Clandestine conversations, a recruitment strategy on steroids, eye-watering salaries and internal politics galore, the Paul Weiss/Kirkland story has enough drama in it to keep the attention of even those outside the legal market.
For City partners, the interest in what’s going on has been off the scale. Continue reading “Talk of the town: Why Kirkland/Paul Weiss underlines the value of controlling the management message”
The easy narrative is that the party is over. After years of rapid expansion by international law firms in London, 2023 saw lawyer headcount at Global London firms inch up by just 1.8% – a figure which appears to provide confirmation that the City interlopers are finally starting to apply the brakes in London as deal volumes dry up.
And that narrative does bear up to scrutiny – to an extent. Last year more than half of the 50 Global London firms saw headcount in the capital flatline or decrease, and across the largest ten, combined headcount fell by 1%, with big firms such as White & Case, Baker McKenzie and Reed Smith all seeing London lawyer count dip. Continue reading “After the party – market slowdown pushes US leaders to take stock in London”
‘Whilst we’re very much plugged into the global firm and there’s lots of synergies and certainly a very clear industry focus, we have a strong domestic client base.’ Ajay Pathak, Goodwin
As part of our annual Global London report, management at US firms in London give their views on today’s market challenges
‘AI has not significantly changed the day-to-day operations of law firms. The emphasis is on staying alert and staying informed about ongoing developments.’ Didier Martin, Bredin Prat
As part of our annual Euro Elite report, management at independent firms in Europe give their views on today’s market challenges
Awards season. It should be viewed as a time of joy and anticipation, when law firms clamour to showcase their finest achievements of the last year, whether that’s an especially standout deal or matter, or an extraordinary individual moving the dial for the profession.
Amusingly, one of my colleagues forwarded this message onto me in Teams from a law firm comms person (apparently intent on gaming the system) who will, to save their blushes, remain nameless: ‘Can you ask Nathalie what is an easy category to apply for in the LB Awards?’ Continue reading “No shoo-ins at the Legal Business Awards, and beware the perils of TL;DR”
Whether it is the prospect of another few weeks still left of winter, many law firm leaders seem to have started the year under an uncharacteristic cloud of despondency.
Of course, it doesn’t take a genius to work out the other reasons why even the peppiest of senior partners might appear noticeably dispirited. The US contingent at least will be frantically number-crunching ahead of financial results coming out and, after the year that most transactional practices have had, the task will be about as enviable as filling out your tax returns. That said, early indications of double-digit growth from Milbank and Hogan Lovells may well prove those fears unfounded. Continue reading “Reasons to be cheerful: the hustle is back for 2024”
It has long been a peccadillo of business publishers to measure financial performance in five-year increments and for this, our final issue of the year, it seems churlish to break with tradition now.
Revisiting our Global 100 coverage from 2018 calls to mind a time capsule, with some of the contents uncannily familiar and others belonging almost to a bygone era. Continue reading “Global 100: When the music stops – it’s time for the global elite to play a different record”
‘The US firms don’t have any magic formula – it’s just that they have a very large economic driver behind them, which is the US economy.’ Simon Levine, DLA Piper
Global 100 leaders review the past 12 months and give their prognosis on how the market will shape up in 2024
‘It is very difficult to see how AI competes with what David Higgins does.’ Looking back five years to our 2018 Global 100 debate, this remark from Milbank’s Suhrud Mehta, one of many eminent City leaders around the table, is striking in more ways than one.
The industry has come to think of the now ubiquitous subject of AI as a recent thing, prompted by the advent of ChatGPT, which we may be forgiven for forgetting has only been around since November 2022. The reality is, law firm leaders have been debating the impact of such technology for years, while singularly failing to reach consensus on quite how it can solve the age-old conundrum of increasing efficiencies, decreasing the load of banal grunt work, while at the same time not putting stars like Kirkland’s Higgins out of a job. Continue reading “Doing the robot – Five years on, the same old AI debate rages on”
So much ink has been spilled over game-changing developments in recent weeks – namely the partnership vote in favour of the A&O Shearman deal, and Paul Weiss’ assault on the talent pools of the Square Mile – that it can be difficult to find an angle that isn’t hackneyed to within an inch of its life.
Nevertheless, a ring around senior contacts for a different take paid dividends, even if some of the suggestions are more about playing devil’s advocate and mischief-making. Continue reading “ChatGPT has drunk the Kool-Aid on A&O Shearman – let’s see what it makes of Paul Weiss”
