Karen Bartlett is a writer, journalist and film maker.
Karen writes for The Times, The Sunday Times,The Guardian, WIRED and Newsweek. In broadcast Karen has made documentaries for the BBC World Service, and directed a series on the economic meltdown.
Karen’s book 'Architects of Death' about Topf and Sons will be published in March 2018. She is also the author of 'After Auschwitz', a critically acclaimed biography about Dusty Springfield, and a book about disease eradication in the Twentieth Century.
Growing Up X
Fifty years after he was killed, the daughter of Malcolm X wants to make sure her father isn't written out of history Half way down a winding country road in New York’s wealthy Westchester County, one of America’s most famous revolutionaries lies buried under three feet of crisp white snow. I...
Newsweek
How one man gave Congo’s women hope
Life is hell for women caught up in the conflict in the Congo. But one remarkable doctor helps survivors to build a future Why are the lives of African women worthless? It’s a question that Denis Mukwege asks every day that he works with the raped and mutilated women of the Democratic Republic...
The Times - World
‘If they gave me a house, I’d take it tomorrow’
All I want is to die under this mountain.” Noor Ebrahim, a slightly-built former messenger for Reader’s Digest, has returned to the area where he grew up. Now retired, he likes to remember the old days; he can point out his school — “it was tough” — the mosque where his family prayed and the spot...
The Times - World
Momma D: Dionne Warwick, the Grande Dame of Divas
She learnt her stagecraft from Marlene Dietrich; 50 years on, she’s mentor to Whitney Houston and P. Diddy Dionne Warwick opens up her arms in a stage bow: “I’m looking pretty good, don’t you think,” she says. The singer seems slightly surprised to be turning 70, and, with pearly white teeth a...
The Times - Arts
India's Barefoot Revolution
What would it be like if women ran the world? In some parts of India, it’s already happening If all revolutions begin in unlikely locations, few could be as unpromising as Borda. It’s a poor village in the poorest district of one of the poorest states in India. Only the blasting from a nearby ...
The Times - World
It’s murder on your mobile, says The Killing’s Sarah Lund
Hit crime drama The Killing is back for a second series, and Karen Bartlett talks mobile phone forensics with actress Sofie Gråbøl Detective Sarah Lund is a Luddite. The loner heroine of Denmark’s hit crime drama The Killing is as much of a 70s relic as her Faroe sweaters: She makes notes by h...
Technology
Skateistan: How skateboarding took off with Afghan kids
It’s no surprise that in a world full of rules most kids want to do something with no organisation, and no adults. “This country has more restrictions than just about any other,” Oliver Percovich says, explaining how his own passion for freedom and fun led to groups of boys and girls flying acros...
The Times - World
Life and Love with 'The Greatest': Muhammad Ali
When Yolanda “Lonnie” Williams was six years old she looked out of her front door in Louisville, Kentucky, and saw an energetic young man holding court to a wide-eyed gaggle of neighbourhood boys, including her brother. “Who’s that big man?” she asked her mother, not knowing that the answer wo...
The Times - Arts
Polio's Last Stand
Eradicating the Last 1% of Polio Is Deadly But Essential When 40-year-old Liberian civil servant Patrick Sawyer died of Ebola earlier this year in hospital in Lagos, having carried the disease from his home country to Nigeria, global health workers feared the epidemic would spread in West Af...
Newsweek
Bringing Anne Frank Home – to Germany
Like many people in their seventies and eighties, Buddy Elias and his wife Gertie are downsizing – clearing out the attic and getting rid of several generations’ worth of papers, clutter and possessions from their family home in Basel, Switzerland. Unlike most other pensioners, however, Elias is ...
Newsweek
A Race Apart: the beauty queens of the apartheid era
The Miss World finalists are now at the World Cup, but the women who represented South Africa in its past have divided memories So far the game has not been beautiful for the World Cup’s “33rd official team”. They have gone largely unnoticed in South Africa’s impressive new stadiums, despite d...
The Times - World
Maki Mandela: “As Nelson's child, I can say I am proud of him”
In the week that London marks the statesman's 90th birthday, his daughter reveals how she overcame her resentment that he was a father to the world, but not to her Nelson Mandela arrives in London today for what is likely to be his last major public appearance; a 90th birthday charity concert ...
The Times - World
The Vagina Monologues turns ten
Eve Ensler transformed the New Orleans Superdome into ‘Superlove' for a celebrity-studded event to campaign against violence towards women Few people know that New Orleans is the vagina of America. Few would suggest it. “It is fertile. It's a delta. And everyone wants to party there,” explains...
The Times - Arts
Britain’s top law firms expanded dramatically during the financial boom but, just as they rose with the City, they are now declining with it. One lawyer said: “Two American firms have gone under. I don’t think that’s going to happen in the UK, but we’re expecting a lot of jobs to be lost.”
Partners, especially those with equity in the business, should be particularly worried. They were once guaranteed jobs for life and earnings of more than £1m a year. Now more than 15% of the 12,000 partners in the City’s top firms could go.
Michael (not his real name) has been a partner in a second-tier law firm for more than 20 years. “My firm isn’t restructuring yet, but obviously we’re hearing about the top firms – the so called ‘magic circle’ – shedding dozens of partners in a bid to maintain profitability,” he said. “I’m worried about my performance – if I don’t deliver a certain profit, I earn less. But I’m not worried about my job yet because my firm is more collegiate and less cutthroat.”
It has been a miserable time for City law firms. Clifford Chance, Addleshaw Goddard, SJ Berwin and Baker & McKen-zie have announced a series of redundancies that brings the total number of law jobs lost during the credit crunch to more than 2,000. Some partners will not lose their jobs but will be stripped of equity.
Last week there was a leak that Linklaters, the world’s second-largest law firm, could cut 70 of its 540 partners, and 10% of more junior lawyers, as it focuses on fewer, more profitable, clients.
Law firms are in uncharted waters. In recent years many have undergone a change from a collegiate model to a corporate one. Some insiders claim that respect for “old-fashioned law” with a premium on technical excellence has now been replaced by the need for senior staff to generate business and manage client relationships.
“I hustle,” said Michael. “I go on trips. I contact potential clients. I take new products to sell. Big firms have institutional clients, who get handed on from generation to generation. If you have been sitting at your desk, waiting for your client to ring up and tell you what to do, life is now going to be tough. Who will want you?”
Catrin Griffiths, editor of The Lawyer, described the climate as a “perfect storm” and went on to predict that nearly all law firms would make redundancies, with women in junior positions possibly bearing the brunt of the job losses. “There are now more women than men entering the profession,” she said. “It has been hugely popular for graduates because, until recently, it has been seen as more secure than the City.”
According to Griffiths, the recession and dearth of work from some areas, such as private equity and property, have combined with a drive for greater professionalism and corporate management. “Top law firms have already been looking at outsourcing work, sometimes sending it to India. They have been looking at using agency lawyers. Now they are looking at which areas they are going to get work from in the next three years, and making adjustments accordingly.”
Few managing partners would be bold enough to predict which areas will remain profitable. One legal expert reported that, at the end of the Christmas holidays, most returned to their desks unable to judge how to set a budget for the year ahead.
While mid-sized and regional firms across Britain struggled in the last quarter of 2008, larger firms continued to see profits from international work in the Middle East, the Far East and Russia, paid for in euros and dollars, which have appreciated greatly against sterling.
Senior partners were often shuffled off overseas rather than face redundancies at home. But that source of work has begun drying up too as the recession goes global, and those partners have been brought home to face a bleak future. “Even Dubai is quiet,” one lawyer reported glumly.
Legal work on complicated financial products may have vanished, but some firms will be able to benefit from a surge in work on restructuring, insolvency and litigation.
The bigger deals could lead to fees of more than £30m and are likely to be fought over by many firms. Linklaters has more than 100 lawyers working on the Lehman Brothers administration. Slaughter and May, one of the City’s most traditional and successful practices, bagged the role of legal adviser to the Treasury and has worked on the nationalisation of Northern Rock.
Griffiths said: “It’s about retooling. There are new areas. As a partner it is no longer enough to be a good lawyer. You have to be all-singing and all-dancing – technically excellent but also a mentor and an income generator.
“Another aspect to consider is that law firms are structured on the basis that people will rise through the ranks and then leave. When there is a recession fewer people leave because there are fewer opportunities. At the moment law firms have hangers-on. Some will have to go.”
With many of those hangers-on at the senior end of the profession, employment lawyer James Davies from Lewis Silkin solicitors warns that firms should be careful of age discrimination.
“If you are a partner and you are 55, you probably know that you will not be getting another job. You have nothing to lose by claiming age discrimination against your former employer and asking for up to £4m,” he said. “It is easier to get rid of partners than salaried staff, but because the process is also less transparent, firms should ensure that they can justify their decision-making.”
Despite such predictions, a survey released on Thursday by Legal Week claimed that more than half of City lawyers still felt secure in their positions.
Our source, Michael, said he remained confident about his own future, and that of his firm. “The situation will get worse,” he said, “but I’ve been through two recessions and I know things will improve. Firms will get leaner, and they will come out stronger.”
Welcome to my website. I hope these pages give you a flavour of some of my work in books, print, onl…
Last week I was in Istanbul attending a Youth Forum for teenagers from around the world. But not eve…
When Nelson Mandela retired after serving one five-year term as President of South Africa in 1999 he…
I’ve just returned from China, after a gap of about 16 years, and I met these undergraduates – comin…
Eradicating the Last 1% of Polio Is Deadly But Essential
When 40-year-old Liberian civil servan…
When Yolanda “Lonnie” Williams was six years old she looked out of her front door in Louisville,…
She learnt her stagecraft from Marlene Dietrich; 50 years on, she’s mentor to Whitney Houston and …
What would it be like if women ran the world? In some parts of India, it’s already happening
If…
*Life is hell for women caught up in the conflict in the Congo. But one remarkable doctor helps surv…
All I want is to die under this mountain.” Noor Ebrahim, a slightly-built former messenger for Rea…
Hit crime drama The Killing is back for a second series, and Karen Bartlett talks mobile phone foren…
It’s no surprise that in a world full of rules most kids want to do something with no organisation…
Fifty years after he was killed, the daughter of Malcolm X wants to make sure her father isn’t writt…
Like many people in their seventies and eighties, Buddy Elias and his wife Gertie are downsizing –…
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