briefs

Senior at Simmons

Corporate finance specialist Bill Knight is to be the next senior partner of Simmons & Simmons, which celebrates its centenary next year. Mr Knight (left), whose election has just been announced, takes over from Alan Carr next September.

Since becoming a partner in 1973, Mr Knight - currently head of the corporate department - has established the firm's Hong Kong office and been involved in such high-profile transactions as the Railtrack and Telegraph flotations and the 1993/94 offer to Lloyd's of London Names. He is a past chairman of the Law Society Company Law Committee and a member of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies Research Committee.

Nabarro's Chinese link

Nabarro Nathanson has signed a co-operation agreement with Hong Kong law firm Livasiri & Co, with the aim of developing work from Hong Kong and the People's Republic of China in the areas of banking, corporate/commercial, construction and litigation.

Citizens' grant

The Lord Chancellor, Lord Mackay of Clashfern, has announced that he is making a grant to the Citizens' Advice Bureau at the Royal Courts of Justice in London to fund an experimental extension of their current advice service to litigants in person.

The grant will total pounds 130,000 over two years and will be used to increase the staffing in the CAB. It is made in response to the recommendations of a working party chaired by Lord Justice Otton that the services already offered by Citizens' Advice in the Royal Courts should be enhanced.

On the record

How members of the Law Society Council vote in important debates will be recorded, under a move approved at last week's meeting of the body as part of president Martin Mears's drive for greater democracy.