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So you think you can manage?

24 November 2017 / John van der Luit-Drummond
Issue: 7771 / Categories: Features , Profession
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LPMA veterans Christine Kings & Edith Robertson (share a master class in practice management with John van der Luit-Drummond

It was at an Inns of Court conference in 1994 that Christine Kings realised real change was finally coming to the Bar. During a Q&A session before 300 lawyers on what a practice manager did, and why a chambers might employ one, a clerk stood up and asked her: ‘What do they pay you?’. As a sudden hush descended upon the conference floor. Kings replied that she was paid in line with the Bar Council’s recommendation of £44,000 for a practice manager salary.

‘As far as he was concerned, this was like saying, “Ha, you’re rubbish. You’re only paid £44,000 a year,” but you could’ve heard a pin drop in that room. You could see all these barristers thinking: “£44,000 per year for someone to run our chambers? And we’re paying 7% of our income to senior clerks?” That, I think, was a turning point. The Bar suddenly realised it could

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Taylor Rose—nine promotions

Taylor Rose—nine promotions

Leadership strengthened across core practice areas with nine new partners

Fieldfisher—Rebecca Maxwell

Fieldfisher—Rebecca Maxwell

Real estate team welcomes partner inBirmingham

Ward Hadaway—14 trainee solicitors

Ward Hadaway—14 trainee solicitors

Firm strengthens commitment to nurturing future legal talent

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Louise Uphill, senior associate at Moore Barlow LLP, dissects the faltering rollout of the Leasehold and Freehold Reform Act 2024 in this week's NLJ
Judgments are ‘worthless without enforcement’, says HHJ Karen Walden-Smith, senior circuit judge and chair of the Civil Justice Council’s enforcement working group. In this week's NLJ, she breaks down the CJC’s April 2025 report, which identified systemic flaws and proposed 39 reforms, from modernising procedures to protecting vulnerable debtors
Writing in NLJ this week, Katherine Harding and Charlotte Finley of Penningtons Manches Cooper examine Standish v Standish [2025] UKSC 26, the Supreme Court ruling that narrowed what counts as matrimonial property, and its potential impact upon claims under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975
In this week's NLJ, Dr Jon Robins, editor of The Justice Gap and lecturer at Brighton University, reports on a campaign to posthumously exonerate Christine Keeler. 60 years after her perjury conviction, Keeler’s son Seymour Platt has petitioned the king to exercise the royal prerogative of mercy, arguing she was a victim of violence and moral hypocrisy, not deceit. Supported by Felicity Gerry KC, the dossier brands the conviction 'the ultimate in slut-shaming'
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