An “overdose of testosterone” is driving talented women barristers to leave the Bar, leading barrister Lord Pannick QC has warned.

Solicitors’ firms and barristers’ chambers should reserve a proportion of training contracts and pupillages for candidates with disabilities in order to counterbalance the discrimination against disabilities pervading the legal profession, according to a new report.

Legal mental health charity LawCare is running a Christmas fundraising appeal, the Big Give Christmas Challenge, which will see all donations made to the charity via the Big Give website doubled. 

Close to 60% of women lawyers have experienced inappropriate gender-based comments from male colleagues or know other women who have, according to research by the First 100 Years Project.

The Legal Services Board reaffirmed its commitment to build a more inclusive workplace for lawyers alongside eight legal services regulators and two disciplinary tribunals.

Sam Townend KC, the new chair of the Bar Council, has called the “need for significant investment” in the criminal and family justice systems “urgent”. 

A total of 738 legal professionals sought support from LawCare in 2020, rising 9% on 2019’s figure, according to the mental health charity’s 2020 Impact Report.

Online legal tools for women to protect themselves from domestic abuse and a chatbot designed to help people with special educational needs access legal advice are among the eight Legal Access Challenge finalists.

A report on the experiences of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) solicitors by The Law Society identified that BAME solicitors earn 25% less on average than their white counterparts.

According to the new report by Careers Research and Advisory Centre (CRAC), “45% of the Young Bar reported a negative impact on their financial situation, higher still at 60% for those working in crime – as court work ceased in 2020, their earnings plummeted.”

The Legal Services Board has published an interactive map and two reports aimed at understanding and tackling the barriers that individuals face when pursuing a legal career, regardless of background and circumstance. 

We are supposed to be in the “season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”, but the business world is anything but mellow as it confronts a host of issues stemming from the country’s economic problems, as well as the prospect of Brexit. This report brings you up to speed on some of the week’s important commercial news as you continue to hone the wider business knowledge that you will need as a lawyer.

In this guide we outline some of the key issues facing the UK legal profession, as well as headline-grabbing cases and mergers – are you in the know?

Where to begin… this week has seen the UK government’s plan to send asylum seekers to Rwanda deemed unlawful by the Supreme Court, there’s been a cabinet reshuffle, Westminster voted against a ceasefire in Gaza, inflation has fallen and McDonald’s is in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. Find out more in the commercial news round-up. 

Sparing a few minutes this Mental Health Awareness Week to think about your mental health and wellbeing could help you to start developing healthy habits that’ll build your resilience and enable you to flourish in your legal career.

Aspiring lawyers have many decisions to make over the course of their journey into the profession, including where to train and the types of firm to apply to. Discover the benefits to training in a niche firm like Bolt Burdon Kemp LLP in this LCN Says.

Manchester City launches legal action against the Premier League, while TikTok and Ticketmaster experience cyberattacks that may have compromised the personal data of millions of clients, including celebrities and brands. Plus, an Irish takeaway chain has won a major trademark battle against McDonald’s, and researchers are using AI to help reduce animal testing. Read this week’s commercial news round-up to find out more.

Rising inflation, party resignations, state takeovers, Chat GPT and, of course, Eurovision! Use today’s round-up to catch up on what’s been happening across the UK this week.

In July 2024, Waterstones was criticised for dismissing Tilly Fitzgerald, a bookseller and book influencer, who told author Christina Dalcher on X (formally Twitter) that she was “going to throw away her books” in response to Dalcher’s gender-critical beliefs.