Letter from London: The Queen’s Lawyers
What does it mean when a British lawyer has the letters "QC" after his name? What are the advantages to being designated a "Queen's Counsel"? And what are the disadvantages of the QC system?
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....
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Letter from London: Shearman Lawyer in ‘Spit-Roast’ Email Shame
It was just another day at Shearman & Sterling. Daniel England, a British trainee lawyer based at the firm's Singapore office, took a break from whatever thrilling piece of work he was doing to email his friends about their forthcoming vacation in Dubai. Being a rules-obsessed lawyer, he included a list of "do’s and don’ts" for the group -- two of whom work in London's financial district, the City -- to follow on the trip. A few days later, the poor fellow found the email plastered across the British press....
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 […]
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 […]
Letter from London: Prison for Biglaw Partner With Fabricated Kidnapping Story
“Oh, What a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive,” said Judge Guy Anthony, quoting Sir Walter Scott’s poem Marmion, as he sentenced British Biglaw attorney Francis Bridgeman to 12 months in prison on Friday. The former Allen & Overy (A&O) and Macfarlanes partner, who had already had his membership of the latter firm's limited liability partnership terminated, then collapsed in the dock....
How AI Is Transforming The Legal Profession (2025)
A survey of professionals reveals the impact of legal work, clients, concerns, and future roles.
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?
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 […]
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: ‘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 […]
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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 […]
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 […]
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’ […]
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 […]
Letter from London: What Would Jesus Do?
It’s been a bad few days for the Church of England. First, it gets slammed for siding with the bankers, rather than the protesters, after its flagship venue, St Paul’s Cathedral, finds itself at the heart of Occupy London. Second, a change to the U.K.’s ancient royal succession laws strikes a blow for its great […]