase banded about in job descriptions, everyone appears to know that they want to be commercially aware but nobody appears to really know what it is or how to actually be it. So, before you add it on your CV and risk getting caught out in an interview by somebody that actually does know what it is, let us put an end to this mystery and consider what commercial awareness means. Its meaning, I think, is three-fold: Current affairsLawyers advise their clients on matters governed by political, economic and social factors, and therefore staying up to date with current affairs is paramount. Ideally, you need to be reading a broadsheet newspaper daily or the equivalent in appropriate online reading. The Guardian has a great general news platform online, as does the Financial Times and The Independent. You also need to be reading legal articles and latest legal news daily as well as keeping up with any legal reform/suggested reform that may be happening. The best websites for this are Legal Cheek, Law Society Gazette, and more. These websites are easily accessible online and can send you updates if you subscribe. It really could not be easier. These topics are potential discussion points that may come up in an interview, and more generally show you are taking an active interest in the field in which you already work. Being business-mindedA law firm is a business like any other and will have the same issues as any other business: how can we build new or stronger client or third-party relationships; how should we divide our profits; how can we better manage our cashflow and stay solvent? The days when lawyers could just be good at law and advise clients are long gone, we now need to be more business aware and always thinking about the bigger picture of how the practice is actually run. Don’t think “the partners will think about that so I don’t need to”. Wrong, you do need to. With any luck you will become a partner one day and it will be a much easier transition if you’re already considering these things at a lower level. Until that glorious day, you need to convince them that you have the tools to think independently and above your pay grade and pre-empt problems that might occur or what you might be asked to do. You need to make yourself appear valuable to them. Be pro-active, if you know that your firm’s GDPR policy needs some work, make some suggestions about how it could ensure ongoing compliance. It’s all about the clientsYou need to be able to predict how the two above sections might affect your client or your client’s business. You are far more valuable as a lawyer and are even under a duty to act in the best interests of your client — you cannot do that if you are not properly informed. Clients now expect their lawyers to know in-depth details on how a business functions, what are the key considerations for profitability and growth, and how best to make use of the resources available. You ought to be able to pre-empt how any of the above could affect your client or your client’s business and advise them accordingly. If you think that Brexit or the potential changes in interest rates might affect your client or your client’s business, you have a duty to consider this and inform them. Got it?Commercial awareness is a necessary skill for all lawyers, whether they work in a commercial environment or whether they work in crime or family law. Commercial awareness is not something that happens immediately, it starts with your legal training and continues to develop throughout your career. If you are doing all of the above then I think you can say with a straight face that you are commercially aware. If not, I wouldn’t go there if I were you. Caroline Daniels is in the first seat of her training contract at a law firm in Sutton. Her interests are: company/commercial law, property litigation and family law. The post ‘It took me finding a training contract to discover what commercial awareness actually is’ appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/it-took-me-finding-a-training-contract-to-discover-what-commercial-awareness-actually-is/ Weekly round-up of the top legal blogosphere posts Privilege and the criminal bar — part two [Counsel of Perfection] Legal Blogging — a dry run in the Court of Protection [Pink Tape] Law Books Everyone Should Read [Spinning Hugo] Twitter thread: There should never be a policy prohibiting officers from believing or disbelieving anything [Twitter] Eviction companies, conducting litigation, and defective notices [Nearly Legal] The Legal Twitterati’s must-read books for law students [Twitter] Facebook begins to shift from being a free and open platform into a responsible public utility [Inforrm’s Blog] US Copyright Office Review Board denies UEFA copyright protection over Starball logo [The IPKat] Film review: The Children Act [Legal Cheek] “I am surprised that the courts and judicial process feature so little in film and — particularly — TV drama in the UK. The Americans can write many interesting and intelligent screenplays about criminal, civil and family justice. Why can’t we?” [Legal Cheek comments] Events events events! [Legal Cheek] The post The best of the blogs appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/the-best-of-the-blogs-7/
A longtime enterprise tech executive was charged with insider trading on Thursday by the Securities and Exchange Commission which alleged that he tipped off his two of his brothers and helped them dump shares in his company ahead of an ugly quarterly earnings report. Amer Deeba, the defendant, worked at Qualys for 17 years, most recently as chief commercial officer of the cloud security and services company. He had special access to Qualys CEO Philippe Courtot, according to the complaint, and was the only senior executive to sit near Courtot in the office. The SEC alleges that Deeba was privy to a significant miss on revenue in the company's Q1 2015 quarter, and encouraged his brothers to sell of their shares on that information before the company announced its results. Deeba, who has settled the case without admitting or denying the allegations, will be barred for two years from serving as an executive or director at any SEC-reporting company and will pay a penalty of $581,170 — the amount of losses his tip allegedly saved his brothers. Courtot called Deeba on April 7 and informed him of the low sales figures, according to the complaint. Deeba, who was in Lebanon with his family at the time of the phone call, allegedly passed this information along to his two brothers. Each held shares in the company thanks to gifts Deeba had issued them in 2005, long before the company's 2012 IPO. Qualys's stock price dropped 25% the day following its May 4 earnings announcement, according to the SEC complaint. Because they sold their stock ahead of the news, Deeba's two brothers avoided losing a total of $581,170, according to the complaint. Deeba and Qualys could not immediately be reached for comment. Join the conversation about this story » NOW WATCH: How LeBron James makes and spends his millions from https://www.businessinsider.com/sec-charged-former-qualys-executive-insider-trading-allegations-2018-8 City outfit’s top libel lawyer Mark Stephens named on pre-action letter A British cave diver who helped coordinate the rescue of 12 Thai children trapped in an underground cave system has instructed London law firm Howard Kennedy to prepare legal action against Elon Musk, after the tech billionaire labelled him a “pedo” on Twitter. A lawyer’s letter (in full below) reportedly sent to Musk’s Los Angeles home address shows that Howard Kennedy has been drafted in to work on the UK element of Vernon Unsworth’s potential libel claim. The pre-action letter — sent by L. Lin Wood, P.C, an Atlanta-based law firm handling the US element of the matter — describes Musk’s tweet as “false and defamatory” and that a “civil complaint for libel” is being prepared. Sixty-three-year-old Unsworth upset the CEO of electric car giant Tesla last month after describing his offer of sending a mini-submarine to assist rescuers as a “PR stunt”. Firing back, Musk — who has over 22 million followers — called Unsworth a “pedo”. The tweet was eventually deleted and Musk issued an apology describing “his actions against me do not justify my actions against him.” All 12 boys trapped in the flooded cave in Thailand were eventually rescued, along with their football coach. Continuing, the legal letter — first acquired by Buzzfeed News — shows that renowned media specialist Mark Stephens is assisting in the potential claim. Stephens heads up Howard Kennedy’s media law and regulatory team and has represented a number of high-profile clients including WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Howard Kennedy has been contacted for comment. The post Howard Kennedy drafted in to prepare legal action on behalf of cave diver branded a ‘pedo’ by tech billionaire Elon Musk appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/howard-kennedy-drafted-in-to-prepare-legal-action-on-behalf-of-cave-diver-branded-a-pedo-by-tech-billionaire-elon-musk/ Was it justified? Vacation scheme rejection emails aren’t great. Clichéd phrases such as “thank you for your interest” and “we had a lot of high-quality applicants this year” are enough to bring even the most resolute of aspiring lawyers to tears. So when a law firm fires off a particularly brutal rejection email it does leave you asking ‘why rub salt into the wound?’ — after all, law students are humans too. Take this next story, for example, courtesy of US legal website Above The Law. One plucky Harvard law student secured an interview for a summer associate role (essentially a long vac scheme) with US law firm Edelson, a Chicago-based outfit specialising in group actions and consumer protection. Then during the course of trying to arrange a suitable interview time — and seemingly without warning — the firm hits the unnamed student with this line:
The harsh missive (in full below) has since made its way onto a law meme Facebook page, racking up over 700 likes and hundreds of comments. So what went wrong? Well, Edelson’s founder, Jay Edelson, has now given the firm’s side of the story. In a lengthy comment issued to Above The Law post-publication, Edelson claimed the Harvard-goer had been previously rejected by the firm after he allegedly showed up “about 5 minutes late” to his interview and “wearing sweatpants”. Edelson continued:
Edelson goes onto explain that the firm sent the student a letter inviting him for a callback interview, and received a response four days later saying, in essence, that he would get back to them with some dates that worked. According to Edelson, over two weeks passed (and about 3 weeks from the initial letter) before the wannabe lawyer got back in touch with some suitable dates. “At that point, it was clear that [student] was not a good fit,” Edelson added. The post Law student receives absolutely brutal vac scheme rejection email appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/law-student-receives-absolutely-brutal-vac-scheme-rejection-email/ Norton Rose Fulbright Travers Smith and Ashurst increase trainee and junior lawyer salaries8/30/2018 All three outfits now in £75k-£80k range A trio of top City outfits have upped the salaries of their trainee and newly qualified (NQ) lawyers. Global law firm Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has bumped London NQ pay from £75,000 to £77,000, equating to a modest rise of £2,000 (2%). Trainee remuneration is also up: £45,000 in year one, increasing to £49,000 in year two — uplifts of 2% across the board. Legal Cheek‘s Most List shows that the pay move puts NRF’s junior lawyers £2,000 ahead of their equals at Dentons, Mayer Brown and Reed Smith (£75,000), and on the same levels of cash as their peers at DLA Piper and Baker McKenzie. Pay is also up at Travers Smith. NQ salaries now sit at £78,500, a rise of £3,500 or 5%, while trainee pay has been bumped by 3% — £45,000 in year one, rising to £50,500 in year two. The two-office outfit’s NQs are now on a pay par with those over at magic circle player Linklaters, while Travers’ second-year rookies now receive the same as their opposite numbers at Canary Wharf-based giant Clifford Chance. Ashurst has splashed the cash too. The firm, which takes on around 45 trainees annually, has bumped junior lawyer wedge to £76,000 — a rise of £4,000. Our Most List shows that Ashurst’s 6% uplift puts its NQs a full £3,000 ahead of Stephenson Harwood‘s new associates and just £1,000 behind NRF’s freshly-minted lawyers. Ashurst also confirmed trainee pay is up. Year one trainees now receive £44,000, up from £42,000 (5%), while those a year head will earn a salary of £48,000 — an extra £2,000 or 4%. The post Norton Rose Fulbright, Travers Smith and Ashurst increase trainee and junior lawyer salaries appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/norton-rose-fulbright-travers-smith-and-ashurst-increase-trainee-and-junior-lawyer-salaries/ You can take a tour of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal from the comfort of your own home8/29/2018 There are a lot of chairs Members of the public can now go on a virtual tour of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) thanks to a new interactive online tool. Launched this summer, the website function allows members of the public to navigate around the London tribunal’s various courts, discussion rooms and reception area. Keen to make the tour as realistic as possible, the SDT has drafted in what appear to be actors to play lawyers, court clerks, tribunal members and witnesses. Here’s a shot of the SDT’s reception area and a lawyer signing in his tieless client. And another of a desk and some chairs. Some more chairs, a desk and a rather fancy looking coat stand. Another desk and some chairs… oh, and a bin! In a slightly more interesting shot, virtual tourers can observe a hearing in action and are invited to click a series of blue plus signs to find out more information about the key participants. Susan Humble, who recently stepped down as the SDT’s chief executive officer, explained how the new online tool will help lawyers, and in particular those representing themselves at hearings, “to get a good feel for what to expect on the day.” She added:
The SDT adjudicates upon the alleged misconduct of lawyers and individuals employed by solicitors. In addition to this, it decides applications by ex-solicitors seeking restoration to the roll. It currently has 46 members (32 solicitors and 14 lay members), all appointed by the Master of the Rolls. The post You can take a tour of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal from the comfort of your own home appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/you-can-now-go-on-a-tour-of-the-solicitors-disciplinary-tribunal-from-the-comfort-of-your-own-home/ Surpasses recent uplifts by a host of top City firms US law firm White & Case has upped its Legal Practice Course (LPC) maintenance grant by a healthy 40%. The hike follows similar moves made by a plethora of top City outfits in recent months. Soon-to-be trainees at White & Case’s London office — which offers around 50 training contracts annually — will receive a hefty £10,500 in living support, up £3,000 from the previous award of £7,500. The increase is effective from September 2018. The outfit’s newest recruits complete the vocational course at BPP Law School’s Holborn branch. The firm also fully funds LPC fees. Justin Benson, partner and leader of the White & Case trainee solicitor programme in London, said:
Legal Cheek‘s Firms Most List shows White & Case’s five-figure maintenance sum is one of the largest currently on offer and follows a series of similar uplifts. In January, we revealed that magic circle duo Clifford Chance and Freshfields had boosted their grants to £10,000. Not to be outdone by their magic circle rivals, Linklaters, Slaughter and May and Allen & Overy quickly followed suit. Other firms to up their LPC offering to £10,000 include Herbert Smith Freehills, Hogan Lovells, Kirkland & Ellis and Norton Rose Fulbright. The post White & Case boosts LPC grant by 40% to £10,500 appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/08/white-case-boosts-lpc-grant-by-40-to-10500/ |
AuthorHi I am Alana Smith 35 years old living in New York. I am working as an assistant in local law office. I like to share legal news with people to educate them. Archives
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