Partnerships: So Passe

April 15, 2008

The Lawyer reports that Cardiff firm Ergo Solicitors is “the first to commit to flotation”. This story confirms that Ergo has converted to a limited company “to give staff the opportunity to take equity shares in the firm upon reaching five years’ PQE.” CEO Michael Burne says that a limited company is preferable to the partnership law firm model, both because staff can develop careers as “business managers” and so that “shareholder value” can be created.

emma_michael.jpgThe poor old partnership is, in contemporary legal practice, so old school. First came the deluge of US-style LLPs, thanks to the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2000. Now, under the auspices of the Legal Services Act 2007, comes the law firm as limited company.

Could it be that the key word in the ongoing demise of the partnership might just be the word “limited”? As in, limited liability?

Blade also recalls this story from The Times of nigh-on a year ago. It seems that Ergo might not be the first firm to commit to flotation after all. Dickinson Dees, are you out there? Whatever happened to your flirtation with flotation?

 

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From the inside of the maze, ethically outwards

February 9, 2012

Curious times in the media; strange days at The Times.

Would ‘Dacre Cards‘ – the system of licensing journalists proposed by Daily Mail editor Paul Dacre – have prevented the embarrassment now palpable at the Times over the NightJack story?

Times editor James Harding’s evidence to the Leveson Inquiry seemed heartfelt and contrite, albeit that the paper’s former long-serving and much-respected lawyer, Alastair Brett, seems to have been, er, rather dropped in it. Clearly, mistakes were made with regard to NightJack by young reporter Patrick Foster who, once he had hacked into NightJack’s account and thus discovered his identity, then embarked on a quest to expose it via legitimate methods. This, as Inquiry counsel Robert Jay QC put it, was “rather like working from the inside of the maze out”.

But had Foster been licensed via a Dacre Card, would this unsavoury episode in the Times’s history have been avoided?

We suspect not. A raft of laws were in existence at precisely the time when many News of the World journalists seemed to believe that they were entitled to hack any phone they liked. Those laws forbade them from doing so, and yet made no difference. Aside from the obvious objection to them – that they will squeeze out freelancers and citizen journalists – Dacre Cards would simply amount to something to circumvent.

What is really required is an ethical shake-up, from top to bottom. Society generally – not just journalists – needs a sense that some things are just plain wrong.

Supreme Court on Twitter

February 6, 2012

Something remarkable happened today. Yes, the Supreme Court launched its Twitter feed. It even has a Twitter policy, one of caveats, disclaimers and little by way of illumination but regardless: who would have thought that the successor body to the House of Lords would stoop to engage with the world of tweets, hashtags and retweets?

We look forward to the day when court business will be conducted via Twitter. Meantime, check out this link for an excellent blog on the Supreme Court.

Not so right said Fred

February 2, 2012
fred hat

So Farewell, then, Sir Fred Goodwin.

Now you are just Fred.

Not Right Said Fred, but plain Fred.

The Forfeiture Committee did for you.

No one had heard of it before,

But Dave said it had to act, and it did.

Trouble is that no one knows what to think.

Is it ‘Alas, poor Fred‘,

Or ‘Hurray! Sir Fred is dead!’?

We don’t know.

Do you?

By A. Mob, aged 1,378 and a half.