At the end of May, Ukraine’s legal service market gained a new strong player: a new attorney’s association called ALIAS started its operations in Kyiv; the association specializes in the criminal cases related to business and official activities, civil and criminal litigation, property, employment, and family disputes. Aleksandr Gorovoy, a well-known attorney at law who defends the personal interests of a wide range of prominent businessmen, politicians and public figures, has become ALIAS’s…

New Tax Policy Guidelines for 2013-15 provide for a 20% tax on undistributed profits of controled foreign companies (CFC) payable be parent holding companies. Ministry of Finance believes this should help fight capital flight from parents to low tax jurisdictions. But experts believe this may lead to relocation of major holdings from Russian soil if rules will be too strict or applied rigorously.…

Last week the grace period for compliance with the new EU Cookie Law came to an end.  As the 26th May 2012 drew closer, we watched with interest as some of the UK’s leading websites started to unveil their own cookie compliance solutions.  Our latest blog post has a look at four websites to see what approach has taken: The ICO, BBC, BT and Amazon.  Read…

Stuart Page, Associate & Serious Crime Solicitor

Tom Whitehead (Telegraph) reports today that “charges of at least £15 a time will be added to outstanding court fines for any offender who fails to pay up on time. ”

Fines are usually imposed for a wide variety of minor offences and quite often are imposed on people who are in a position…

There are many different types of talking skills involved in the day-to-day life of a lawyer.

Some of these are:

• Conversing: social chat and two-way dialogue
• Banter: social chat with a humorous edge
• Interrogating: a series of staccato quick fire questions which may make the listener feel uneasy;
• Lecturing: talking at a listener, without hesitation, deviation or interruption
• Prompting: using the information provided to get more…

The new Criminal Procedure Code of Ukraine, which is due to take effect on November 1, 2012, has changed jurisdiction over tax crimes punishable by imprisonment. This was announced by a senior associate of Lavrynovych & Partners Law Firm during his speech at the American Chamber of Commerce in Kyiv on May 24. The following will be transferred from the tax militia bodies to the internal affairs bodies and the Security Service of Ukraine: forgery in public office (Article 366 of the…

Maksym Lavrynovych talks to The Money Magazine about his first steps in business, start-up capital, and gives advice to novice entrepreneurs. http://ning.it/KyfHqc
Original article in Russian: http://ning.it/KyfQd2

Many of the smaller high street firms are in essence a couple of partners with a few junior lawyers being assisted by an admin department.  When it comes to strategy, it’s the partners who make the decisions and plan for the future – not because they have any specialist knowledge or skills in how to do so, but because a) they’ve got the most experience and so “know how the industry works” and b) because they’re at the top of the company and so “get to” make these decisions.

Of course,…

Gill Nuttall, PR & Marketing Manager

Luke McCormick is to pick up where he left off it appears, and will once again enjoy the trappings of a footballer’s lifestyle.

In my view, the footballer existence is what led Mr McCormick to the steps of the court and ultimately to the gates of the prison he spent a short time in.

His fast car, his lavish lifestyle…

The State of Texas callously penalizes sex offenses. Some sex crimes hold an obligatory verdict of life incarceration without the option of parole. Furthermore, sex offender listing may be required.



A conviction, if not the accusation, of a sex offense can obliterate your reputation, job,…

A critical element of business networking is what you do after the event. For many people that is clear their emails, make important calls, undertake fee earning work and promptly to forget about the people with whom you have just 2 hours of your life.

What does following up actually mean, you may ask.

I follow up anybody:

a) that I think I can help

b) that I think can help me

c) can help a contact or be helped by a contact

DON’T…

Mark Higgins, Employment Law Partner

There is little doubt that the proposal to allow “no-fault” dismissals contained in the Beecroft report (published yesterday, following a leak to the Daily Telegraph) should be consigned to the bin.

The rationale behind the proposal was that businesses employing fewer than 10 employees would have a fail-safe way of removing ‘unproductive’…

With the referral fee ban looming, many of my lawyer clients have expressed emotions ranging from despair to jubilation.  One common factor though, is that the majority would ideally like to be bring in more business directly at a lower client acquisition cost.

At the same time, lawyers seem to be slowly warming up to the idea of social media and blog writing, but are unsure as to how they can be used effectively to generate business.

With this in mind, I interviewed a leading…

Very pleased to congratulate John Orritt and Viv Aston  on their co completion of the Bristol 10km.

Full story here.

If you ado a charity event wearing the…

When interviewing clients, experts and witnesses, there are a number of different styles of questions that can be used, of which these are just a selection:

1. Open: these are the '’who?’, ‘why?’ ‘what?’ questions and lead the speaker to tell her own story in her own words. Example: “Tell me about the day of the accident.”
2. Closed/ Narrow: these require the speaker to give a ‘yes’, ‘no’ or very short answer. They don’t allow the speaker to…

Helen Barnes, Associate

The Guardian report upon the case of the Claimant, referred to as ‘JGE’ who alleges to have been sexually abused by a priest whilst residing in a children’s home, run by the church.

It is alleged that the diocese was vicariously liable for the actions of the…