Understand the diversity of legal firms in London.

There has been much debate on the topic – how diverse the legal firms in UK are? To get the answer, a research was conducted asking the staff about the diversity. The results are presented in an understandable way in the following article.

Legal Firms in London

                      Legal Firms in London

The latest data collected was in the year 2017 encompassing around 92% of total legal firms in London. This is comprised of details from almost 180,000 people working in almost 9,000 firms. 74% of firms had a response rate from their staff of 90% or higher. It is important to keep in mind that just more than 70% of legal professionals carry a practising certificate.

People can opt for not to answer the complete set or particular questions, therefore response rates within firms may vary.

If you want, you can check the rough data procured in 2017 for the five groups they have employed for their analysis. This includes the 'prefer not to say' and the unacceptable responses, where individuals did not pick one of the options given by the questionnaire.

The raw data for all lawyers, reveals that for most of the questions received impressive response rates. Though the changes are not too big, the response rates were way better than in 2015 by 1% for all segments, excluding the disability and gender which were both below 1%.

The key findings for each of the diversity segments are inclusive of the comparisons of the data between legal firms in London of different size and work category. We find the firm size by the number of partners, varying from one partner to more than 50, and firms are categorized in a specific category if it has been told that they carry out 50% or more of that work type. Detailed information about the readied comparisons is set out the law firm diversity tool.

Women comprise 48% of all lawyers in legal firms and 47% of the UK manpower. For the other staff employed in law firms, women are known to cover almost three-quarters of the workforce. There has been a trifling change since 2014 in either group.

There are not so impressive but welcome signs of progress in the biggest firms, however, as the difference has come down over the past four years, with the percentage of female partners increasing gradually from 25% in 2014 to 29% in 2017.

There has been a bigger proportion of female lawyers in mid-level legal firms in London– women make up 54% of all lawyers in firms with six to nine partners and those with 10 to 50 partners. There is a lesser fraction of female lawyers in one partner firms (44%).

There has been a rise in the fraction of black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) lawyers operating in law firms, now one in five lawyers. This is up 7%, from 14% in 2014 to 21% in 2017. In 2015, 11% of the UK workforce were made up of BAME.

The upcoming changes in the Immigration Investors Program in Cyprus.

Cyprus has been carrying out one of the most sought after citizenship-by-investment programs in the world since the year 2013. That could soon be coming to its final stage.

Generally termed as a “golden passport” Immigration Investors Program in Cyprus, the scheme allows citizenship to foreign investors who are willing to spend €2 million ($2.34 million) in this small Mediterranean island country. It is known to take around 90 days. The passport enables investors to live and work in any European Union country, perform business activities in the country with the low corporate tax rate of 12.5%, and relish over 300 days of sunshine a year.

As of now, the Cypriot government is pacing it down. A string of changes give more scrutiny to the application process. Beginning from August 1, new applicants will have to wait for six months to obtain the passport application examined and approved—augmenting almost double what it takes now.

The Cypriot government is striving to bounce criticism that the program enables corruption and money laundering. It revoked the name of the program from “Cyprus Citizenship by Investment” to “Cyprus Investment Programme.” It also laid out new rules (pdf) that forbid references of “fast track procedure”, “sale of passports” or “acquisition of European citizenship” from being touted as benefits of the Immigration Investors Program in Cyprus in advertising or promotional elements.

An annual restriction of 700 passport approvals to primary applicants will also be put on the program, but that’s not supposed to hinder the program soon, as the number wasn’t achieved in any previous year. Cyprus Business Mail reported that the government issued 503 passports to investors in 2017.

The Cyprus citizenship-by-investment program has been in run since 2002. Before 2013, however, investors had to introduce with a minimum of €10 million for a passport. After this, the decrease in its economy during the global financial slowdown, Cyprus reduced the minimum investment requirement to €3 million in 2013. It kicked off the fast-track process to citizenship, as an endeavour to secure foreign money in the national bank. Cyprus dropped the investment requirement to €2 million in September 2016. At those rates the program has fuelled billion in investment, exhibiting a major portion of the country’s economy.

According to the suggested law, auditing firms, legal firms and other agencies giving citizenship by investment services will be needed to execute their affairs to public evaluation. Moreover, the law will also require all those working in public life to reveal details of their ownership stakes in such businesses.

These changes to Immigration Investors Program in Cyprus are expected to enhance transparency and decrease the threat of service providers taking benefit of their nearby relations with politicians to evade the requirements and conditions of the citizenship by investment program.   

With the Cyprus recovery attaining power, these programs, besides others like the ones given by Portugal, Spain and Greece, are supposed to become more high-class, with improved focus on factors other than incursion of foreign direct investment.

The new age of employment solicitors in London.

Getting indulged into the complexity of employment law is not an easy job as there are hundreds of elements that get into deriving the desired results. In UK, the employment law is quite complex and understanding it for a general person is not possible. Though there are experienced employment solicitors in London who strive to provide full-fledged help to the needy people, there is a strong demand for professional and updated approach to any underlying case.

In recent times, the scenario has changed for a number of employment law firms and many contracted during the hard financial times. This is combined with latest changes to the employment tribunal system affecting dramatically on the number of claims made by people. While request for employment law experience inside surges, it is important to examine whether these changes refer there are fewer opportunities for trainees and NQs within this domain.

The evolving landscape

More than ten years ago, a place in the employment department was a sound strategic decision for any trainee. The Labour government was in change and was providing really effective safeguard for employees, referring to augmented EU employment legislation. As an outcome there were several cases going to the tribunals and detailed rules to deal with. The domain was quite novice to businesses. Human Resources (HR) teams were starting to update and search for external assistance; thus large numbers of lawyers were required to finish the job.

Employment law is always on the change and that is what makes it so thrilling and attractive. However the major and debatably most histrionic change in recent years was the bringing of tribunal charges. In July 2013 employment tribunal fees of up to £1,250 were brought by the coalition government in order to bring down the number of "frivolous" claims raised by employees against their employers. A recent Trade Union Congress study reveals that there has been a 79% reduction in general claims presented to employment tribunals from July 2013 to July 2014. A Citizens Advice Bureau survey also shows that 7 in 10 possibly successful cases are now not being followed by employees.

Some employment solicitors in London have raised their voices against the fees by claiming that they are affecting access to justice, especially for minority groups. One of the Business Secretaries has asked his officials to check whether the fees are appearing as a barrier to justice after numbers discovered that sex discrimination cases were below down to 90%. The number of claims may get back to pre-fees levels after the general election, but, at least for now, the fees stay and will look to leave a major impact on the capacity of litigation emerging through the employment tribunal system and landing on the tables of employment lawyers.

Employment law is still very worthy as it was earlier. There are more than 30 million working professionals in the United Kingdom and most of them are in a legal relationship with their employer. These employers have a number of concern to think upon, such as: what happens if an employee falls ill; how to get rid of an employee; how to manage the holiday pay; overtime pointers; what to do if dismissals need to be carried out; and how to embrace HR practices to align with the employer’s corporate brand.

The domain of corporate law – Ready to welcome technological innovation.

It is often that the necessity is the birth of innovation. This statement goes very much true in case of corporate law. In today’s fast-paced world economy, businesses have been witnessing change like never before and it is becoming quite difficult for them to manage multiple things in one go, especially when something is linked with the legal framework. This is where seeking the services of a corporate lawyer in London becomes necessary.

In the field of legal service offerings, technology embracement is not a new thing. Being a large market, UK legal industry has hundreds of law firms operating and employing thousands of people worldwide. This clearly means that managing such a huge chunk of manpower and element needs a smarter approach and this is where technology plays a crucial role.

Even in context of the latest news about a flourishing M&A market and surge in related bonuses, the legal scenario has changed meaningfully over the past five years and a new realism is taking shape.

Most of the clients are now ready to pay for junior associate work, subcontracting low-level work, and finding alternatives to the chargeable hour. Augmenting cost-reducing orders from clients have made discovering value and efficiency superior priorities. In-house legal departments are encountering increased pressure to both enhance the efficiency of their in house operations while managing a more extensive workload and also subjugating the amount they pay as legal fees on a corporate lawyer in London. This request to do more with less is in turn thrown on to law firms, who in a buyer’s market, must discover ways to discriminate themselves and offer more value for clients against their fees. This unremitting drive in the direction of cost-effectiveness has made it imperative for both law firms and in-house legal sections to embrace technology that will make them more productive and efficient.

A big part of innovation till date has been witnessed on the litigation counter. For instance, eDiscovery tools and software have resulted into considerable time and cost savings in regard to checking emails and other digital records.

Unluckily, the standard of innovation in legal technology has not been consistently dispersed, especially when it comes to transactional work. In the $93 billion corporate law industry, companies are found to pass a meagre $4.2 billion every year on legal fees in mergers and acquisitions only.

Why there is no synergy? One of the explanations people have witnesses technology advance with eDiscovery versus due diligence is that a corporate lawyer in London must browse through huge records of email, coding responsive or non-responsive details, which results into a binary analysis. Artificial intelligence techniques can understand based on how attorneys have implied a subset of documents and then apply that learning to the residue of the documents. It is important to keep in mind learning technology used in this setting be more focused and nuanced to be able to understand the range of ways in which concepts can be denoted and fetch them with a granular focus.

Have you checked the new rules in regard to residence programs in Cyprus?

The Republic of Cyprus in the Eastern Mediterranean location is primarily known for its sweet speed of life and enjoyable lifestyle, referring that it’s a perfect location for foreign nations looking for a more negligent experience. English-speaking nationals consider it feasible to mingle into the local society since a majority of people in Cyprus prefer English, as the country was once a part of the British Kingdom. Moreover, the nation has a superior standard of education. Cyprus’s living overhead is affordable in comparison to the average cost in the European Union (EU). One of the foremost attractions of this brilliant destination is lower tax rates, which are the excuse some international leaders pick Cyprus as the base for their business.

There are lots of advantages to becoming a permanent resident in Cyprus through one of the residence programs in Cyprus. As the country is a full-fledged partner of the European Union, it unities its citizens with an unmatched quality of life, superior standard of living and low living costs. Getting permanent residency in Cyprus and Cypriot citizenship is a faster, easier process. Cyprus is all set to become a member of the Schengen Area, allowing Cypriot permanent residents to travel comfortably across Europe. As of now, the process of getting a Schengen Visa for those who are Cypriot permanent residents is very easy; the entire process consumes about an hour, and the visa to remain for a period of at least two years.

Permanent residents of Cyprus are entitled to enjoy lower costs of tuition in Europe. Cyprus is known to abide by the higher standards with regard to education and has some superb private and international schools that are affiliated with foreign educational institutions. Permanent residency is also applicable to the spouse and children under the age of 18. Children of the age 18+ are allowed to live in the country according to the Family Reunification Act. Permanent residents of Cyprus are entitled to own property and do not have to deposit inheritance tax. The country also has the least most property tax in the world. Obtaining the citizenship of Cyprus means that you can travel easily all across Europe. Cyprus also boasts of steadfast infrastructure, a well-furnished telecommunications system and receives a warm, sunny climate for most of the year.

People who want to choose residence programs in Cyprus and wish to make considerable investments in Cyprus are entitled for a quicker European residency or citizenship. There are two options to go with this route. Investors may choose to adopt citizenship directly or may decide to apply for permanent residency if they have a lesser amount for investment. The minimum investment needed under this citizenship via investment scheme is €2million in the form of real estate or qualified investments in Cyprus. With this option, foreign nationals can choose to get citizenship directly, and those who qualify are rendered the rights and privileges of EU members, along with their qualified family members. In the permanent residency program, the investment cap is placed at least €300,000 in addition to a capital deposit of €30,000 euros.

Explore new opportunities by choosing the best immigrant investors program in St. Lucia.

In the end of the year 2016, Saint Lucia’s PM, Allen Chastanet, has made a new change to the Citizenship by Investment Regulations 89 of 2015, to be effective from 1st of January 2017.

Those who may wince at yet another notification, better take a detailed look at it! The alterations have only made obtaining Citizenship by Investment in St Lucia much affordable and easier not only for one applicant but for families as well. Now, this is certainly a big reason to rejoice, for concerned investors, indeed it is!

As per the updated amendments to the earlier regulations, the program is presented much quicker with improved efficiency in all of the Caribbean countries.

Let’s examine the amendments right here!

·         No need to announce financial resources of minimum net value of US $300,000

·         Rather than swearing a loyalty oath at the Saint Lucian embassy, High Commissioner consulate or any such affiliate office, now the applicant is made to provide a sworn declaration before an Attorney-at-Law, Notary Royal, Notary Public, Consular Officer or Honorary Consul of Saint Lucia.

·         Eradicating the restriction of 500 applicants annually

Besides procedural modifications in immigrant investors program in St. Lucia, the Honorary Prime Minister of St Lucia has also announced some alterations in the predominant fee structure, which are summarised below:

·         Single Applicant: US$100,000.00

·         Applicant and spouse: US$165,000.00

·         Applicant, spouse and up to 2 dependents: US$190,000.00

·         Additional dependents: US$25,000.00 each

For those investors looking to invest their money in Government Bond option are grateful to pay an administration fee of US$50,000.00 per application from now onwards.

Those applicants who wish to invest in the National Economic Fund are not obliged to pay any administrative fees!

With these changed become in effect from January 1st, 2017, the Prime minister has assured more amendment and changes come up later to guarantee an impressive return on the capital invested by the applicants.

These amendements which started taking effect from the 1st January 2017 will make the immigrant investors program in St. Lucia the most optimum value for money in the Caribbean, whether for single applicants or collective applicants. Funders to the National Economic Fund do not need to pay any administrative charges. Saint Lucia is now the least expensive option for an applicant with a family and is on par with Dominica for a single applicant. But, as the processing fee in Dominica is more than that of Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia is still affordable and ensures best value for a single applicant.

With these changes, an applicant is no longer needed to exhibit a net worth of US$3,000,000.00 to qualify. In addition, the requirement to travel to a Saint Lucian Embassy or Consulate office to take the Oath of Allegiance has been done away with. This will bring down the existing cost and hassles linked with taking the Oath of Allegiance.

In Parliament on Tuesday 20th December 2016 the Prime Minister also stated that early in 2017 another option for succeeding for citizenship will be presented. This will be the establishment of a Saint Lucia Sovereign Wealth Fund into which applicants can invest for a specified time. This fund will be looked after by professional investment managers and will provide investors with a higher declaration of the return of their money and a return on their capital than currently exists with the real estate alternative in the Caribbean.