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Law in 2025

17 March 2025
Issue: 8109 / Categories: Legal News , Profession
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Ten years from now law firms will place more value on human traits such as empathy and other soft skills, according to 78% of heads of legal at global companies

The Simmons & Simmons survey of 500 top corporate counsel, ‘Law firm of the future’, published last week, found 77% predict the desired skillset for lawyers will transform, with more demand for multidisciplinary skills such as technological proficiency alongside legal expertise.

More than four out of five agreed law firms will become more wellbeing focused within the decade—both for their clients and employees. Some 74% predict disruption to services and pricing due to technological advances, and 75% said they expect tech to act as a force for good, for example, by opening up access to law for under-served communities.

Simmons & Simmons’ senior partner Julian Taylor said: ‘It’s clear the profession is on the cusp of a deep transformation.’

Issue: 8109 / Categories: Legal News , Profession
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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Red Lion Chambers—Maurice MacSweeney

Red Lion Chambers—Maurice MacSweeney

Set creates new client and business development role amid growth

Winckworth Sherwood—Charlie Hancock

Winckworth Sherwood—Charlie Hancock

Private wealth and tax offering bolstered by partner hire

Browne Jacobson—Matthew Kemp

Browne Jacobson—Matthew Kemp

Firm grows real estate team with tenth partner hire this financial year

NEWS
The rank of King’s Counsel (KC) has been awarded to 96 barristers, and no solicitors, in the latest silk round
Neurotechnology is poised to transform contract law—and unsettle it. Writing in NLJ this week, Harry Lambert, barrister at Outer Temple Chambers and founder of the Centre for Neurotechnology & Law, and Dr Michelle Sharpe, barrister at the Victorian Bar, explore how brain–computer interfaces could both prove and undermine consent
Comparators remain the fault line of discrimination law. In this week's NLJ, Anjali Malik, partner at Bellevue Law, and Mukhtiar Singh, barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, review a bumper year of appellate guidance clarifying how tribunals should approach ‘actual’ and ‘evidential’ comparators. A new six-stage framework stresses a simple starting point: identify the treatment first
In cross-border divorces, domicile can decide everything. In NLJ this week, Jennifer Headon, legal director and head of international family, Isobel Inkley, solicitor, and Fiona Collins, trainee solicitor, all at Birketts LLP, unpack a Court of Appeal ruling that re-centres nuance in jurisdiction disputes. The court held that once a domicile of choice is established, the burden lies on the party asserting its loss
Early determination is no longer a novelty in arbitration. In NLJ this week, Gustavo Moser, arbitration specialist lawyer at Lexis+, charts the global embrace of summary disposal powers, now embedded in the Arbitration Act 1996 and mirrored worldwide. Tribunals may swiftly dismiss claims with ‘no real prospect of succeeding’, but only if fairness is preserved
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