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The home office

01 April 2020 / Matthew Kay
Issue: 7881 / Categories: Opinion , Profession
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Top tips to manage your career from home: Matthew Kay outlines how lawyers can get comfortable with the UK’s new way of working
  • Stick to a schedule: establishing a routine.
  • Create a conducive working environment: a productive workspace.
  • Look after yourself: self-care.

As I sit here writing this, working from my home office—something I (nor anyone) would have envisaged to be our life for the foreseeable future—I am astounded as to how many companies have adapted seamlessly to the ‘new normal’ of working from home.

From big corporations to the smallest of businesses, we’ve all been reading numerous stories about how companies have made a seismic change to their working habits in the space of a few days. For some, including law firms, agile working was a more widespread culture, while others have had to overcome obstacles in a matter of days to ensure business continuity.

I’m sure many of us, myself included, have been warmed by the positive encouragement in articles, funny social media posts and comforting TV segments

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MOVERS & SHAKERS

Muckle LLP—Stacey Brown

Muckle LLP—Stacey Brown

Corporate governance and company law specialist joins the team

Excello Law—Heather Horsewood & Darren Barwick

Excello Law—Heather Horsewood & Darren Barwick

North west team expands with senior private client and property hires

Ward Hadaway—Paul Wigham

Ward Hadaway—Paul Wigham

Firm boosts corporate team in Newcastle to support high-growth technology businesses

NEWS
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
Can a chief constable be held responsible for disobedient officers? Writing in NLJ this week, Neil Parpworth, professor of public law at De Montfort University, examines a Court of Appeal ruling that answers firmly: yes
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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