Legal Business Blogs

LB302 – issue menu

Access your print copy online – LB302

We good corporate citizens – ESG report

ESG has exploded on the scene, with firms scrambling to display their credentials to clients both in dispensing advice and behaving responsibly at the same time. But is this just a case of the emperor’s new clothes?

Legal 500 analysis – is the Magic Circle’s dominance in the UK M&A market under threat?

LB reports on the appetite US firms have for public M&A work in London – once the exclusive preserve of the UK elite

Arrested development – the legal innovation report

Commercial law is simultaneously unchanged and transformed beyond recognition. Some predict imminent catastrophe, others say partners have never had it so good. Can both be right?

Going viral – Risk management and professional indemnity survey 2021

Risk managers have taken centre stage as firms wrestled with everything from the pandemic to professional indemnity insurance in 2020

Israel focus: Land of milk and honey

The Covid-19 pandemic hit Israel about as hard as anywhere else but local lawyers are confident operating in an ultra-resilient market

Shoring up – the Offshore report

Our annual review of the top ten offshore firms finds innovation, adaptability and growing Asian markets providing essential lifelines in challenging times

Life in a bubble – the Malta report

As one of the few countries to weather the global financial crisis of 2008 well, how will Malta’s legal market cope in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic?

Comment: This time, walk the talk behind the ESG bandwagon

Three letters seem to be everywhere you look these days: ESG. Law firm after law firm seems to be offering environmental, social and governance advice and even new practice teams to corporates on a weekly basis.

Comment: Letting go: anathema to a control-freak partner

Two observations from the GC of BT Technology, Chris Fowler, stand out in our innovation feature, ‘Arrested development’. One: ‘If the work is repeatable and needs delivering to certain set outcomes at a certain price point, you become agnostic as to who is actually doing the work’ – suggesting the sacred cult of the individual may be diminishing in the eyes of clients.

Life During Law: Simon Beswick

‘They all introduced themselves with double-barrelled surnames. Richard said: ‘I’m Richard Smerd-Smerdon and this is my colleague, Simon Bes-Beswick.ʼ

The Client profile: Philip Price, TP ICAP

Group GC of the world’s largest inter-dealer broker and our current GC of the Year on his career to date and how he and his team coped with a pandemic

The Last Word: The battleground

Following on from our Legal 500 M&A feature, we ask leading London corporate partners what is driving the growing dominance of US firms in public M&A