In today's email, we've got:

• a fond farewell

• a pupillage-seeking puppy

• legal action against Richard Branson

EDITOR'S RAMBLE 🗣

Hi everyone, as a pre-warning, the newsletter will be a little different this week. Although we'll still have some commercial stories in towards the bottom (the show must go on), the rest of it may be a little more self-indulgent. 

Why, I hear you ask?

Moving forwards I'll be stepping away from LittleLaw (leaving Idin to take it on).

Now, this isn't some big Hollywood style bust up (I'm looking at you Shakira, with your diss track about Pique) but more about new beginnings.

I've absolutely loved my time at LittleLaw, it has been a genuine pleasure being a part of the team over the last few years.

But as time moves on I've got other avenues to explore and other burdens on my time. I never want to half-commit to something, especially not to something that means so much to me as LittleLaw does. And so the best path forward is to leave you fully in the extremely capable hands of Idin.  

In looking at what to include in this newsletter, I've been looking back over all the things that we've done so far. Be it reports, podcasts, videos, competitions, on campus events, online webinars, dog yoga (we have lockdown to thank for that), virtual quizzes, LinkedIn guides to everything else - it seems crazy that we've been able to do so much. 

Credit: Giphy

So as well as goodbye, I'd also like to say thank you to all of you who contributed to help LittleLaw get to where it is. That's reporters, graphic designers, social teams, animators, brand ambassadors, editors and, perhaps - most importantly - you, our readers.

We've always strived to produce the best content we can, keeping it free and accessible, all in the hopes that we can de-mystify that most horrid of legal phrases; "commercial awareness". 

So thank you, and I hope that LittleLaw continues to help fuel the next generation of lawyers, and it does so with a smile and a joke. I'll continue to be LittleLaw's biggest cheerleader (pom-poms and all) and will look forward to the newsletter every week. 

Below I've gone into a few of my favourite posts from my years at LittleLaw, and that was a hard task in itself to limit it to just a few, but before we get to that I'd like to give one last thank you. That goes to Idin, my work wife for the last five or so years. I can honestly say I may have spent more time talking to that man over the years than some of my family... and it's been a blast.

Whether it be in person sessions where we throw a load of paper round the floor, any of the times we've virtually met up, or back in the early days when we would trek to law firms for sponsorship deals that felt like they were going nowhere (they did in the end, just took some time and a lot of hard work); it's been an honour to work with you mate. Thank you.

So for one last time (from me anyway) onto the good stuff!

- Connor

FEATURED FIRST REPORT 📰

🔒 Reignite My Fire

Credit: Giphy

Here's one of my first reports that I wrote for LittleLaw (don't say I didn't warn you that this would be a different newsletter...). Instead of listing the whole thing (it's from 2019 so probably not very relevant now) I'll link it here for anyone interested. 

It's a story about how one of the Magic Circle firms' was looking to increase diversity within the workplace. 

It's also a great example of the corny but hilarious titles that we've included in the content we put out.

One of our aims was always to make commercial awareness accessible and, where possible, even fun. I can't count the hours we must have spent in the early days thinking of cheesy titles for otherwise dry topics.

Some of my favourites include:

• Scot Right There: The haters of Scotland’s new Hate Crime Bill (link)

• New Kid on the Block(chain): Land Registry Turns to New Technology (link)

• Highway to Heaven: Uber Accelerates Towards Careem (link)

 A BIT OF FUN 😄

We've done a lot of cool, quirky and slightly mental things at LittleLaw in my time. But below is one of my favourite pictures. 

The puppy in the picture is my brother's Golden Retriever called Odin, and he's now about quadruple the size! 

He still rocks a pair of glasses though 🤓 

And although we love Larry the Bear (LittleLaw's on again off again mascot), I'm afraid Odin takes the award for cutest fur-ball.

Credit: littlelawnews

IN OTHER SOME ACTUAL COMMERCIAL NEWS 🗞

As promised, I've still included some actual useful content for you.

• ✈️ Richard Branson braces for legal action: Virgin Galactic, Richard Branson's company which aims to send commercial flights into space, is being sued by investors who are claiming that Virgin Galactic's carrier aircraft and space vehicles were not designed for regular space travel.

• ⚽️ Are Manchester United courting investors?: Manchester United have set up a pop-up style shop at the World Economic Forum Meeting in Davos this year. The forum aims to bring together leaders from politics, businesses, academia and all other walks of life to shape global and industry objectives. Many say that United's pop up shop is an attempt to draw in potential buyers after the owners of United put the club on the market last year. Currently valued at £8bn, this would be one of the largest acquisitions in recent history - certainly in the footballing world.

• ✍️ Matalan changes hands: The founder of Matalan, John Hargreaves, will lose control of the retail giant later this month. A group of lenders have secured a deal, involving a debt-for-equity swap, to take control on 26 January 2023. A debt-for-equity swap is used when a company is facing financial difficulties. It's a transaction where a lender exchanges debt owed for something equity (i.e. shares in the company).

AROUND THE WEB LITTLELAW SOCIALS 🌐

Below is a round-up of some of my favourite posts from LittleLaw's socials (it's all me, me, me this newsletter, I know. But there's some good stuff here I promise). 

• 🖼 Stunning: This post in itself is great content, it goes over some important news about Boris' approach to lockdown and Covid. But specifically, the graphic is amazing. We've done a lot of great work on our graphic reports over the years, but this may still be my favourite.

• 🐶  Dogs, guitars and banana bread: I mentioned dog yoga at the start and I wasn't lying. Over lockdown, we hosted a competition which asked what skill or interest you'd picked up. Some of the entries we got in were incredible, and I still look back fondly on that competition.

• 🏀 Variety: We've done a huge variety of different posts since starting out. One of those types of content was the "quote" post. We'd find a famous quote from someone of note that could be applied to an aspiring lawyer and put it out there. This one is from the G.O.A.T himself, so it had to take a spot here.