A guest post by Eimear McCann, on behalf of London International Disputes Week McCann: Manual ways of working are simply unsustainable Litigation, reputed for its fluctuating nature, has sometimes been viewed as a bit of an outlier in the legal tech world. The idea of a workspace, whereby legal teams, counsel, judges, and clients can access a ‘single source of truth’ is a relatively novel concept; however, this is starting to grow in momentum, accelerated by advances in artificial intelligence (AI) and compounded by seismic shifts in our working habits, post-pandemic. Irrespective of our digital competence, we have moved largely […]

Victims, witnesses and defendants are waiting years for justice as London’s courts are weighed down by a quarter of the national criminal case backlog, new figures reveal. The number of cases waiting to be heard has nearly doubled across England and Wales in the past four years, thanks to funding cutbacks, the pandemic and a feud between barristers and government over legal aid rates. In London, fresh data shows the capital’s crown courts are dealing with more than a quarter of the 60,898 backlog, compared with a 20 per cent share four years ago. The average time between a crime […]

The Law Commission of England and Wales has launched a review of the laws which determine how finances are divided among couples after divorce or the dissolution of a civil partnership. Commissioned by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), the new law reform project will consider the use of financial remedy orders: orders for financial provision between couples at the end of their marriage or civil partnership. Half a century after the passage of the Matrimonial Causes Act 1973, mirrored in the Civil Partnership Act 2004, the Government has asked the Law Commission to review whether the current law is working […]

H iring in London for March declined at close to the fastest rate since 2020, but employers are becoming more optimistic about their hiring outlook over the next year. According to the KPMG and REC London labour-market pulse check, the capital’s rating fell to 42.2, the second-lowest figure since 2020. A score above 50 represents an improved hiring outlook when compared to the prior month, and below 50 means the outlook is negative. The London outlook was the worst for any region in the UK, and compared with the nationwide figure of 46.3. Besides October 2022, the only times the […]