Alex Aldridge
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Celebrities, Letter from London, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Celebs Flock to Biglaw
Last week Britain was treated to the surreal sight of a junior lawyer collecting a lifetime achievement award for his services to pop music. Dave Rowntree, drummer in the band Blur — honoured with a lifetime achievement award at Wednesday’s BRIT awards — now spends his days working as a trainee lawyer at London corporate firm Kingsley Napley, and plays music part-time. And he's not the only British celebrity who now works at a law firm.... -
Letter from London, Litigators, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter From London: Camilla Launches Windsors LLP
Last week, the Duchess of Cornwall Camilla Parker-Bowles became an honorary barrister (British for trial lawyer). Upon receiving the award in a ceremony at Gray’s Inn — one of the quasi-law schools (known collectively as the Inns of Court) which help train up barristers — the Mon Fertile Finishing School alumnus said: “I think it’s […] - Sponsored
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Biglaw, Facebook, Letter from London, Plaintiffs Firms, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: U.K. Law Firms Set to Cash in Facebook-style
History is littered with examples of Aussies sticking it to the Brits: from early convict rebellions to the time Rupert Murdoch bought our favourite tabloid newspaper, The Sun, and had a photo of a topless woman placed on its inside page each day — a tradition that continues to this day (semi-NSFW link). Last week […]
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Allen & Overy, Job Searches, Letter from London, Magic Circle, Student Loans, Unemployment, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Can Jobless U.S. Law Grads Find Work in Britain?
What happens when you put thirty American lawyers in a London pub where the drinks are free for the evening? Well, let’s just say it’s rather different to what happens when thirty British lawyers are assembled in equivalent conditions. The attendees at last week’s inaugural Benedict Arnold Society meeting for young and young-ish American lawyers […] -
Biglaw, Drinking, Letter from London, Magic Circle, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: 'I Thought Freshfields Was a Supermarket'
“I thought Freshfields [Bruckhaus Deringer] was a supermarket when I got here,” says Kirsty Grant, a fourth-year associate in the London office of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher. Happily, Grant -- a fast-learner who got through law school in L.A. while working full-time during the day -- quickly figured out that the Anglo-German law firm, a member of the Magic Circle, wasn’t the place to fulfill her grocery needs. Not that Grant, 33, has oceans of spare cash to splash on her grocery needs. How do her finances as an American abroad compare to those of her Biglaw counterparts back home? -
Allen & Overy, Dorsey & Whitney, Letter from London, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: The Benedict Arnold Society
Benedict Arnold was a general during the American Revolutionary War who started out in the Continental Army but later defected to the Brits. So when in the early 1990s U.S. lawyers Jeffrey Golden and Thomas Joyce quit, respectively, Cravath, Swaine & Moore and Dorsey & Whitney to join U.K. firms Allen & Overy (A&O) and […] -
Biglaw, Layoffs, Letter from London, Partner Issues, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Expelled from Linklaters's Gilded Cage(Layoffs at Linklaters, at the partner level.)
A few months ago, one of the public relations staff at Linklaters invited me to have lunch with him in the firm’s canteen. Now, I know that if I was a client, or even a journalist of greater rank, my PR acquaintance would have probably deemed me worthy of a trip to a restaurant on […] -
Letter from London, Media and Journalism, Privacy, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: 'Privacy Is For Paedos'
“Privacy is for paedos,” announced tabloid journalist Paul McMullan, formerly of Rupert Murdoch’s now defunct British tabloid News of the World, while speaking last week at an enquiry set up in response to this summer’s phone hacking scandal. Firmly unapologetic for having harassed celebrities via an impressive range of mediums, McMullan continued: “Fundamentally, no one […] - Sponsored
How AI Is The Catalyst For Reshaping Every Aspect Of Legal Work
Findings from the "Future of Professionals Report," based on a survey of 1,200 professionals from North and South America and the UK. -
Allen & Overy, Biglaw, Layoffs, Letter from London, Unemployment, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Jobless Lawyer Starts Occupy Movement
The Occupy movement has reached the legal profession, with an unemployed law graduate launching a campaign to occupy the Inns of Court (London’s legal quarter). “Through no fault of our own, a generation of [law school] graduates find ourselves with no jobs — or no jobs as lawyers anyway,” wrote the graduate under the alias […] -
Books, Letter from London, Politics, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Pompous, Jargon-Addicted... Sound Familiar?
Down on your luck? Feel like cheering yourself up by, say, arresting a judge? Or perhaps you just fancy seizing a courtroom for the day? Well, the “Freeman-on-the-land” movement could be for you. “Freemen” argue that the law can be circumvented by, for example, evoking an ancient text and then sending an affidavit to the […] -
English Grammar and Usage, Letter from London, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Going Forward, We're Screwed
As Europeans from the sun-dappled Mediterranean to the icy North Sea brace themselves for doomsday, I thought I’d ignore the wildfire-like turmoil sweeping my continent to write you a sweet little piece about the difference between British and American English. The hook, as we say in the U.K. media, is the Economist’s recent ‘British Americanisation’ […] -
Drinking, General Counsel, In-House Counsel, Letter from London, Media and Journalism, Racism, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Port, Nazis, and In-House Lawyers
To qualify as a lawyer in the U.K., you first have to eat 12 dinners. Seriously. OK, it’s only barristers (British trial lawyers) who must meet this requirement. And they have to pass legal exams as well as eat. But the essence of my slightly sensationalised opening sentence is true: no dinners, no qualification. Here’s […] -
Jews, Letter from London, Money, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Our Greatest Fear
When Hitler came to power in January 1933, more than half of Berlin’s 3,400 lawyers were of Jewish origin. All of them, alongside the thousands of other Jews practising law throughout the rest of Germany, were forced to re-apply for admission to the national bar. At which point, only German-Jewish lawyers who had qualified before […]
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Findings from the "Future of Professionals Report," based on a survey of 1,200 professionals from North and South America and the UK.
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Biglaw, Law Schools, Letter from London, Unemployment, United Kingdom / Great Britain, Wall Street
Letter from London: Occupy Biglaw
When news emerged last week that the Wall Street protests were spreading to London, I dared to dream. Maybe I could inculcate myself among the protesters, I wondered, and persuade their leaders to target a Biglaw firm rather than a bank. Then, I fantasized, having obtained the relevant door-code from one of my disgruntled Biglaw […] -
Allen & Overy, Biglaw, Celebrities, Gender, Magic Circle, United Kingdom / Great Britain, Women's Issues
Letter from London: Chelsy Davy Joins Biglaw
Maybe it was the hypnotic effect Pippa Middleton’s ass had on Prince Harry? Or perhaps it was simply that Chelsy Davy didn’t want to marry into the crazy old royal family? Either way, shortly after William and Kate tied the knot in April, Harry and Chelsy split up. And what did the Zimbabwean blonde bombshell do next? She became a lawyer.... -
Biglaw, George Bush, Letter from London, Litigators, O.J. Simpson, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Letter from London: Barristers Behaving Badly
Yesterday was the tenth anniversary of the day a little-known heroin addict called Russell Brand turned up for work dressed as Osama Bin Laden, and was promptly fired by his then-employer, MTV. After some ensuing years knocking around the lower echelons of British light entertainment, Brand got himself together and landed a role presenting the […] -
Biglaw, Summer Associates, United Kingdom / Great Britain
Lawyers, You Can Sleep When You're Dead
Biglaw associates have to pull all-nighters quite frequently -- and sometimes they'll have to get by with very little sleep, for multiple nights in a row. As a young lawyer, would you consider going to sleep if your firm approved?