An interesting case reported today from the SDT – allowing rare anonymity to the perpetrator of non-financial misconduct at a law firm. One assumes the medical evidence was so stark that it convinced two of the three panellists to grant the application. My view is that others in the profession facing similar charges should not […]

Few among us could genuinely deny having made errors of judgment, whether inadvertently or otherwise.  To err is human, as we are told.    However, why do those in positions of power find it so hard to say sorry and admit their mistakes? This affliction is not the preserve of the politician but there’s a certain […]

Liz Truss may have wanted to abolish it but most will agree the Supreme Court has done an excellent job in its relatively short lifetime of deciding some of the biggest legal issues of our day. Early high-profile cases dealt with the law on pre-nups, assisted suicide and Julian Assange’s treatment, in contrast to a preponderance of tax law […]

Yesterday’s BBC Today programme interview, in which a former Harrods employee detailed calmly, but chillingly, her terrible experiences of sexual abuse at the hands of Mohammed Al-Fayed, took me back.  In the late 80s, I did a management training contract at Harrods and was occasionally tasked with manning the reception of Al-Fayed’s private office on […]

Is it fair for an investor’s political views to impact on a company’s brand? That’s the question raised by the news that Gail’s, the bakery bellwether of gentrification, has been boycotted by activist residents of Walthamstow, seemingly partially due to the fact of Gail’s minority investor’s views on Brexit and Covid lockdowns. Like it or not, we are living in an increasingly polarised world.  […]

Cybersecurity company CrowdStrike more than lived up to its name last Friday, sparking global chaos when a faulty Windows system update hit millions of businesses and individuals in seemingly the biggest IT outage in history. From airlines to banks, the NHS to media groups, supermarkets to train operators, few were immune from the “Blue Screen […]

The nation’s newspapers are traditionally a key battleground where an election can be lost or won. But to what extent has this significance waned following the rise of #social #media? The Sun’s “Time for a new manager” headline today only reflects the result we are all expecting. This time round it won’t be ‘The Sun […]

An interesting little gem concerning employment tribunals almost passed me by – yet in many cases its implementation has the potential for considerable impact on both claimants and respondents from early next year (unless of course a new government puts paid to the currently suggested timetable). Historically, responsibility for procedural rules within employment tribunals has […]

Even though votes are yet to be cast, the country appears to believe that the election is a run race and that the only question around Starmer’s rise to PM is the size of majority he will secure for Labour. Starmer’s steady hand has yet to waiver while it seems soggy Sunak has little chance of […]

As election campaign launches go, it was hardly the most auspicious start.Drowned out by torrential rain and the Labour 1997 campaign anthem, D:Ream’s Things Can Only Get Better (cue myriad weather-related memes and media headlines), the optics were less than optimal, Rishi Sunak’s speech barely audible. The overall impression was one of poor judgment and largely avoidable […]

Violence on the streets of London is something we have sadly become inured to. Reading Catherine Baksi’s article in Times Law this week about the proposal to offer jurors counselling if they are involved in traumatic trials however made us spare a thought for the members of the jury who will have to relive the […]

How robust is our probe? That’s the question organisations may now have to ask themselves when they commission an “𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐩𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐧𝐭” 𝐢𝐧𝐯𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐢𝐠𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 in the wake of uncomfortable allegations being levelled against them. Can employees, partners, clients, funders, regulators – let alone the general public through the lens of the media – really rely on the integrity […]

There’s no denying that there’s been a marked decline in newspaper sales over the past decade or more, which corresponds with the growth in news’ digital presence, as our appetite for content on-the-go increases. However there appears to be a continuing battle between those who expect their news to be delivered for free, and publishers […]

Bell Yard Director Louise Beeson reviews the past year in the world of legal PR and looks ahead to 2024 in the below article for Law360. — As we approach the year end, many law firms and public relations teams will be reviewing their external communications output for 2023: Which campaigns broke through, which legal […]

Edward Fennell, ‘The Legal Diary’ founder & editor and former editor of The Times’ ‘Law Diary’, delves into how law firms have changed their approach to PR and gives advice for lawyers in dealing with journalists in a Q&A with legal and litigation agency, Bell Yard Communications. Edward Fennell began his legal beat when working […]

Richard Burton, magazine editor/media consultant, shares his thoughts on what makes a good PR pitch and reflects on his own impressive career within the journalism profession in the below Q&A with Bell Yard Communications that will be of interest to anyone working in/with the media. From being inspired by comic book characters to editing the […]

Climate change is gearing up to become a key election – and legal – battleground.  ‘Just Stop Sunak’ screamed Tuesday’s Daily Mirror in response to the government’s confirmation on Monday that it would grant more than 100 new North Sea oil and gas drilling licences, while The Sun led with the launch of its ‘Give Us A Brake’ campaign, […]

Hopefully our young intern Sadie has gained some useful experience from her week spent in the world of litigation PR chez Bell Yard. Whilst she was with us, we asked her to share some of her insights into how she and her generation (Z in case you were wondering) consume and interact with traditional and social media platforms. Here is what […]

Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are poised for a significant showdown in the app store with Meta’s Threads, a Twitter replica, scheduled to launch today (July 6th). Following Musk’s acquisition of Twitter last year, internal turmoil at the company has increased the likelihood of a successful challenge to its dominance in the text-based social media […]

The flurry of #MeToo-related allegations that recently have rocked high-profile individuals and business organisations shows the fuse of non-financial misconduct still burns fiercely post-Weinstein. Reputational impact reaches far and wide in the face of an investigative journalist’s pursuit of targets to name, and publicly shame, after an allegation has been made. For the individual involved, if arrested […]

ITV’s reputation has suffered greatly following revelations concerning Phillip Schofield’s behaviour with a junior work colleague almost forty years younger. Key errors escalated this exposé into a crisis, though arguably one that could simply have been characterised as an inappropriate workplace relationship had the truth been outed much earlier. Instead, ITV’s reputation and internal processes […]

Since the Law Society of England and Wales first allowed lawyers to advertise in 1986, the UK legal sector has grown to become the largest legal services market in Europe, valued at £41bn in 2021, second only to the US globally. As competition intensifies, law firms need to catch the eye of clients and stand […]

Judging by the reaction to the Law Society’s latest guidance note, Impact of climate change on solicitors, released yesterday, the “milestone climate change guidance” has got lawyers hot under their white collars. Said to be the first guidance of its kind in the world, the 28-page note seeks to “enable the profession to be at […]

The BBC/Gary Lineker crisis was avoidable in more ways than one.  The saga hardly needs recapping such is the attention it has attracted in recent days. But in short, when the   Match of the Day presenter compared the rhetoric used by the Government in its rollout of an anti-immigration bill to that of 1930s Germany, he […]

The latest battle of the handbag, aka the high-stakes lawsuit brought by French luxury design house Hermès in the US against the artist Mason Rothschild over his ‘MetaBirkin’ NFT collection was hardly going to go unnoticed. Not only did the subject matter offer great headline and photo opportunities for business, tech, crypto, art, fashion and […]

Tax is back as a theme and a story to groans and cheers, depending on your perspective. Mrs Sunak’s non-dom saga laid the ground. Liz Truss’ low-taxes-for-growth campaign and Kwasi’s kamikaze budget got everyone talking about it last summer. Dan Neidle, formerly of Clifford Chance and now an unencumbered independent expert, has since pushed the […]

Last week saw the release of a Justice Committee report on a subject close to our hearts – Court Reporting in the Digital Age.  The report examines the barriers to open and transparent justice and the public’s right to learn of, or personally experience, cases heard across the justice system. Its findings will come as no […]