For those of you, like me, living and working in the northern hemisphere, summer is over, and we head into a period of shorter days and longer nights. For those of you on the other side of the equator, your days are getting longer, and you have the summer to look forward to. That's what happens every year.
But this summer in Europe, and beyond – in North America, in Morocco, elsewhere - we seem to be seeing real signs of global warming, in a way that it's become impossible to ignore. In much of Europe, we have seen the hottest months ever recorded. It doesn’t really matter whether you subscribe to one theory or another – things seem to be hotting up, and then breaking with some of the strongest rains we have experienced. Whether you or your lawyers feel you have anything useful to do about this, we are at a point where the issue of global warming cannot be ignored by lawyers, law firms, client or governments. But the world keeps spinning and the question, increasingly, is whether it is spinning out of control?
In more grounded news, life at Mishcon de Reya continues to be busy. In this edition of Mishcon & the World, we report on our growth, in the UK and Asia, and on the globalised world in which we live and work. We have short pieces on changes to the UK's immigration laws, on changes to technology, and updates on the latest work we've been doing and laws that we've been commenting on.
The latter part of the year will be packed with various conferences. If you are going to be attending any of them over the next few months, do let me know. We might be there too, and it would be good to meet in person. I'll be in Paris for the IBA's annual conference with a team of colleagues. Hopefully I'll see some of you there.