news from the Devon & Somerset Junior Lawyers' Division: Dodge, Duck, Dip, Dive

The new JLD committee held their first social on 12 December: a drinks evening with a Christmas jumper theme at Las Iguanas in Exeter. JLD members saw in the festive period with plenty of prosecco and merriment.   More recently, the JLD also held their first sporting event of the year. In a bid to get young lawyers involved in slightly alternative sports, iBounce trampoline park in Exeter was the venue for an evening of trampoline dodgeball. JLD members were given freedom of the park for the evening; allowing them to fly onto air mattresses, walk tightropes across foam shapes (which were surprisingly difficult to escape from after falling in) and enjo...

Delivering DASLS by Tony Steiner

Delivering DASLS by Tony Steiner   Firstly some DASLS staff news – Our apprentices Zoey and Ella have now moved on to new pastures and we wish them every success. Following a review of our needs we decided to recruit an Executive Assistant and Rachel Glapinski joined us on 3rdJanuary. Rachel has a degree in event management from the University of Plymouth and will be helping us with our various training courses and other activities. She tells me she wants to travel the world and has made a start having flown a Cessna.   Rachel can be contacted by email Rach@dasls.com   There is much to shout about at DASLS for 2017. Almost every week it seems that...

Professional Services 2018 Outlook by sponsor Barclays

Barclays Professional Services 2018 Outlook   Paul Jarrett, Relationship Director Professional Services at Barclays Corporate shares his thoughts on what will be the key trends and issues affecting professional services in 2018.  Paul highlights the key challenges and opportunities on what the focus will be in developing people and practices.   Reflecting on 2017, it was a good but tough year for the professional services sector.  A lot of practices delivered headline growth turnover, but when you look at this, much of the turnover was inflated by foreign exchange movements and not a lot came to the bottom-line in terms of underlying profit.  Brexit was...

President's Charity - Join in a Skydive

President's Charity - Join in a Skydive FREEFALL FROM 15,000FT TO HELP LOCAL HOSPICE PATIENTS AND FAMILIES North Devon Hospice has been named as charity of the year for the Devon & Somerset Law Society, as nominated by President Mark Roome.     On Friday 10th March 2017 everyone connected with the Society is invited to take the ultimate leap and join in a skydive in aid of the President’s charity.   The 15,000ft freefall will take place at Dunkeswell Airfield near Honiton and your President Mark Roome will be leading from the front by taking part himself!Stephen Roberts, Chief Executive of North Devon Hospice, said that hehoped to see as many...

Keep calm what May - Brexit and the law

Brexit is an historic incident, which could inspire other political parties across Europe to call for their own countries to leave the EU. So, after Brexit, could there be Grexit? Departugal? Italeave? Czechout? Oustria? Finish or even Latervia?   Post Brexit life remains uncertain. British politics has become a little less than coherent and neither Conservatives nor Labour have figured out how to squeeze new nationalism into their old philosophical platforms. Wry humour aside, it seems somewhat trite to question how Brexit will affect lawyers when politicians have slight clue as to what is going on.   The Law Society, however, in the last twelve months an...

LawCare - Resilience

LawCare - Resilience Resilience Resilience is the ability to adapt and bounce back when things don't go as planned. Resilient people don't let failure bring them down; when things go wrong they forge ahead anyway. In any workplace there will be people who thrive on challenges and difficulties while others panic and withdraw at the first hint of trouble. If you’re in the first group your work resilience is high and you probably deal more effectively with the stresses of your job and cope well under pressure. If you’re among those who haven’t been born with natural resilience, the good news is that anyone can learn how to develop resilience, and it’s...