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International Edition

Long-awaited legal education review addresses key issues for reform

The long-awaited report into standards of legal education and training in England and Wales has been published today (25 June). The Legal Education and Training Review (LETR) was commissioned in June 2011 to consider reform of the current system amid "unprecedented change" in the legal services market.
4 minute read

International Edition

Dubai dreaming – the Middle East is coming to the fore as Europe struggles

Competing against countries from Europe, South America and Asia, Dubai's bid to host the World Expo in 2020 is redolent of the growth in prominence of the Middle East in recent years. With the emirate pitching to bring the exhibition to the Middle East for the first time, delegates at Legal Week's Corporate Counsel Forum Middle East suggested the bid was symbolic of increasing scrutiny on how Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) countries stack up against markets in Europe and Asia on the wider business stage. Speaking at the recent event, which was held at the Mina A'Salam, Madinat Jumeirah in Dubai, Iain Linney, a global capital markets regulatory specialist and formerly executive director at WestLB and Farouk Soussa, chief economist for the Middle East at Citi, sized up the opportunities for businesses looking to expand or invest in the GCC.
6 minute read

International Edition

Olswang targets female partner boost with flexi-work push and gender bias training

Olswang is urging all of its partners to attend unconscious bias training as part of a push to increase its proportion of female partners, as the firm looks to ramp up the use of flexible working. The UK top 30 firm has introduced training sessions to raise awareness of unconscious bias across all of its offices, with the scheme coming as part of a wider overhaul of its flexible working policy, which is now being made more readily available. Currently, 22% of lawyers and staff in its London and Thames Valley offices work flexibly, while internationally the figure is 20%, a quarter of whom are male.
2 minute read

International Edition

Oxford Uni to join forces with social mobility venture PRIME

The University of Oxford is set to become the first higher education provider to join forces with PRIME, as the law-firm backed venture aimed at boosting access to the legal profession prepares to increase the number of in-house legal teams signed up. The university has set up a working group to consider how it can get involved with the social mobility scheme, with options including linking PRIME students with its academics, and organising sessions and conferences for the scheme's participants. Oxford also wants to help PRIME raise awareness of further education opportunities in law during and after law firm work experience places.
2 minute read

International Edition

Eversheds overhauls sector focus as firm revamps management line-up

Eversheds has revamped its sector line-up with the introduction of four new key industry groups, as the firm continues to shake up its structure in response to major changes in the markets in which it operates. The overhaul, which comes after chief executive Bryan Hughes last summer set out the firm's new three-year strategy, has seen the creation of four new sectors – propcos; public sector; consumer; and diversified industrials – and has involved several management changes. City corporate partner Robin Johnson will lead the diversified industrial group, which has been formed by the combination of the former industrial engineering; aerospace, defence and security; chemicals; and automotive sectors. The group covers a list of major clients including BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce, Tyco and Volvo.
3 minute read

International Edition

Aspiring lawyers face bleak future as cost-conscious firms cut back training contracts

If any doubts remained about the size of the challenge facing aspiring lawyers in today's market, then it was starkly illustrated by the news that the number of training contracts on offer at law firms across England and Wales has fallen to the lowest level for well over a decade. The Law Society's annual statistics report for 2012, released earlier this month, revealed that the number of training contracts registered in the 12-month period to July 2012 dropped to 4,869, down 10.5% from the previous year's equivalent total of 5,441. The figures are now at their lowest since training contract details were first recorded in 1998-99, when 4,827 were logged, with numbers almost 25% down on the pre-recession high of 6,303 in 2007-08.
5 minute read

International Edition

Kent Council to launch trainee lawyer programme

Kent County Council's legal team is to launch its own trainee programme, with the move coming as the local authority eyes a series of white label and cross-selling initiatives.
2 minute read

International Edition

Training contracts fall 10% to lowest level since 1999, Law Society reports

The number of training contracts offered at law firms in England and Wales fell 10% in 2011-12 to the lowest level since 1999, according to new research by the Law Society. The society's annual report shows that the number of training contracts registered in the 12 months leading to 31 July 2012 dropped to 4,869, down 10.5% from the previous year's equivalent total of 5,411.
2 minute read

International Edition

Cambridge retains crown as students rank top law faculties

The University of Cambridge has retained its spot as the top-ranked university law faculty, according to a major study carried out by Legal Week's research arm into the perceptions of more than 3,000 law students at some of the UK's leading institutions. Legal Week Intelligence's 2013 Law Student Report found more students at Cambridge graded their university as 'excellent' than at any other institution, with the faculty coming top for the quality of its teaching, value for money and teaching facilities – three of the four categories students were asked to rate.
3 minute read

International Edition

What they don't teach you at law school

So you've completed got your law degree – but there's more to building a successful career than technical knowledge, as Dominic Bacon reports...
9 minute read

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