Over to you: assessing your training need in the age of ‘continuing competence’

In October 2017, solicitors will make their first declaration that they have ‘reflected on and addressed any identified learning and development needs’. Continuing professional development (CPD) is the latest aspect of solicitors’ lives to convert to an outcomes-focused approach, under the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA)’s continuing competence regime.

Beware the Black Swan

Imagine the worst: within the last 72 hours, your company has been hit by a major crisis. There may have been serious damage to the community in which you operate. Your customers may have suffered, people’s livelihoods may have been destroyed, the environment may be irretrievably damaged. Some of your employees and contractors may be …

Whose dime?

Even for City lawyers used to increasingly heavy-handed tactics in panel reviews from banking groups, it proved something of a shock. News earlier this year that Deutsche Bank had notified pitching firms of its unwillingness to pay for trainees and newly-qualified lawyers during its last adviser review sent a jolt through the UK legal market. …

The long, long game

On 19 May, Iran went to the polls for what many believed would be a tightly-fought election. By the next morning it was clear that the analysts’ predictions had been wide of the mark. Incumbent president Hassan Rouhani, leader of the Moderation and Development Party, secured a landslide victory over his nearest rival, Ebrahim Raisi, …

Who’s afraid of the Big Bad Four?

‘It has happened to me where you serve a client, have a great book of business, and then Ernst & Young [EY] is lucky enough to win the audit work for that client,’ says EY global legal head Cornelius Grossmann, reflecting on the vagaries and rewards of providing legal services in a Big Four giant.

Get in the ring

Is the general counsel the ringmaster managing risk effectively within their organisation, or a stage prompt waiting in the wings? These were the main discussion points of a recent panel debate before an audience of more than 40 senior in-house lawyers gathered together at Eight Members Club in Moorgate.

Public call for evidence

On 21 July 2017, the House of Lords EU Internal Market Sub-Committee (the EU Committee), chaired by Lord Whitty, launched an inquiry into the key issues that will arise in the negotiations on Brexit and the impact of Brexit on UK competition policy.

Firm Showcase: Elias Neocleous & Co

The firm Elias Neocleous & Co is the largest law firm in Cyprus by a considerable margin, and is generally recognised as the leading firm in south-east Europe and the eastern Mediterranean region. It has more than 140 fee-earners operating out of three offices in Cyprus, and a network of offices overseas.

Firm Showcase: ICT Legal Consulting

The firm ICT Legal Consulting is an international law firm founded in 2011 with offices in Milan, Bologna, Rome and Amsterdam, and a presence in 19 other countries (Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, China, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Mexico, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Spain, Turkey, the United Kingdom and the USA).

The shock of the old

The legal implications of new technologies have been making headlines recently, with a group of more than 100 specialists in robotics submitting an open letter to the United Nations urging a ban on the use of machine learning and artificial intelligence in weapon systems. But on the commercial side the change capturing lawyers’ attention is …