Bina Hale was made redundant just months after giving birth The largest law firm in the world is facing a possible showdown with the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) after it made a staff member redundant just months after giving birth. Bina Hale, a former recruitment manager at Dentons, won a claim of sex discrimination and unfair dismissal in an employment tribunal in December 2017. The court heard how there were two other recruiters who were earmarked for redundancy, but were kept on after being judged to be more professional. Hale was given her marching orders while on maternity leave. Much of the tribunal’s criticism of Dentons at the time focused on notes made during the redundancy process. The judgment revealed a member of the HR team had met with Hale on three separate occasions but “destroyed” handwritten notes documenting the encounters. The tribunal also described evidence provided by Hale’s line manager as “muddled and unconvincing” and “not credible”. It has now emerged Dentons could face further repercussions over Hale’s dismissal after it confirmed the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) was considering referring it to the SDT. A spokesperson for Dentons said:
The spokesperson, continuing, stressed that it had since reviewed its maternity and “family friendly” policies. The SRA declined to comment. The post Dentons could face SDT over dismissal of recruitment manager while on maternity leave appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/dentons-could-face-sdt-over-dismissal-of-recruitment-manager-while-on-maternity-leave/
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Media specialist Nicola Hartley shares her journey and the things she learnt along the way Recalling her decision to hand in her notice and start her own business, Nicola Hartley admits she didn’t consider the risk: “I make up my mind and just want to do something. I thought it was fine — I’ve got savings and worst-case scenario I’ll get another job.” Three years later, Hartley is founder and director of her company, Mint & Co, a legal and business consultancy advising the creative industry. Speaking to David Burgess who heads up media law practice Reviewed & Cleared in the latest episode of the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast, Hartley explains why “flexibility” is key in her business. Mint & Co provides small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that cannot afford an in-house lawyer (or the hefty law firm fees) with flexible solutions, Hartley tells Burgess. Qualifying as a media lawyer at Richards Butler (since acquired by Reed Smith), Hartley says she uses her experience as a lawyer to analyse the risks facing her clients. In comparison with more “risk-averse” law firms, Hartley’ spends less time “dotting the i’s and crossing the t’s” by adopting a more hands on approach. Hartley’s decision to start anew also stemmed from wanting to spend more time with her daughter — something she finds increasingly common in the legal workplace. “Our industry is taking a while to get up to speed with accommodating working parents,” she says. Mint & Co, however, is “reimagining” the workplace and its team of eight consultants can work remotely “wherever and whenever” they want. Her journey has not been without challenges — the most significant of which was parting ways with her business partner in the early stages of the business. Hartley explains:
Hartley has since learnt that when forming a business relationship, “you should sit down and talk properly about your aims for the business and check that you’re aligned.” Looking ahead, she’s working on her transition from lawyer to CEO. Slowing this process down is the pleasure she takes in being with clients and working with them. She admits there’s a 60:40 split between her role as CEO and lawyer respectively, but this is a “cliched, but classic” dilemma — that “you’re supposed to be working on the business, not in the business”. You can download the Legal Entrepreneurs Podcast for free via SoundCloud and iTunes. The post Legal Entrepreneurs: How I used my lawyer skills to start my own consultancy firm appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/legal-entrepreneurs-how-i-used-my-lawyer-skills-to-start-my-own-consultancy-firm/ The results from the new Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey are in Tech is the hot topic in law right now, as the legal professions embraces — or talks about embracing — artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and other sexy-sounding innovations. But it’s the less glamorous efficiency-boosting developments that tend to have the biggest impact on trainee and junior lawyers’ lives. Many of these are made by firms’ good old IT teams. This was the central finding of the ‘How tech savvy is your law firm?’ question in the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2018-19 of over 2,000 trainees and junior lawyers across the nation’s leading 80 law firms. Along with the responses, we also received hundreds of comments. Interestingly, there were very few reports of trainees and junior lawyers using AI. One of the only firms that this happening at on a relatively widespread basis seems to be Pinsent Masons, which has developed its own AI tool. This is now being used regularly for document review, we understand. Pinsents is one of 11 firms to receive an A* for tech-savvy in this year’s survey. Others to have bagged the top grade have done so for a variety of reasons. Take Allen & Overy, which has led the way as a law firm tech pioneer by launching a tech incubator called Fuse. This has clearly impressed trainees. One notes: “Setting up Fuse and the intention to integrate legal tech shows that we are very much looking to the future and looking to embrace new technologies.” While another adds: “Start up incubator on the first floor #yah #Shoreditch #flatwhiteeconomy #oldwhitemanagement”. Taylor Wessing is another that has long been at the forefront of tech, opening up a small satellite office in trendy Shoreditch workspace Second Home as early as 2011. Rookies at the firm seem impressed that, like Pinsent Masons, its internal IT team has “developed a range of bespoke software for internal use (e.g. document creation) and external use (e.g apps)”. Three other firms whose tech pronouncements appear to be backed up by action on the ground are Addleshaw Goddard, DWF and Osborne Clarke. One Addleshaw insider tells us that “tech and IT are a huge focus for the firm with lots of enjoy being pumped into its legal tech arm. Following the role out of the upgraded IT system across all the offices, the introduction of ‘AGID’, tech is right at the forefront of what the firm is doing and trying to achieve”. DWF, meanwhile, which has its own ‘DWF Ventures’ tech arm, is “constantly updating” its systems, and has “our own tech which we use such as DWF draft and a claims management system”. At Osborne Clarke there are “regular training sessions on technological developments and how they might affect the firm/its clients” and “new systems” that are managed well with “a lot of trouble-shooting”. Then there are the firms that haven’t historically been known for their commitment to technology but turn out to be doing it pretty well. Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, CMS and Gowling WLG all fall into this category. One of the things that makes these firms standout in trainees’ eyes is the high standard of hardware they dish out — with upgraded laptops (Surface Pros are increasingly popular among law firms), iPhones of reasonably recent vintage and desks with dual monitors becoming ever more common. They also have good IT support desks, which can make a huge difference to a junior lawyer’s life. And finally there are the tech-focused law firms with lots of tech clients to which tech comes naturally. Bird & Bird and Bristows don’t need to shout about their prowess in this area because it’s a given. And the trainees that enter these firms — a high proportion of whom are STEM graduates — come with certain expectations. “We nerd out a lot talking about tech,” one Bristows insider notes. The law firms which scored an A* for tech in the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2018-19Firms listed in alphabetical order; winner to be announced at the Legal Cheek Awards on 21 March 2019 Addleshaw Goddard Outside of the A* grades, 18 firms scored an A for tech-savvy, 29 got a B, 17 a C, and eight got a D. Peruse all of the firm’s new 2018-19 survey scorecards — including training, quality of work, tech and much more — via the Legal Cheek Firms Most List 2018-19. Previously: The best law firms for training 2018-19 The post Revealed: The best law firms for tech 2018-19 appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/revealed-the-best-law-firms-for-tech-2018-19/ From petrifying printing costs to soul-crushing training contract rejections — law school can be a scary place Halloween means tricks, treats and fun size Haribo bags galore. But when you’re a law student, your ever-increasing workload might seem even more terrifying than the witches, ghosts and ghouls parading the night-time streets. Here are eight hair-raising horrors every law student will be able to relate to this Halloween. 1. The dreaded 9am lectureAn early start might have seemed doable back when you were starting out as a fresher, but you’ll quickly resort to setting up multiple alarms just to make it to that 9am land law lecture. 2. Scary law school library finesAt some point, you’ll be hit with a bill longer than your reading list and realise that trying to convince the librarian to waive your fee is like drawing blood from a stone. Can that overdue equity and trusts textbook that has been sitting on your shelf since reading week really be costing you 75p a day? 3. Petrifying printing costsIn order to avoid lugging around heavy textbooks you’ll consider using printouts. But you’ll quickly realise the cost of printing out a 192-page court judgment makes neither economic (or environmental) sense. 4. The horror of forgetting to do your seminar prepSooner or later you’ll show up to a seminar unprepared only to be asked to explain why the second limb of the Ghosh test was overruled. Eyes on you and unable to answer, you’ll curse yourself for not doing your reading the night before. 5. The agony of trying to work out the ratio decidendi of a Lord Denning judgmentNo other judge will mark the memory of law students quite like Lord Denning. His colourful judgments and wild dissents brought life to a subject often viewed as rule-based and dry. However, ask a law student to work out the ratio decidendi (the rationale for the decision) and watch them break out in a panic-filled cold sweat. 6. Terrifying EU case law namesCan we just call it the ‘direct effect’ case rather than Van Gend en Loos v Nederlandse Administratie der Belastingen? 7. The ghastly Watson Glaser testYou’ll realise that not only do you have to ace the law to get your foot in the door of a top law firm, you’ll also have to scrub up on your critical thinking skills. 8. Soul-crushing training contract rejectionsAfter toiling away hours of your time crafting the perfect training contract application, your heart will sink when you receive your first letter of rejection. Happy Halloween! The post 8 horrors of being a law student appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/8-horrors-of-being-a-law-student/ UK Supreme Court judge warns of cryptocurrency bubble risk coming up to a year after it burst10/30/2018 It looks like there won’t be a SupremeCourtCoin A Supreme Court judge has raised a warning that cryptocurrencies “risk creating bubbles” — ten months after Bitcoin began its plunge from a December 2017 high of nearly $20,000 to below $7,000, a level it has remained at more or less since February this year. Writing in The Times this morning, in a piece extracted from a speech he delivered last week at the East China University of Political Science and Law in Shanghai, Lord Hodge echoed alarm calls that were being made this time last year by mainstream financial commenters about “irrational exuberance” in the cryptocurrency space. Hodge’s words of caution come too late for the hordes of amateur investors who lost fortunes on Bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin, XRP and hundreds of other cryptocurrencies that sprung up in the mania last year. Many bought at the top of the market in December and January and have since lost big. For example, a purchaser of Ethereum at its January 15 peak of $1,320.73 would now find their investment worth just $197.17. Of course, it’s possible that Hodge may have one eye on the future, with some in the crypto space talking lately of a “Bitcoin coil” that could unwind violently following its recent period of stability.
Indeed Hodge does seem aware that he is not exactly early to this party, mentioning elsewhere in his speech that “cryptocurrency rose in value on a speculative bubble from about US $1,000 to over US $19,000 before falling back to its price at the time of writing this lecture of about US $6,400”. He added: “Such a performance does not bode well for an unregulated cryptocurrency in a permissionless system to be an effective unit of account or a store of value.” Hodge became a Supreme Court judge in October 2013, after a career at the Scottish bar where we was made a QC in 1996. He studied law at the universities of Edinburgh and Cambridge. The post UK Supreme Court judge warns of cryptocurrency bubble risk… coming up to a year after it burst appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/supreme-court-judge-warns-of-cryptocurrency-bubble-risk/ Event is double size of last year, with new sessions on mental health and diversity, alongside SQE headline discussion, innovation TED-style talks and insight from other industries This morning super early bird tickets have gone on sale for Legal Cheek’s Future of Legal Education and Training Conference 2019. The day-long event takes place at Kings Place London, the exclusive canal-side venue in King’s Cross, on Wednesday 22 May next year. It will be double the size of the sold-out 2018 Conference, and hosted across Kings Place’s 400-person capacity Hall One, Gallery mezzanine space and St Pancras Room. New for 2019 are additional sessions on mental health and diversity. They will feature either side of a more concentrated headline SQE Q&A discussion, alongside innovation in legal education TED-style talks, an insights from other industries panel, and a separate bar training debate. The aim is to generate new ideas that will help shape the future of legal education and training as the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and Bar Standards Board (BSB) prepare to bring in the biggest changes to qualifying as a lawyer in a generation. Sponsored jointly by BPP University Law School and The University of Law, the Conference will feature all of the big name industry figures who have been at the heart of the key recent developments in education and training in the law. At the 2018 Conference we heard from high profile legal academics from universities including UCL, Durham, Leeds and Birmingham, heads of innovation from magic circle law firms, graduate recruitment chiefs from leading law firms and banks, training bosses from the SRA and the BSB, and lawyers who went on to found their own start-ups. The first batch of speakers for 2019 will be announced in the lead up to Christmas. Graduate recruitment and learning & development teams from over 50 leading corporate law firms attended the 2018 Conference, alongside legal academics from 40 different universities across the UK. In attendance too were a host of lawtech companies working in the education sector, journalists specialising in law and education, and a collection of Legal Cheek’s student campus ambassadors. This year we are doubling the space, and broadening the topics covered, to allow more attendees from the profession and academia, plus opening up the Conference to diversity organisations and specialists in welling & resilience, for the biggest gathering of its type. Get your tickets here, available at the super early bird rate of £160 + VAT until next month. Watch the highlights from the 2018 Future of Legal Education and Training ConferenceThe post Tickets go on sale for Future of Legal Education and Training Conference 2019 appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/tickets-go-on-sale-for-future-of-legal-education-and-training-conference-2019/ Not a great start As a week long campaign to help raise the profile of justice and the rule of law got underway yesterday, the government revealed that the resource budget for the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) will be cut by £300 million. While there was no mention of justice in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s budget speech, the Treasury’s report shows the MoJ’s annual pot of cash will shrink from £6.3 billion in 2018/19 to £6 billion in 2019/20. Meanwhile, the capital budget will drop from £600 million in 2018/19 to £400 million in 2019/20. This will decrease to just £100 million in 2020/21, according to the report. In terms of spending commitments, the report says the budget will help fund a new £170 million Glen Parva prison, £30 million to improve “security and decency” across the prison network, and a £21.5 million investment in the “wider justice system”. Figures show that by 2019/20, the MoJ’s day-to-day will have reduced by over a third in the last ten years. Responding to the budget, shadow justice secretary Richard Burgon warned austerity will continue in justice. He said:
The disappointing budget came as lawyers embarked on a week-long celebration of all things justice. Justice Week 2018 — a new initiative set up by the three legal professional bodies; the Law Society, the Bar Council and the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) — aims to promote the value of the rule of law to audiences beyond the legal community through a programme of research, public events, and digital content. The post Justice Week? Government cuts MoJ budget by £300 million appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/justice-week-government-slashes-moj-budget-by-300-million/ Exclusive: The Inns of Court are looking for someone to help them design a more affordable BPTC10/30/2018 Anticipated 2020 launch The Inns of Court are looking to recruit a ‘bar course designer’ to help them create and launch a new Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC). The Inns of Court College of Advocacy (ICCA) — an education and training organisation made up of judges, lawyers and lecturers — is seeking an “experienced academic designer” to help it create a more “affordable” version of the BPTC ahead of an anticipated launch date in 2020. Legal Cheek‘s BPTC Most List shows aspiring barristers can pay in excess of £19,000 to secure a place on the vocational course. Posted to the ICCA’s jobs board, the ad shows that the successful candidate will join a core team already engaged in the design and development of the new vocational course. Collectively, the four Inns — Lincoln’s Inn, Middle Temple, Gray’s Inn and Inner Temple — were the sole bar training providers courtesy of the Inns of Court School of Law. With other competitors entering the market in 1997, the Inns eventually stopped offering the BPTC (or the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) as it was known then) in 2001. The ICCA’s jobs page also reveals it’s looking to fill at least two more BPTC-focused vacancies. It is seeking a ‘deputy course leader’ who will, among other things, play a key role in raising the profile of the BPTC with wannabe barristers, while the ICCA’s new ‘head of online learning’ will oversee the design and development of online materials. Commenting on the recruitment drive, the ICCA’s director, James Wakefield, told Legal Cheek:
News of the ICCA’s new roles come just over a year after we revealed it was looking to hire a “project manager” to help launch “a wholly new and radically innovative BPTC”. At the time, Wakefield told us it was “seriously considering” delivering a new version of the vocational course in collaboration with another organisation or on its own. We reported yesterday that the BSB had approved a series of new training rules in a bid to make the route to qualification as a barrister more flexible and affordable. As part of the shake-up, students may soon have the to the option to complete a new spilt version of the BPTC. The radical new idea — first put forward in 2016 by the Bar Council and the Council of the Inns of Court — would see students tackle knowledge-based learning, such as civil and criminal procedure, during stage one, before moving on to the more practical elements of the course, such as advocacy and conferencing, as part of stage two. The post Exclusive: The Inns of Court are looking for someone to help them design a more affordable BPTC appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/exclusive-the-inns-of-court-are-looking-for-someone-to-help-them-design-a-more-affordable-bptc/ Uplift in line with other public-sector workers, says government Judges in England and Wales have been handed a 2% annual pay rise, despite a leaked independent report recommending they receive boosts of up to 32%. The uplift, the biggest for judges in ten years, is in line with other public-sector workers, including doctors and police officers, and follows an independent review by the Senior Salaries Review Body (SSRB). The SSRB had recommended High Court judges be paid £240,000 (up 32%), £165,000 for circuit judges (up 22%) and £117,000 for district judges (up 8%). Under the new pay structure, which takes effect immediately and is backdated to April, a High Court judge will now earn a salary of £185,197. Lord Chancellor David Gauke said:
The SSRB’s report, which was leaked to the Mail Online earlier this month, was commissioned by the government amid concerns over the recruitment and retention of judges. In his 2015 annual report, the now former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Thomas of Cwmgiedd, warned that there were “clear concerns” about morale among judges. Lord Thomas, now an arbitrator at London’s Essex Court Chambers, said judges were having to handle “an ever-increasing quantity of challenging and emotionally-charged cases”. The post Judges handed 2% annual pay rise despite independent report recommending bigger boosts appeared first on Legal Cheek. from https://www.legalcheek.com/2018/10/udges-handed-2-annual-pay-rise-despite-independent-report-recommending-bigger-boosts/ Take a look behind the scenes of 'The People's Court' to see how TV court shows really work10/29/2018
Following is a transcript of the video. Narrator: One of the best things about staying home from school as a kid was watching daytime court shows. My personal favorite? "The People's Court." Judge Milian is electric, and the cases are always so ridiculous. Judge Milian: Where was your cart? By the watermelons, with you, or where the opening is? Okay, no, no. Narrator: But what if I told you that this is not an actual courtroom? And when a person loses a case, they don't even have to pay the settlement. So what's actually going on? Court shows have long been a staple of American television, but they didn't start on TV. The first court shows popped up in radio's golden age. The early programs were typically reenactments of real court cases. Radio: There's no telling what would happen to him or his life if he resists the authorities. Narrator: But "The People's Court," which began in 1981, started a whole new era: arbitration-based reality shows. Presiding since 2001, Judge Marilyn Milian is the show's longest serving host and the first Latina judge to host a nationally syndicated court show. Before "The People's Court," Milian was an assistant state attorney in Florida and was appointed by Governor Jeb Bush to the Miami Circuit Court, working in the criminal division. Judge Milian: I had a gubernatorial appointment, and it was a sure thing. And I had crossed every "T" and dotted every "I" to make sure that I had an upward trajectory in the judiciary. And I was giving all that up if I decided to join what many in the law see as the frivolity of television. Of course, now that it's been on the air 20 years, I'm a genius. But back then, people were worried about what it is that was gonna happen in my career. Narrator: What you see on the show are real small claims cases. They're lifted directly out of the courthouse to be arbitrated by Judge Milian. David Scott: If you get your case in small claims, there's one judge, and there's three or 400 cases that show up on any given day. And it's very hard, impossible, for that one judge to get through those cases, so they offer you something called binding arbitration. And that is, you can go to a lawyer, plead your case to the lawyer with the person you're suing, and that lawyer will decide the case. It's binding arbitration, there's no room for appeal, and you have agreed, and the defendant has agreed to allow this arbitrator to hear your case. And that's basically exactly what we do. Narrator: So how do they pick the cases? David Scott: This is like panning for gold. We go out, and we go to all these courts, and we get all of these cases, and we sift through them. We love a relationship case. We love where an ex-wife is suing their ex-husband. We love cases where there's a lot of personal kind of stuff along with the legal stuff. So it's the personalities that we're looking for. We're looking for a good argument, we're looking for a good defense. That's how we select our cases. Judge Milian: We shoot to bring the public the juiciest cases we can get. They were juicy then, they're juicy now, and hopefully they'll continue to be juicy. Narrator: The show covers travel expenses for the participants and will pay the settlement if the case is ruled in your favor. But for most cases, it's not really about the money. Judge Milian: We once had a guy who paid $40 to file a case over a $5 lottery card. And it was a thing of beauty, because what it shows you is that small claims is never about the money. It's always about the principle. Narrator: So you've got a case. How do you get the judge on your side? Judge Milian: Absolutely the biggest mistake people make is coming unprepared. If you want a judge to rule against somebody and believe you, you have to bring evidence. You can't just show up with your flapping gums. People will just walk it in there, they're insulted that you didn't just take their word for it. It's insanity. I think people think that because they believe their story so much, all they have to do is come forward and say it, and everyone else is gonna see it their way. But when there's two sides involved, you have to prove what it is you're saying. Join the conversation about this story » from https://www.businessinsider.com/truth-behind-scenes-tv-court-show-2018-10 |
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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