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05 July 2013 / Dominic Regan
Issue: 7568 / Categories: Opinion , Legal services
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The new normal?

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The Jackson reforms may save our legal profession, says Dominic Regan

Last week a law firm dismissed scores of lawyers and support staff as well as slashing the earnings of several partners. One cannot point the finger at Lord Justice Jackson since the firm is based 3,500 miles away on 5th Avenue, New York. Weil, Gotshal & Manges is not any old firm. It has acted for Apple, General Electric and General Motors. For the last eight years it has been listed as one of the top 20 practices in the USA.

The new normal

In a fabulous phrase the firm, in announcing the cuts, referred to “a new normal” in law where the market for premium (for which read “mighty expensive”) services is shrinking. Clients increasingly want a fixed fee set for large cases or the completion of significant transactions. The trickle-down effect is clear to see. If the leviathans are under the cosh, and how wise of them to concede the point, then everyone else will follow. There will be

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As the drip-feed of Epstein disclosures fuels ‘collateral damage’, the rush to cry misconduct in public office may be premature. Writing in NLJ this week, David Locke of Hill Dickinson warns that the offence is no catch-all for political embarrassment. It demands a ‘grave departure’ from proper standards, an ‘abuse of the public’s trust’ and conduct ‘sufficiently serious to warrant criminal punishment’
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The Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 transformed criminal justice. Writing in NLJ this week, Ed Cape of UWE and Matthew Hardcastle and Sandra Paul of Kingsley Napley trace its ‘seismic impact’
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