Latest legal news

London-based Slaughter and May, the most publicity-shy of the Magic Circle firms, has the option of reviewing its strategy when it selects a new senior partner to replace Chris Saul who is to stand down in April. | 11yrs

A professional video-maker at rock concerts had faced a sentence of up to a year in jail if found guilty in a New York state court of second-degree attempted unlawful surveillance - by filming a medical centre. | 11yrs

A senior management team led by M&A specialist Edward Braham, with co-managing partners in Cologne and London, looks likely to have a special focus on encouraging more complicated and more lucrative international matters. | 11yrs

Leeds-based law firm Needle Partners has opened a new marketing office in Kuala Lumpur to promote its English law and white label service, called Needle Network. | 11yrs

Corporate partner Joseph Lee has re-joined UK firm Simmons & Simmons from Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft's Hong Kong Office. It is the firm's second such hire in a month, following the appointment of capital markets partner David Neuville. | 11yrs

VMWare, the cloud services business, saved US$2.8b in 2014, improved staff retention and cut legal spend by 25 per cent as a proportion of revenue as a result of a three-year transformation programme. | 11yrs

The Hong Kong office of global law firm K&L Gates has hired Carolyn Sng as a partner in the corporate practice. She joins K&L Gates from Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson. | 11yrs

Some 80 lawyers recently attended a mindfulness event at the Garrison Institute which is dedicated to contemplation, action and transformation - a sign of a growing desire among some lawyers to reduce stress and connect better with the natural world. | 11yrs

Corporate law firm Reed Smith has announced Lucy Dillon as its new chief knowledge officer and Steven Agnoli as its chief information officer; both started this month. | 11yrs

Corporate counsel behaviour - particularly a new willingness to settle and to accept calculated risks - is leading to fewer patent cases that get fought to the end and, therefore, less work for specialist boutiques, according to BTI Consulting. | 11yrs

A specialist in running happy, functional law practices who has spoken to lawyers 'across the US' has found particular problems amongst litigators who tend to share the 'sentiment that litigation is generally a lose-lose proposition'. | 11yrs

M&A activity looks likely to increase in Q3 as companies begin reorganisations, according to William Wood, head of energy and infrastructure for Norton Rose Fulbright in the US. | 11yrs

An association of drone operators in Australia is urging rules to be laid down to permit greater coordination between states in response to the increasingly common use of hostile drones 'at all levels of conflict around the world'. | 11yrs

Freshfields and Morrison & Foerster are believed to be among the firms with which the 50-strong team at Olswang has begun negotiations - in preparation for a mass move after agreeing to leave the UK-based international firm. | 11yrs

Olswang is to focus its German practice through its Munich office and its TMT sector group, following the departure of 13 equity partners and their staff - mostly in corporate and finance - from Berlin. | 11yrs

Wragge Lawrence Graham - a member of the Autodrive driverless car consortium - is to develop White Paper proposals to facilitate the UK trial of these vehicles, a move that appears more important now that global manufacturers are preparing to test | 11yrs

Richard Cullen, the new chair of 1,000-lawyer US and Europe firm McGuireWoods, is to represent the outgoing FIFA chair as Swiss prosecutors announce that they might decide to question him. | 11yrs

Some of the larger Texas law firms have been gradually reducing their lobbying work over the last 20 years - with a number of them focusing more on global opportunities. | 11yrs

A law firm in Adelaide - an area suffering from a shortage of legal posts - plans to charge A$22,000 to newly-qualifieds for an 'investment in the future' through which they receive the supervision necessary for a full practising certificate. | 11yrs