Fit to Print

In a world where newspapers are branding judges ‘enemies of the people’ and fake news dominates public discourse, these days the media itself is the story.

The blueprint

‘There are known knowns… There are known unknowns… but there are also unknown unknowns.’

Shattered

‘When I initiated discussions on our culture at partners’ meetings, I could see the faces of many of my former partners light up, not for the reasons I hoped, but from the reflected glow of their BlackBerrys. They saw an excellent opportunity to catch up on more pressing issues, while I, to their minds, embarked …

The shock of the new

At a recent event for senior in-house counsel in London, two clear messages emerged. Firstly, that there is a rapid professionalisation in the way that major legal departments are managing themselves. Secondly, there was agreement that much of the support for change was being driven from the ‘alternative’ legal market. Despite this, there was a …

Rebels with a clause

For classists, the word ‘disruptive’ still carries negative connotations of damage, chaos and disarray. But these days in corporate circles it has become the phrase of the day – a complimentary shorthand to describe tech-driven innovators remaking all manner of industries. But the cult of disruption – birthed in Clayton Christensen’s hugely influential 1997 book …

The new black

In her much-touted new book on bolstering team-working in professional services, Smart Collaboration, Harvard Law School professor Heidi Gardner argues that sophisticated buyers are increasingly expecting an open-house approach from advisers in delivering their wares.

Scottish fintech and VC funds: so much promise, so many pitfalls | Brodies

Legal Briefing

While fintech has generated a lot of attention in recent years, it is not actually new. From ATMs to contactless payments, technology has been influencing the financial sector and the way we interact with money for decades. So why the recent surge of interest and what has Scotland got to do with it?

Fintech 2.0

‘When fintech became a big thing the narrative was all about the banks being disrupted and the threat to their business model,’ says Martin Cook, UK general counsel at Funding Circle, one of the world’s most successful peer-to-peer lenders. ‘There has since been a shift toward what might be called “fintech 2.0”, with a less …

Brexit Miller case – the impact of the UK’s exit from the European Union on immigration | Magrath Sheldrick LLP

Legal Briefing

Following the referendum on 23 June 2016, the UK public voted to leave the European Union. The subsequent political and media storm that ensued focused on what shape the exit deal would take including when and how article 50 of the Treaty on European Union 2009 would be triggered. Nine months after the UK voted …