Freshfields partners with Stephen Lawrence charity to provide scholarships to aspiring black lawyers

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Social diversity Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is launching a scholarship with the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust (SLCT) to help students from black and ethnic minorities gain access to the profession, in the latest of a string of diversity initiatives in law.

The scholarship will allow four successful male candidates committed to pursuing a career in the legal profession to receive a £3,500 annual contribution towards living expenses, training, mentoring, work experience at Freshfields and a guaranteed interview for a training contract.

4-5 Gray’s Inn Square merges with public law specialists Atlas Chambers

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Legal mergers 4-5 Gray's Inn Square

4-5 Gray’s Inn Square has merged with Public law set Atlas Chambers in a bid to boost headcount following a swathe of barrister exits late last year.

The tie-up will see Atlas director John Lister and his team of eight barristers move in with 4-5 Gray’s Inn Square, which was hit by the exit of 24 members including seven QCs, in November last year (See: 39 Essex Street takeover heralds new dawn) and a further four clerks earlier this year. Both groups joined 39 Essex Street.

Beyond the boundary: India

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Asia

Despite a raft of international alliances and the growing globalisation of Indian business, the opening up of India’s legal market seems as far away as it’s been for the past 20 years

The managing partners of most international law firms would be happy if India’s legal market took a lead from cricket’s Indian Premier League (IPL). If that were the case the finest local legal talent would advise alongside rainmakers from the UK and US, with foreign lawyers able to practise on the ground in Delhi and Mumbai. It may not generate quite the same fervour as Sachin Tendulkar et al manage in the IPL’s Twenty20 games but throughout the past decade India has been a legal market to get seriously excited about.