Wasting of assets

The company or individual who is the owner of the works.

Law360, London: A property investor told the Court of Appeal on 30 March 2021 that his complaint to Lloyds Bank about his losses from two interest rate hedging products is valid under statute and should allow him to bring a damages claim against the lender.

Construction of a building (usually offices) to include suspended ceilings and raised floors but no partitioning.

The amount by which the total value of the development exceeds its total costs.

This Practice Note explains what a pipeline of new clients and new business is and how to set about developing one. The need for a pipeline Winning new clients and new business is the culmination of your business development (BD) and marketing efforts. New clients will attribute their decision to instruct you to a variety of factors, eg: • your lawyers' understanding of their business and their legal requirements • the firm’s reputation • the fee proposal and their perception of price vs value • chemistry with the team they met Spotting targets with the highest potential to become new clients can be very challenging. It is important to develop a pipeline of potential clients and new business—in other sectors this is called the sales pipeline. A healthy sales pipeline means you will maximise the likelihood of winning new work. This needs to be a continuous process so that when fee earning work reduces, you have other prospects in the pipeline. The process of developing a pipeline is part science and part

Learning the art of advocacy is part of the training for solicitors, but many do not put it in to practice. Formal courses are delivered during the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), Legal Practice Course (LPC), and the Professional Skills Course (PSC), but compared to the Bar the training is minimal. Prior to April 2013, legal aid family work produced enough advocacy opportunities for junior lawyers in particular to gain in confidence that they could bring it to their practice when they reached more senior levels, but the removal of so much work from the scope of legal aid means opportunities to practice advocacy are dwindling. This Practice Note looks at advocacy in the context of training and business development rather than the specific practical skills. Why should a practice develop advocacy as a service? The increase in the offering available to clients is likely to be appreciated and from the client's perspective there are a number of advantages. The most obvious one is the continuity of advisor. A client may feel less worried

The scope An initial consideration is whether you are looking to do something for your team, which may be large or small, or for a wider part of, or the whole, organisation. Doing something for the whole organisation would mean greater availability of resource, better alignment of your team with the rest of the organisation and, possibly, an opportunity for your team to be seen to be taking the lead on an important initiative of general benefit. Given the legal case for action it also fits well with your responsibilities to the wider organisation. On the other hand, an organisation-wide initiative may mean delay—you will need to get others on board, other people may feel that it more properly sits in their area of responsibility, and want to have control, or, at the very least, be part of the decision-making process. That should ultimately be a way to achieve wider buy-in but may involve delay and also compromise. If you are a senior leader in the organisation then

This Practice Note provides practical guidance and tips for in-house lawyers on developing and improving the business credibility of the legal team within the business. It can be read in conjunction with Practice Notes: Building relationships with ‘business colleagues /clients’ and Developing your commercial awareness / business acumen. The acid test of business credibility is business people wanting your input because they value it. In other words, they feel that something is missing if you have not given your view. There are a number of ways you can develop business credibility, including: • demonstrating support of business goals • positioning your contribution in a way which makes sense to those receiving it, even if they are not immediately convinced • ensuring that you will not have to backtrack from an overly conservative stance or an overly accommodating or relaxed stance • making no secret that you will need to enlist help from others • maintaining professional integrity • delivering within agreed deadlines, focusing on the goal not just the task in hand It is also worth mentioning

There are rainmakers in most law firms who impress with their selling skills, but to many lawyers selling is an anathema—a frequent comment heard from lawyers is that they did not become a lawyer to do selling. This is not surprising because the stereotypes for lawyers and salespeople suggest radically different skill sets. Typically: • lawyers are seen as being highly analytical, rather understated, risk averse, considered, reserved and used to working in a regulated environment • sales personnel are, typically, characterised by being more opportunistic, extrovert and greater risk takers It does not have to be this way—a few small successes can turn a cautious lawyer into a confident business developer. For many lawyers, all it needs is an understanding of how the sales process works, a willingness to try and a few positive experiences. This Practice Note provides guidance on the process of selling to new prospects or to existing customers. See also Precedent: Selling—top tips for lawyers. Selling to a prospective client A slightly different sales approach should

Law360: Many developing countries objected 14 August 2025 to including arbitration as an option within a protocol on tax disputes in the United Nations (UN) framework convention on international tax cooperation, characterizing the process as tending to be imbalanced.

This Practice Note provides practical guidance and tips for in-house lawyers on developing programmes to raise legal awareness within the business. Helping clients gain legal awareness is one of the greatest contributions in-house lawyers can make. Unfortunately lots of in-house lawyers have good intentions about being pro-active, but find that they never have time. Others have qualms about a little knowledge being dangerous and are fearful that business people will run amok. It is critical that the organisation recognises that business people need to be legally aware. A legal awareness programme should aim to achieve three main objectives: first, to help employees recognise when their actions or decisions have potential legal implications; second, to ensure they know when and how to seek support from the legal team; and third, to promote a culture in which compliance and ethical conduct are seen as integral to commercial success. Developing legal awareness helps the business to: • reduce exposure to legal and regulatory risk by encouraging early identification and escalation of issues • operate more efficiently