law firm

The front page of the website of a solicitor's practice in Bolton in the north of England says "WARNING – SCAM ALERT – We have been advised that Allansons has been cited as the instructed solicitors by Agents purporting to be from ECM Asset Management Limited and in connection with investment equity release. No such company exists and we have been informed this is part of an ongoing investment scam. Allansons has not been instructed by any such company nor been involved in any such scheme." Sadly, the profession's regulator has found, there was malfeasance within the firm. And there is apparently unrelated skulduggery afoot.

There are two questions to ask about the Solicitors' Regulatory Authority's action in relation to solicitors company Asons: the first is whether it was a "South Korea" moment - where there were so many questions, that they had no choice and secondly, if those questions had merit, how has it taken so long? The bottom line is that suspicious activity and behaviour was utterly rife: why do regulators adopt a lower standard in this area than they expect those they supervise to adopt in relation to money laundering?

A note of personal sadness: long, long ago, this writer was considering his future. At the top of the list of highly professional firms that attracted him was Mallesons in Hong Kong. But a family discussion resulted in staying in London and taking a radically different approach. The hankering remained but the shine is wearing off as the now global association of practices is heavily in debt, shedding staff and trying to hive off offices and teams.

It's almost six months since prosecutors in Gibraltar arrested Benjamin and Solomon Marrache of law firm Marrache and Co, alleging false accounting. That's a nice term for lying - and doing it in writing. But it's a little more complicated than that.

International law firm Dechert LLP have announced that Thomas P. Vartanian, David L. Ansell, and Robert H. Ledig have joined the firm as partners in the Washington, D.C. office. All three were previously partners at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP, where Vartanian served as chairman of the Financial Institutions Transaction Group.

The value of client data is demonstrated by the case of a San Jose law firm. A clerk stole data and used it to forge credit applications. And it was not the only professional business targeted.

Australian law firm Clayton Utz has, this morning, announced that 14 partners have resigned. They will join a newly established office of London-based giant Allen & Overy.