A notary public of the common law is a public officer constituted by law to serve the public in non-contentious matters usually concerned with general financial transactions, estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international business. A notary's main functions are to validate the signature of a person ; administer oaths and affirmations; take affidavits and statutory declarations, including from witnesses; authenticate the execution of certain classes of documents; take acknowledgments ; protest notes and bills of exchange; provide notice of foreign drafts; prepare marine or ship's protests in cases of damage; provide exemplifications and notarial copies; and, to perform certain other official acts depending on the jurisdiction. Such transactions are known as notarial acts, or more commonly, notarizations. The term notary public only refers to common-law notaries and should not be confused with civil-law notaries.
William Jardine was a Scottish physician, opium merchant and trader who co-founded the Hong Kong based conglomerate Jardine, Matheson & Co. Following his return to England from the Far East, between 1841 and 1843, he was Member of Parliament for Ashburton representing the Whig party.
Civil-law notaries, or Latin notaries, are lawyers of noncontentious private civil law who draft, take, and record legal instruments for private parties, provide legal advice and give attendance in person, and are vested as public officers with the authentication power of the State. As opposed to most notaries public, their common-law counterparts, civil-law notaries are highly trained, licensed practitioners providing a full range of regulated legal services, and whereas they hold a public office, they nonetheless operate usually—but not always—in private practice and are paid on a fee-for-service basis. They often receive generally the same education as attorneys at civil law with further specialized education but without qualifications in advocacy, procedural law, or the law of evidence, somewhat comparable to solicitor training in certain common-law countries.
A notary is a person authorised to perform acts in legal affairs, in particular witnessing signatures on documents. The form that the notarial profession takes varies with local legal systems.
The Worshipful Company of Scriveners is one of the 110 livery companies of the City of London. The Scriveners Company was originally known as the Mysterie of the Writers of the Court Letter and, since its incorporation, as Master Wardens and Assistants of the Company of Scrivenors of the Cittie of London [sic]. It is one of the few livery companies that from its foundation to the present day has been influential in setting the standards for a living profession, namely that of scrivener notary. The company's first ordinances were granted in 1373. Its Royal Charter was granted by King James I on 28 January 1617.
The Convention of 5 October 1961 Abolishing the Requirement of Legalisation for Foreign Public Documents, also known as the Apostille Convention, is an international treaty drafted by the Hague Conference on Private International Law (HCCH). It is intended to simplify the procedure through which a document, issued in one of the contracting states, can be certified for legal purposes in all the other contracting states. A certification under the Convention is called an apostille or Hague apostille. It is an international certification comparable to a notarisation, and may supplement a local notarisation of the document. If the Convention applies between two states, an apostille issued by the state of origin is sufficient to certify the document, and removes the need for further certification by the destination state.
A limited liability partnership (LLP) is a partnership in which some or all partners have limited liabilities. It therefore can exhibit elements of partnerships and corporations. In an LLP, each partner is not responsible or liable for another partner's misconduct or negligence. This distinguishes an LLP from a traditional partnership under the UK Partnership Act 1890, in which each partner has joint liability. In an LLP, some or all partners have a form of limited liability similar to that of the shareholders of a corporation. Unlike corporate shareholders, the partners have the power to manage the business directly. In contrast, corporate shareholders must elect a board of directors under the laws of various state charters. The board organizes itself and hires corporate officers who then have as "corporate" individuals the legal responsibility to manage the corporation in the corporation's best interest. An LLP also contains a different level of tax liability from that of a corporation.
Linklaters LLP is a multinational law firm, headquartered in London, England. Founded in 1838, it is a member of the "Magic Circle" of elite London-headquartered law firms. It currently employs over 3000 lawyers across 30 offices in 20 countries.
A certified copy is a copy of a primary document that has on it an endorsement or certificate that it is a true copy of the primary document. It does not certify that the primary document is genuine, only that it is a true copy of the primary document.
Denton Wilde Sapte LLP was an international law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It merged with the United States-based law firm Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in September 2010, forming SNR Denton. At the time of the merger, Denton Wilde Sapte had 16 offices and employed around 610 lawyers.
Dentons is the largest multinational law firm in the world. Dentons was ranked as the world's 4th-largest law firm by revenue, with $2.9B gross revenue by Global 200 ranking in the fiscal year 2021. The firm is called Dentons in all languages other than Chinese, in which it is called 大成 (Dacheng).
The Ince Group plc is a United Kingdom-based holding company with a core business in legal services, which is listed on the London Stock Exchange. The company also offers complementary services in accounting, financial services, consulting, and pensions advice. It was previously known as Ince Gordon Dadds LLP, following the acquisition of Ince & Co by Gordon Dadds Group LLP, and rebranded as The Ince Group in August 2019.
Hill Dickinson is a British international commercial law firm headquartered in Liverpool, United Kingdom. With more than 200 partners and 950 staff, the firm operates from six UK offices and four overseas offices.
Blake Morgan LLP is a large full-service commercial law firm with offices in Cardiff, London, Oxford, Portsmouth, Reading and Southampton in the United Kingdom. It was formed in 2014 following a merger between the Cardiff-based Morgan Cole and the Portsmouth-based Blake Lapthorn. It employs approximately 415 lawyers and 145 other fee-earners. It has 130 partners. It is registered with the Law Society of England and Wales.
Jardine Matheson Holdings Limited is a Hong Kong-based Bermuda-domiciled British multinational conglomerate. It has a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange and secondary listings on the Singapore Exchange and Bermuda Stock Exchange. The majority of its business interests are in Asia, and its subsidiaries include Jardine Pacific, Jardine Motors, Hongkong Land, Jardine Strategic Holdings, DFI Retail Group, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Jardine Cycle & Carriage and Astra International. It set up the Jardine Scholarship in 1982 and Mindset, a mental health-focused charity, in 2002.
In the United States, a notary public is a person appointed by a state government, e.g., the governor, lieutenant governor, state secretary, or in some cases the state legislature, and whose primary role is to serve the public as an impartial witness when important documents are signed. Since the notary is a state officer, a notary's duties may vary widely from state to state and in most cases, a notary is barred from acting outside his or her home state unless they also have a commission there as well.
Sir David Kennedy Newbigging, OBE, DL is a British businessman and Hong Kong politician born in China. He was the Tai-pan of Jardine Matheson & Co, the leading British trading firm in East Asia and unofficial member of the Executive Council and the Legislative Council of Hong Kong.
The International Union of Notaries is a non-governmental organisation. It aims to promote, co-ordinate and develop the function and activities of Notary throughout the world.
The Notarial Archives is an archive in Valletta, Malta, that contains about 20,000 volumes of contracts, wills and other legal documents from the 15th century to the present day. Its collections are significant both from a legal and historical point of view, and they include Il-Kantilena, the earliest known text in the Maltese language.
In 2019, the top 50 Dutch law firms had around 4,476 attorneys and the top 30 law firms had around 183 notaries and 527 candidate notaries. According to the Chambers and Partners legal directory, the top five law firms in the Netherlands are Allen & Overy Netherlands, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Houthoff, Loyens & Loeff and Stibbe. Every year advocatie.nl publishes a list of the 50 biggest law firms in headcount.
