Pulse UK

  • September 29, 2025

    Legal Aid Lawyers Spend 25% Of Time On Unpaid Work

    Legal aid lawyers spend about a quarter of their time on tasks for which they are not paid such as administration, management and compliance, according to a study published Monday — effectively subsidizing the state-funded legal aid system.

  • September 29, 2025

    Solicitor Fined £17K For Poor Oversight In Property Schemes

    A solicitor has been fined for failing to adequately advise clients on the risk of putting their money into dubious property investment schemes and for not adequately training or supervising a part-time consultant, the Solicitors Regulation Authority said Monday.

  • September 29, 2025

    Justice Secretary To Launch Panel Promoting English Law

    Justice Secretary David Lammy unveiled plans on Monday to establish a new "panel" aimed at promoting English law on the global stage, marking his first speech as justice secretary.

  • September 29, 2025

    Withers Taps New CEO In 2nd Recent Leadership Shuffle

    U.K.-based Withers LLP announced Monday that the firm has appointed a new CEO to take the reins from 25-year chief executive Margaret Robertson, following its appointment of a new chair earlier this year.

  • September 26, 2025

    Church Court Appoints First Female Head Of Chambers

    Church Court Chambers said Friday that it has appointed a female silk as head of chambers for the first time since its founding in 2013.

  • September 26, 2025

    Squire Patton Keeps Up Finance Growth With Reed Smith Duo

    Squire Patton Boggs LLP announced Wednesday that it has hired a pair of former Reed Smith LLP attorneys in the U.S. and U.K., marking the latest additions to a burgeoning finance bench.

  • September 26, 2025

    Kaplan Apologizes For False SQE Exam Cancellations

    Training and testing company Kaplan apologized on Friday after a technical glitch caused more than 230 candidates to be wrongly notified that their booking to sit the second part of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination assessment had been canceled.

  • September 26, 2025

    MoFo Settles Discrimination Claim Over Dropping Trans Client

    Morrison Foerster has agreed to pay £25,000 ($34,000) to settle a discrimination claim that it dropped a trans man as a client amid the Trump administration's move against diversity, equity and inclusion programs.

  • September 26, 2025

    CAT Vet, Criminal Solicitor Among 4 New High Court Judges

    A criminal defense expert who became the U.K.'s first service police complaints commissioner and a chair of the Competition Appeal Tribunal has been appointed as a High Court judge, one of four new additions to the bench.

  • September 26, 2025

    UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

    This past week in London has seen Sanjeev Gupta’s Liberty OneSteel sue its collapsed former lender Greensill Capital, television personality Janice Dickinson hit ITV with a personal injury claim after falling over while appearing on “I’m a Celeb …”, and energy investor Blasket bring fresh litigation against Spain amid a row over a $416 million arbitration award. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

  • September 26, 2025

    The Revolving Door: Eversheds, Sullivan Make Big Hires

    Over the past week, Eversheds Sutherland recruited McDermott Will & Emery's head of U.K. tax, Sullivan & Worcester expanded its trade finance practice with an expert from Squire Patton Boggs, and Mewburn Ellis appointed a patent and artificial intelligence specialist to help spearhead its AI strategy. 

  • September 26, 2025

    SFO Fights To Secure £1M From Solicitor Convicted Of Fraud

    A former solicitor serving a 14-year prison sentence for siphoning off investors' money through a fraudulent offshore "get-rich-quick" legal aid scheme is potentially facing a further five-year sentence for failing to pay back over £1 million ($1.3 million) to victims, court heard Friday.

  • September 26, 2025

    Japan Firm Mori Hamada To Open European Hub In London

    Mori Hamada & Matsumoto, one of Japan's Big Four law firms, is joining a growing number of outfits from the Asian country to establish a presence in the U.K., drawn by London's status as a leading legal and financial hub and a gateway to Europe.

  • September 26, 2025

    Litigation Conduct Ruling Sparks 'Major Fear' For Lawyers

    A recent High Court decision that unqualified employees of law firms are prohibited from conducting litigation has caused "major fear" among lawyers and created uncertainty about firms' profitability, the training of new talent, access to justice and even the use of artificial intelligence in legal practice.

  • September 25, 2025

    Carter-Ruck Pro Tried To Stifle OneCoin Critics, SRA Says

    A Carter-Ruck partner threatened to sue whistleblowers exposing the multibillion-dollar OneCoin crypto-scam to send "a strong PR message" and stifle criticism, according to recently disclosed court documents detailing a decision by the Solicitors Regulation Authority to prosecute her.

  • September 25, 2025

    Hogan Lovells Retains 67% Of Trainees In Autumn 2025

    Hogan Lovells said Thursday that two-thirds of its trainees qualifying in the U.K. this autumn are staying on at the firm.

  • September 25, 2025

    Court Delays Soar As Backlogs Break Records

    The backlog of criminal court cases in England and Wales reached a record of nearly 440,000 between April and June, as new cases continued to outpace final decisions and the justice system remained strained by chronic underfunding.

  • September 25, 2025

    Fladgate Says Founders Of Claims Biz Pocketed Tax Refunds

    Fladgate LLP has told a London court that the founders of a claims management company swindled tax credits linked to the firm's work on group litigation involving property search companies.

  • September 25, 2025

    Hogan Lovells Adds Steptoe Trio To Boost EU Trade Team

    Hogan Lovells has hired a team of three international trade experts from Steptoe LLP in Brussels amid a rapidly evolving geopolitical landscape.

  • September 24, 2025

    Decaying Buildings Contribute To UK Court Case Logjam

    Rundown court buildings riddled with asbestos, mold and maggots are among the factors causing a mounting backlog of cases in England and Wales and reflects chronic underfunding, the Law Society warned in a report published Thursday.

  • September 24, 2025

    Dentons Hires Dublin Disputes Partner From Maples Group

    Dentons has added an experienced commercial litigator from offshore law firm Maples Group to its Dublin office, saying his arrival will strengthen its ability to advise both domestic and multinational clients on arbitrations, complex disputes and regulatory investigations.

  • October 01, 2025

    DWF Hires Senior Finance Pro From Eversheds In Belfast

    DWF said Wednesday that it has recruited the head of Eversheds Sutherland's banking and finance practice in Belfast as it moves to expand its business in the Northern Irish capital.

  • September 24, 2025

    London Firm Partner 'Turned Blind Eye' To Client's Red Flags

    A partner at a central London law firm repeatedly turned a blind eye to the obvious red flags of a client who was involved in a £7 million ($9.5 million) fraud, a court ruled Wednesday.

  • September 24, 2025

    The Lawyer Wins UK Trademark Clash With Danish Biz

    Legal news website The Lawyer has dashed a Danish company's "The Lawyer Hub" U.K. trademark hopes, proving that its opponent filed its application in bad faith.

  • September 24, 2025

    ASA Orders Law Firms To Bin Misleading 'No Win, No Fee' Ads

    The U.K.'s advertising regulator told two law firms Wednesday that they must remove Facebook and website promotions relating to "no win, no fee" group action compensation claims, finding that they failed to include important information about service fees.

Expert Analysis

  • Extradition To The United States: Fight Or Flight?

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    Recent extradition cases have demonstrated that individuals in the United Kingdom facing charges in the United States can either fight extradition proceedings tooth and nail, or voluntarily travel to the U.S. An approach carefully tailored to the facts of each case is required in order to best protect a requested person's interests, says Ben Isaacs of 7 Bedford Row.

  • UK Internal Investigations Are Taking An Ungainly Turn

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    The London High Court's decision in Serious Fraud Office v. Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation has a lot to say on the vitality of legal professional privilege and the conduct of internal investigations in the U.K., but its flawed logic and lack of pragmatism feel like the latest installment in SFO Director David Green's pushback against U.S.-style investigation procedures, say Matthew Herrington and Tom Best of Steptoe & Johnson LLP.

  • Once More Unto The Breach — Rehearing In Newman?

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    On Friday, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York decided to seek appellate review of several aspects of the recent insider-trading decision in U.S. v. Newman and Chiasson. En banc rehearing petitions are rarely granted in any circuit, and are particularly rare in the Second Circuit, which hears the fewest number of rehearings of any circuit in the country, say Eugene Ingoglia and Gregory Morvillo of Morvillo LLP.

  • UK Tax Advisers Are Beyond Legal Advice Privilege

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    A recent judgment from the U.K. Supreme Court in one of the most significant decisions on legal advice privilege for many years. Prudential PLC v. Special Commissioner of Income Tax, which dealt a blow to tax advisers and other nonlegally qualified service providers who provide legal advice to their clients, confirmed that — consistent with the position in the U.S. — legal advice privilege only protects communications to or from a qualified lawyer, say Richard Hornshaw and Daniel Cohen of Bingham McCutchen LLP.

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