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04 February 2010 / Simon Young
Issue: 7403 / Categories: Features , Profession
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Playing by the rules

Simon Young underlines the importance of updating partnership agreements

It is often said, in the context of partnership disputes, that the partnership agreement is unlikely to be of help since, by definition, by the time you get the agreement out of the safe to investigate what it says about an issue, the problem has already gone beyond the possibility of reconciliation. One valid answer to that, however, would seem to be the message is not that there should be no agreement; but that its contents should be sufficiently clear, and known to the partners generally, that it is actively in play at all times.

How, then, may a properly drafted agreement help the position?

The first point is that any body of people with close and complex relationships, which are of a high degree of significance for their lives, will all benefit if each knows what the agreed rules for the operation of their relationships are. Just as sometimes in management terms any decision may be better than none, so here any rule

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Carey Olsen—Patrick Ormond

Carey Olsen—Patrick Ormond

Partner joinscorporate and finance practice in British Virgin Islands

Dawson Cornwell—Naomi Angell

Dawson Cornwell—Naomi Angell

Firm strengthens children department with adoption and surrogacy expert

Penningtons Manches Cooper—Graham Green

Penningtons Manches Cooper—Graham Green

Media and technology expert joins employment team as partner in Cambridge

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Thousands more magistrates are to be recruited, under a major shake-up to speed up and expand the hiring process
Three men wrongly imprisoned for a combined 77 years have been released—yet received ‘not a penny’ in compensation, exposing deep flaws in the justice system. Writing in NLJ this week, Dr Jon Robins reports on Justin Plummer, Oliver Campbell and Peter Sullivan, whose convictions collapsed amid discredited forensics, ‘oppressive’ police interviews and unreliable ‘cell confessions’
A quiet month for employment cases still delivers key legal clarifications. In his latest Employment Law Brief for NLJ, Ian Smith reports that whistleblowing protection remains intact even where disclosures are partly self-serving, provided the worker reasonably believes they serve the ‘public interest’ 
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