Sign up to get the weekly Partnerless email in your inbox every Tuesday Why care… about HSF and Kramer Levin? New mega-merger just dropped. Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) will tie up with Kramer Levin of the USA to create a $2bn firm called, imaginatively, Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer. This news obviously follows in the wake of the A&O Shearman merger […]
In 2022 Fred Banning, a professional services communications expert, founded Fifth Day, an organisation with a mission to promote professional pro bono work among business professionals within law firms. His personal experience of being diagnosed with terminal cancer led him to write in The Lawyer that “if I were to start again, I would do […]
Sign up to get the weekly Partnerless email in your inbox every Tuesday Self-improvement is a wonderful thing, and one of the benefits of working at US firm King & Spalding is getting chunky travel and education budgets – understood to be worth several thousand of pounds each – which lawyers are able to spend […]
In 2023, the Catalyst report “Women’s Workplace Experiences Challenges Antiracist Leaders to Step Up” surveyed 2,734 women from marginalised racial and ethnic groups worldwide, including 604 women from the UK. It revealed that 51% of women from marginalised backgrounds experience racism at work, with those of darker skin tones more affected. Notably, 49% of respondents felt senior […]
Growing up in one of the UK’s most deprived neighbourhoods, the odds were stacked against me from the start. My journey to becoming a trainee solicitor at CMS has been anything but straightforward. As someone who is Black, dyslexic, and raised in an area within the top 10 per cent of the most deprived neighbourhoods […]
Entering the legal profession as a Black male had its challenges. I took the plunge and moved from my hometown to Manchester to study law at university in 2014. Initially, there were perceived barriers to my entry. People around me, who I respect, whether that be family or friends, told me that the industry “wasn’t […]
Baby loss is frighteningly common. According to the latest statistics available from Tommy’s, an estimated one in five pregnancies ends in miscarriage. However, if you are a black woman, the statistics are far worse. In 2021, The Lancet, working with Tommy’s National Centre for Miscarriage Research, published a paper showing that black women had a […]
The pathway to qualification in the legal profession has changed substantially in the last few years. Much of this change is a result of deliberate reform of policy and criteria, such as the introduction of solicitor apprenticeships and the Solicitors Qualifying Exam (SQE) replacing the Legal Practice Course (LPC). The traditional route of obtaining a […]
I feel very privileged to write this article having just been elected by my peers as vice president of the London Solicitors Litigation Association (LSLA). That said, it is difficult not to suffer from imposter syndrome. As wonderful as this profession is, and as motivated and enthused as I am in my role as a […]
Why can’t you be like everyone else? We’ll never be able to show our faces in the community again. You’ll never make it and, if you do, you’ll never succeed as a lawyer because of who you are. How are you ever going to be able to have a family? These were not only the […]
Entering the world of law as a junior lawyer can be a thrilling and challenging experience for us. However, it often comes with its own set of pressures and uncertainties that can trigger feelings of inadequacy and self-doubt. This phenomenon is commonly known as “Impostor Syndrome,” and it affects many professionals, including those in the […]
As lawyers prepare to take the hot seat over the coming months, The Lawyer’s blog will give live updates as they appear in the Post Office Horizon Inquiry.