The demise of a prominent City of London law firm will cost Barclays Bank up to £25 million, it was revealed yesterday, as details of the King & Wood Mallesons administration emerged.

If the British bank takes what it anticipated to be up to a 70 per cent haircut on its loan to the firm, it will be potentially the biggest loss incurred by a corporate lender in the wake of a law firm crash.

KWM’s London arm – formerly the City stalwart SJ Berwin – instructed administrators last week after several months of failed attempts to negotiate a bailout with the firm’s Sino-Australian overall management team.

It is understood the London office – which was responsible for the firm’s European and Middle Eastern operations – had bank debts of up to £35 million when it went into administration.

Partners in London appointed Quantuma, a specialist in law firm administration, which dealt with Challinors, a large firm in the West Midlands, when it collapsed owing more than £11 million about three years ago. A year later Quantuma also oversaw the administration and sale of Davenport Lyons, a well-known media law firm in London’s West End.

According to a report in The Lawyer magazine, Barclays will be forced to write off between £15 million and £25 million of the KWM London office debt. Barclays refused to comment on the loan or the possible write-off. However, City sources confirmed to The Times that the estimated figures are correct.

Meanwhile, the Legal Week website reported that KWM has paid £1.2 million to AlixPartners, the insolvency consultancy, even though the business ditched the law firm before it went into administration.

London partners and Barclays had instructed AlixPartners, initially proposing it as the administrator. However, AlixPartners withdrew amid reported concerns over funding. The £1.2m paid to AlixPartners covered some six months' of consultancy, with sources suggesting the figure could rise.

Cross-border legal issues will be vital to the success of UK business once the country leaves the EU, meaning that maintaining lawyer practice rights in Europe will be crucial, MPs will hear later today.

As the 11 justices of the Supreme Court prepare to hand down their ruling on whether the government or parliament should have the final say on triggering the Article 50 procedure for Brexit, solicitor chiefs will give evidence to the House of Commons international trade select committee.

“We want … solicitors to continue to support the interests of British and international businesses wherever they trade post-Brexit,” said Robert Bourns, president of the Law Society, the organisation that represents solicitors in England and Wales.

“We urge the government to prioritise maintaining practice rights for UK lawyers and law firms in EU member states post-Brexit,” said Bourns in advance of the committee hearing. “This would ensure the UK remains attractive to non-EU businesses and law firms – both currently look to the UK to gain access to the EU market – supporting the growth of global Britain post-Brexit.”

The society said that it will encourage ministers to seek trade agreements that “facilitate liberalisation of legal markets beyond the EU at the same time as it negotiates the new relationship with the EU”.

The Supreme Court justices are scheduled to produce their eagerly anticipated ruling at 9.30 this morning in London.

Plans to extend online courts to employment cases run the risk of excluding swathes of workers from the existing tribunal system, lawyers warned ministers yesterday.

The government was also told that Whitehall proposals to delegate some judicial functions to caseworkers are likely to have the unintended consequence of triggering a rise in expensive appeals.

In a response to the government’s planned reform of the employment tribunal system, specialists highlighted concerns around internet access that would potentially deny access to justice to a range of claimants.

“We urge the government to ensure that digitally-excluded persons and other vulnerable groups are afforded adequate protection as part of the reforms,” the Employment Lawyers Association said.

In its response to the Ministry of Justice, the association went on to say that “an online system must not be compulsory for all employment tribunal claims. Making an online system available but not compulsory can still achieve savings without excluding potential users of the tribunal system.”

The association’s response also warned against plans to pass increasing amounts of work to caseworkers. The need for “detailed legal and procedural knowledge” was crucial if unwanted and expensive appeals were to be avoided, the association said.

Lawyers pointed out that since employment tribunal fees were introduced in 2013, the system had been swamped with litigants in person. “Decision-making by the judiciary, at all stages of the process,” the association said, “has the confidence of litigants in person, and so the perception of these users needs to be considered carefully to ensure that this is not lost.”

Imposing price competitive tendering for the duty solicitor scheme in housing possession cases will trigger a “race to the bottom” and seriously damage standards, law chiefs warned yesterday.

Ministers aim to bring in reforms that will see price tendering added to the system of one duty contract being issued for each court in England and Wales.

But the Law Society, which represents the solicitors bidding for the contracts, has warned the Ministry of Justice that if adopted, price competitive tendering will force law firms to cut corners.

"The cheapest offering will not necessarily be the best,” said Robert Bourns, the society’s president. He predicted that the MoJ plan – which is being consulted on until March 17 – “could result in a race to the bottom which may impact on professional standards. A price war will not improve services and could negatively impact on clients.”

Bourns called on the Legal Aid Agency to put forward proposals for mitigating that risk. “It should also keep in mind that cuts in payment only compound years of cuts for the solicitors that look after the interests of our most vulnerable citizens,” he said. “It may mean that contracts which are already at best only marginally economically viable for firms become unsustainable.”

Lib Dem lawyers to fight Brexit ‘coup d’etat’ – Law Gazette

UK’s ‘last anti-gay law’ to be scrapped – Metro

Woman gives chocolates to judge who ordered tumour removal – The Irish Times