She said: ‘‘I am delighted to take on this new role at Ellisons Solicitors and to build upon the excellent reputation it already has.

“New legislation within the legal profession will create exciting changes for Ellisons and I look forward to tackling these head on.’’

Guy Longhurst, managing partner, said: ‘‘Emma’s appointment is a very positive step for us.

“These are exciting times for the legal profession and with Emma’s assistance we hope that we can continue to develop our practice and maximise the opportunities that are presented to us. Ellisons is built around our people and I am certain that Emma will contribute significantly to that ethos.’’

Source: EADT24

Underlying this overall growth rate there are clear differences between the fortunes of the top 100 or so law firms and the long tail of 10,000-plus law firms and solicitors that make up the rest of the market.

While changes in the market place are predicted to reduce the number of law firms and solicitors operating in the market, there are no signs of this yet. The number of law firms in theUKis still growing and the number of practising solicitors has been rising year-on-year for the last five years and the overwhelming majority of these are still based in private practice.

According to the report the period 2011-2012 is likely to be remembered as the period when the transformation of theUKlegal services market gathered pace. For some years, there have been competitors to traditional law firms offering legal services but the number of competitors is likely to increase led by the arrival of Alternative Business Structures (ABS).

Find more reports about the Legal Services Market at Reportbuyer.com the online store for global business information. The website now lists more than 200,000 company overviews, market research reports, industry studies and business books from over 300 specialist publishers. Thousands of professionals from across the world make ReportBuyer.com their first choice in their search for quality business insight.

Third-party funding – where a disinterested backer takes on the financial risk – could help fill the gap, but there are reservations.

It may seem strange to view litigation as an asset class, and certainly lawyers struggle with the idea, but for a growing group of investors that is exactly what it is.

Even better, backing court cases is a so-called uncorrelated risk, meaning prospects do not rise and fall with the economic waves.

Third-party funding (TPF), is a simple concept: a disinterested third party takes on the financial risk of another's litigation (both their own lawyer's costs and having to pay the other side's if the case loses), usually in return for a cut of the damages.

This may be done because the claimant cannot afford to bring their case or because a company wants to remove the risk of unknown litigation costs.

It can also level up the playing field between parties and send a powerful message to the other side that a funder has taken an objective look at the case and thought it a likely winner.

TPF is part of the search for alternative methods of funding which has been stepped up as legal aid contracts. Indeed, it is a sign of the uproar caused by the main provisions of the legal aid, sentencing and punishment of offenders bill (Laspo) that its introduction of contingency fees – where lawyers take a straight cut of the damages if they win and get nothing if they lose – is passing without comment, despite not long ago being one of the most contentious issues in the legal profession.

The market for TPF is growing, encouraged by its development in Australia and central Europe over the past decade, and supported by the Civil Justice Council (CJC) – an independent public body funded by the Ministry of Justice.

Concern that some sort of control needed to be exerted on a largely unregulated market led to the recent publication of a voluntary code of conduct, negotiated through the CJC and supported by Lord Justice Jackson.

The code and especially its enforcement are untested, but there are those who argue that a market already worth hundreds of millions of pounds will need more formal regulation – in fact, Liberal Democrat peers have lodged an amendment to Laspo to that effect.

Hedge funds, private offices (which invest family fortunes) and other investors are seeing opportunities. There are two funders currently listed on AIM, the London Stock Exchange's international market for smaller growing companies – Burford Capital and Juridica.

Argentum Capital is listed on the Channel Islands Stock Exchange, while listed the Australian funder IMF also has interests in the UK.

Then there is a group of now-established funders with private backing, such as Calunius Capital, Harbour Litigation Funding, Therium and Vannin Capital, while in recent weeks there have been three new entrants to the market, including the private bank Investec.

Burford, which has used its listing to raise around £200m, making it the world's largest litigation funder, has up to now only invested in US litigation and international arbitration, but this week announced the acquisition of Firstassist, the heavyweight after-the-event legal expenses insurer, as its path into the UK, which will put yet more heat under the market.

This all looks incredibly rosy. But there are underlying issues. First, some object to the principle of disinterested parties seeking to make a profit out of funding others to litigate – indeed until 1968 it was a criminal offence.

But times have changed and both the government and, crucially, the judiciary fully accept it as one of the methods that helps to secure access to justice. As the former high court judge Sir Gavin Lightman has said: "Litigation is recognised today to be a business which, like any other business, requires private funding."

Further, no rational business will throw away money helping others to pursue fruitless or malicious actions.

Secondly, most solicitors do not know the option is there, despite a professional obligation to discuss with prospective clients the various methods for funding their cases. It is a lot easier if you can just get a client to pay you by the hour in the traditional way.

Third, I hear complaints that some funders do not actually have any money, and wait to find a case before then looking for the cash to back it (the new code of conduct includes capital adequacy requirements to ensure the money is there throughout the life of the case). Some private funders make it clear where their money is coming from, but not all do.

Fourth, TPF has its limits. The nature of the funding means that it is only really appropriate for larger cases where there will be enough of a return to justify the investment.

Some of the bigger funders are only interested in litigation where they can put in millions, although there is a move towards targeting smaller cases, such as by new funder Caprica. Perhaps funders could be persuaded to back a contingent legal aid fund, a TPF-style idea for smaller cases that is being pursued by the Bar Council.

Fifth and most troubling to me is that TPF has rapidly become almost exclusively a tool for businesses. While there is nothing intrinsically wrong with this, the CJC began promoting TPF mainly with a view to aiding consumer redress actions – getting the funding to bring a group action in the UK has become increasingly difficult.

But with the odd honourable exception, there has been little sign of funders dipping their toes into non-commercial actions.

TPF has made great strides in a comparatively short period. There is a strong will to make the market work and I don't suppose there will ever be a shortage of litigation.

It undoubtedly has its place, but for most, TPF is not – and does not pretend to be – the answer.

Neil Rose is the editor of legalfutures.co.uk

The Manchester-based practice, which established a presence in the capital in June 2010 as a base for its regulatory and corporate crime team, has recruited a corporate partner to spearhead growth in the field of life sciences.

Catherine McLoughlin, who has experience in corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions and private equity, has joined from Wilmer Hale, where she acted for global life sciences clients.

She advised on stock market listings for companies in the sector in her previous role as a senior associate at Morgan Lewis & Bockius.

Catherine has also worked at Ashurst, Slaughter & May and Japanese investment bank Nomura International, where she was head of its corporate finance legal team.

Pannone is also bolstering its serious injury team in the capital. Clinical negligence partner Julianne Moore is to relocate from the north west in early 2012.

The firm is also looking to add senior personal injury and clinical negligence lawyers to its London office in Chancery Lane.

Emma Holt, managing partner at Pannone, said Catherine becomes the eighth partner to join the firm over the last 12 months and that she would be an ‘excellent addition to its corporate team’.

“Her appointment is part of our strategy to expand our serious injury and corporate divisions in London and there are a number of exciting developments in the pipeline,” she added.

The firm’s regulatory and corporate crime team is led by Anthony Barnfather and has picked up several high-profile cases.

Last month, Mr Barnfather represented former detective chief inspector Graham Mouncher, one of several former police officers acquitted of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the Lynette White murder case, the UK’s biggest-ever police corruption probe.

Regulatory and corporate crime and serious injury represent two of Pannone’s five divisions created in a restructuring implemented by Emma after she became managing partner in July 2010.

Other changes since then include the creation of a new executive board with strategic decision-making powers, and a performance-based profit-sharing model.

Pannone, which saw revenues fall 4.4 per cent in the year to April 30 to £47.5m and average profit per equity partner decline 9.5 per cent to £207,600, is seeking new Manchester headquarters.

It plans to vacate its Deansgate base by spring 2014 and is working with property consultancy p3 to seek new premises.

Source: Manchester Evening News

The Bar Standards Board is examining whether barristers should be able to accept direct instructions from clients eligible for public funding, and also whether to lift the ban on barristers with under three years’ practising experience from accepting public access instructions.

In addition, to safeguard the public, the BSB suggests that barristers should have a duty to ensure that, before accepting public access instructions, the lay client is able to make an informed decision about whether to apply for legal aid or proceed with public access representation.

The proposals follow a mini-consultation earlier this year, to which the BSB received 40 responses. The board’s standards committee has provisionally decided that the changes would be ‘desirable’ and in the public interest.

Anecdotal evidence, it said, suggests clients opt to instruct a barrister directly despite their eligibility for legal aid where, for example: it is cheaper to obtain the services of a single barrister privately rather than pay the fees of both a legal aid solicitor and a barrister; a client wishes to instruct a barrister more senior than would be available through legal aid; a client has applied for legal aid but has not been happy with the work the legal aid solicitor has done; it is difficult to locate a suitable, publicly funded solicitor who will accept their case.

The BSB paper says the change would improve client choice and provide greater access to justice for clients who find themselves without access to legal aid solicitors.

Removing the three-year rule and allowing barristers to do direct access work from the time they qualify would, says the BSB, expand consumer choice, create greater competition and increase the supply of high quality and competitively priced advocacy services.

The paper says that the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Bill will disqualify large numbers of people from legal aid and make it imperative that the public have access to affordable legal advice.

‘The purpose of allowing lay clients to instruct barristers directly is to remove unnecessary barriers to the provision of barristers’ services and to save costs by cutting out superfluous intermediaries,’ the document states.

‘Unless marginalised sections of the public are able to access comparatively cheap legal advice it may be that a significant proportion is denied access to justice.’

The public access scheme was first introduced in 2004 to allow barristers to be instructed directly by a lay client without the need for a solicitor. Subject to the BSB’s current rules, barristers can now take instructions directly from the public in crime, civil and family work.

To date, 4,143 barristers have completed the public access training course, though not all of these carry out public access work.

The consultation paper points out that while the number of public access barristers has increased, the number of complaints about them has fallen. The BSB received 33 complaints about public access barristers between 2007 and 2011, with only two received this year, down from a high of 13 in 2009.

BSB chair Lady Deech said: ‘We made a commitment to carry out a review of the public access rules when changes to the rules were approved by the over-arching regulator, the Legal Services Board, in March 2010.

‘As a result, we take the provisional view that allowing clients who are eligible for legal aid to make an informed decision about whether or not to opt for public access representation will improve access to justice whilst protecting and promoting the interests of clients.’

Deech said: ‘We hope that removing the three-year practising experience requirement will also enhance consumer choice by providing consumers with as wide a pool as possible from which to select their representation.’

The consultation closes on 9 March 2012; the consultation paper can be read here.

Source: The Law Society Gazette

Why is he in the news? Acted for a teenager left paralysed from the waist down after a routine operation to remove gallstones. Sophie Tyler, now 17, from Newport, South Wales, underwent gallstone surgery in May 2008 at Birmingham Children’s Hospital (BCH). An epidural inserted into her spine to control the pain was left in place for two days, despite Tyler complaining of numbness first in one leg and then in both.

Three days after the operation, a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan revealed that the anaesthetic from the epidural had entered the spinal cord and damaged the membranes, paralysing her from the waist down.

In the light of expert evidence, the hospital admitted liability. BCH chief medical officer Dr Vin Diwakar said: ‘We are deeply sorry for the unimaginable distress we have caused Sophie and her family as a result of the care she received at our hospital three years ago. The care we provided fell below our usual high standards and since then we have implemented a series of changes to ensure that this never happens again.’

Thoughts on the case: ‘This case has allowed our client to access justice and secure the lifetime of future care she needs, but would not have been possible without the support of legal aid. Sophie’s family, and her legal team, fear that government plans to cut legal aid could leave future claimants unrepresented.’

Dealing with the media: ‘The media has been sympathetic and knowledgeable, seeing the bigger picture about the future of legal aid funding.’

Why become a lawyer? ‘To help people who have been let down by the system and generally improve patient safety.’

Career highpoint: ‘Helped a firefighter who had suffered a below-knee amputation to become the first in Europe to return to firefighting with a prosthetic limb.’

Career low point: ‘On my first day as a trainee – not at Irwin Mitchell – I found myself attending two case management conferences. It was a case of sink or swim and somehow I kept my head above water.’

Source: The Law Society Gazette

Soca issued a ‘red alert’ to the profession to warn of a trend in ‘advanced fee fraud’ targeting solicitors’ firms.

It said foreign nationals have been approaching British firms for help in a personal injury or other types of claim. Shortly after instruction, these firms received cheques for tens of thousands of pounds, allegedly as out of court settlements.

These cheques were later found to be fraudulent or stolen, with the result that those law firms that had not waited for them to cleared before forwarding money to claimants were defrauded out of thousands of pounds.

Soca advised solicitors to reduce the risk of becoming victims of this fraud by paying close attention to the validity of identification papers when taking on new clients. It also urged solicitors to make suspicious activity reports (SAR) to help prevent further frauds.

Soca added that in addition to the risk of fraud, solicitors were also at risk of exploitation by international criminals and terrorists seeking to launder the proceeds of crime.

It said that all funds received from overseas by cheque for later payment into the UK or overseas accounts posed a money laundering risk. Lawyers were urged to be vigilant and reminded of their obligation to make SARs.

Alison Matthews, chair of the Law Society’s Money Laundering Taskforce, said: ‘Criminals who seek to exploit the services of solicitors to launder money may also seek to defraud those solicitors as well, sometimes for quite significant sums.

'Some criminals may assume that solicitors are less vigilant about money laundering and fraud risks in relation to litigation retainers than they may be in a property retainer, causing them to target firms through this area of practice.

‘We have been advising our members for many years on how to avoid becoming a victim of advanced fee frauds. However, Soca has recently brought to our attention the threat that firms will be targeted in relation to litigation matters.

'We value the dialogue we have with Soca to assist us to provide information to our members in a timely way on new trends in money laundering/fraud.’

Source: Law Society Gazette

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) published its draft handbook on April 6, including a new Code of Conduct and Accounts Rules dealing with the handling of attorney-client trust accounts that contain wide extraterritorial effect. 

The new rules will shortly be followed by provisions in the Legal Services Act that permit both external investment in law firms and nonlawyer involvement in the practice of law through the medium of alternative business structures. There are already reports of interest both from private equity funds and from "high street" retail and banking chains that would like to move into the legal services marketplace, and national firm Irwin Mitchell has become one of the first law firms to give notice that it will seek external investment. 

Read the full article. Source: The National Law Journal

A few weeks ago, Allen & Overy announced that it was opening an office in Washington. Within days, word leaked that Linklaters, a London-based counterpart, also was considering a move into D.C.

If Linklaters pulls the trigger, four of the U.K.'s top five firms — the so-called "Magic Circle" — will have an office in Washington. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has been in the capital since 1998. Clifford Chance opened in 2000 after its merger with Rogers & Wells. Slaughter and May, the other member of the circle, said it has no plans for an office in D.C.

Opening in Washington is one thing. Thriving is quite another. Freshfields, after 13 years, has 35 lawyers in D.C. — or less than 2 percent of the 2,400-lawyer firm. Clifford's ill-starred merger with Rogers & Wells is recounted by law firm consultants these days as a tale of how not to execute a trans-Atlantic merger — though in Washington the firm has well-regarded banking and finance practices.

"Clifford Chance, for example, took the path of merging with a U.S. firm and then brought in additional pieces," said Mary Young, a consultant with the Zeughauser Group. "That didn't pan out for them, where some of the others have looked for organic growth. The real difference between the Magic Circle firms that have come into the market and the DLA Pipers and Hogan Lovells is that they chose to look for a large partner that could help them grow dramatically. They wanted to do it a way that was game-changing. They found partners where there was a lot of commonality."

As Young notes, U.K. players from outside the Magic Circle have aggressively moved on Washington. DLA Piper merged with D.C. player Piper Rudnick and California's Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich to form DLA Piper. That firm now boasts more the 150 Washington-based attorneys. And Washington stalwart Hogan & Hartson paired with the U.K.'s Lovells to form Hogan Lovells in 2010. Hogan has the biggest law office in Washington, with more than 430 lawyers.

"We don't necessarily plan to be the biggest, and we plan to grow in areas of strategic importance to us and our business, particularly in those areas where we can leverage our strong global network and global practices," such as antitrust, intellectual property litigation, regulatory defense and investigations, and litigation, said Kevin O'Shea, Allen & Overy's New York-based U.S. managing partner, in an emailed response to questions. "While critical mass is important and we will strive for that, scale for the sake of scale is not our objective."

The firm hired two partners and an associate from O'Melveny & Myers to start up the new office. Earlier this month, the firm brought on Jason Abel, chief counsel to Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., on the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration. By the end of the year, the firm hopes to have about 10 partners and associates, employing about 40 to 50 people, in its K Street office.

"We see the regulatory practice as one of the real growth areas of demand in our firm given [the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul] and the advent of new regulatory reforms around the world," O'Shea said. "Increasing our U.S. presence is a strategic priority and D.C. has always been an important part of that."

Read the full article: Source: Law.com