Legal fees to be squeezed under new accounting rules

New rules governing fees for advising on M&A deals could lead to clients putting pressure on law firms to reduce rates

The Water Cooler

What the legal world is buzzing about this week

Bribery law reform focuses on overseas work

Changes to rules would make it easier for prosecuting authorities to pursue such cases as that involving BAE in Saudi Arabia

OFT merger chief to join Allen & Overy

Simon Pritchard, senior director for mergers, is the second senior lawyer this month to leave for private practice

Law firm partners take home £1.1m in profits

International expansion and aggressive cost controls lifted profit per equity partner of the top ten firms by 28% this year

Early payout for Buncefield victims

Around 270 families will share an interim payout of £320,000 as the case against the plant's operators continues

Broker escapes jail over forged FSA applications

Former mortgage broker Simon Gray is given a suspended sentence after pleading guilty to forging his FSA application

Judges back plan to give lawyers cut of damages

Report seen by The Times supports US-style contingency deals in which lawyers take their fees out of damages won for clients

Marco Pierre White loses privacy case

Mr Justice Eady ruled that lawyers for the chef's estranged wife were entitled to obtain his private documents

'New laws will not close gender gap'

There is still a long way to go to achieve equality despite anti-discrimination laws, says Britain's most senior female judge

95% of violence victims do not seek compensation

Government report delivers damning indictment of ministers' stated aim to prioritise victims of crime

Solicitors tell tribunal 'we did nothing wrong'

Law firm that earned £141m industrial disease compensation scheme has denied it had exploited sick miners

Court action aims to save rare insects

Attempt begins to stop land described as one of the country’s top three insect homes being turned into a lorry park

Mother denies author's allegations of abuse

Carmen Briscoe-Mitchell says she was libelled by claims of physical and emotional abuse in her daughter's book, Ugly

Law firm denies exploiting sick miners

Beresford Solicitors tells a professional tribunal that it is entitled to earn millions of pounds from miner's compensation