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How the recession is hitting lawyers

July 31, 2008

Good piece over on The Times today by Edward Fennell on how the legal profession is coping with the recession. The City seems to be faring well enough, but many law firms outside London are struggling.

Lawyers on insider trading

July 31, 2008

News of the arrests of workers at the Swiss bank UBS and JPMorgan Cazenove, one of the oldest names in the City of London, for alleged insider dealing on Tuesday may have sent a chill through the UK capital’s trading rooms, but lawyers are not convinced that the FSA’s sudden flexing of muscle will make much difference.

As the FT reports here, ” ‘Moving away from the civil offence of market abuse to criminal prosecution is a natural but significant step for the FSA,’ said Richard Burger, a solicitor with Reynolds Porter Chamberlain, the City law firm, and a former FSA enforcement lawyer. ‘The infrequency of prosecutions illustrates just how difficult it is to secure convictions for insider dealing.’ ”

Elsewhere, the FT quotes Carlos Conceicao, a partner at Clifford Chance: “There has been precious little research done on where these insider dealers are. If you believe a lot of the serious harm is being done by people who know the system and play the system, I suppose there is a question mark over how effective the current enforcement action will be.”

And then there is Elizabeth Robertson of Addleshaw Goddard, who, says the FT, believes that “now it had finally begun flexing its criminal muscle, the regulator appeared to be targeting only individuals, despite the fact that some of its own research suggested large-scale insider dealing may be taking place.”

All of which makes for a rather bleak diagnosis of the FSA’s efforts.

Lawyers and boxing

July 31, 2008

Blade is intrigued to stumble across Chicago lawyer Steven D. Imparl’s blog on boxing.

Imparl appears to have embraced the sweet science with some gusto, but he is far from alone, in the UK, at least. The Real Fight Club counts a number of lawyers among its members, as this piece from Property Week explains, but Blade wants to know one thing. Are they all litigators? Or do m’learned friends from less confrontational areas of legal practice also answer the famous imprecation by Virgil? This occupies pride of place in Gleason’s Gym, in New York, and goes as follows:

Now whoever has the courage, and a strong and collected spirit in his breast, let him come forth, and put up his hands.

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