The Lawyer

The Lawyer

The Post Office scandal must not undermine the vital role of private prosecutions in securing justice for victims

The Post Office Horizon scandal has led to a renewed scrutiny of private prosecutions and growing calls for a reform of the system, first put forward by the Justice Committee, and which the Justice Secretary is apparently considering. However, it would be entirely wrong to extrapolate errors that occurred in the Post Office prosecutions to […]

How to blow up a (talent) pipeline

Given we are in the midst of the festive season, it is worth calling to mind a heart-warming Christmas movie that lawyers can no doubt all relate to. Martin McDonagh’s dark comedy In Bruges is a film in which two hitmen end up stuck in the eponymous Belgian town awaiting orders from their boss. As […]

COP28: Advised emissions – will lawyers be heroes or villains?

A scene from the westerns and cartoons of my childhood keeps playing in my mind. A trail of gunpowder leads to kegs of dynamite. The fuse is lit. Will the hero put the fuse out before the whole thing blows sky high? It’s a race against time.   What are advised emissions anyway? Advised emissions […]

Balancing work and parenting: what can we do?

We’ve just launched Partnerless, a new email specifically for associates. Sign up here for weekly career intelligence and market chatter. I snapped a picture last week, my little girl Sophie, decided she was now bored of me working, comes to sit on my knee and starts typing on my keyboard. She’s got her baby doll […]

Black History Month: Women who shaped me

Born and raised in western Nigeria, I have always been fascinated by rock formations and geology. I spent the summer holiday before the start of my senior secondary school year absorbed in a geography textbook authored by Goh Cheng Leong, earning to uncover more about the earth, mountains, volcanoes, and other natural phenomenon. However, I […]

Black History Month: Let’s salute our sisters

It was Blair Underwood’s character Jonathan Rollins in LA Law who first inspired me to become a lawyer, cliched as this sounds. As a child aged 7, I had never seen a black man in a professional role before, and I was in awe – representation really does matter. My initial steps into the legal […]

Navigating the complex tapestry of identity: my journey as a Black woman

Born into a Sudanese family, my parents made a significant decision that would shape my experiences as a Black woman in ways I could never have anticipated. They chose to move our family to a small town in Oxfordshire, far away from their Sudanese community. This decision, coupled with my education at a Catholic primary […]

The one bad apple: here’s what leaders can do

There’s always one isn’t there? As our careers develop, we will all have had plenty of experience working in, or with, various teams. Some of these experiences will have had a very positive impact, others less so. There will be multiple reasons for this, however, one that I have noticed time and again is that it […]

Why law firm leaders should speak out on politics

The world has changed significantly; Brexit, the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis have challenged businesses leaders and the people they employ in ways we’ve not experienced since the Second World War; which means for most of us this context is entirely new. Given the scale of the challenges we’re facing whether around society, the economy or […]

Law firm floats – waving or drowning?

Since the flotation of Gateley in May 2015, a range of law firms have floated on the stock market or considered doing so. The largest of these was Mishcon de Reya, which abandoned its proposed main listing float in June 2022 “for the foreseeable future due to market conditions”. The entry into administration of Ince […]