Overview: Facing fear

Overview: Facing fear

‘When you’ve got your mouth wrapped around the firehose, it becomes really hard to step back and design better ways of doing things,’ comments Checkout.com general counsel (GC) and chief operating officer Joshua Kaplan. ‘But there are times when you just have to force it to happen.’ A slightly mangled metaphor, but time-pressed GCs get …

Risk management survey 2020 – Crooked timber

Risk management survey 2020 – Crooked timber

Sponsored by The ongoing #MeToo saga within in the legal profession was only a few chapters old last year when our annual risk and professional indemnity report with broker Marsh went to press. Fast forward a year and law firm risk managers and general counsel (GCs) are faced with a harsher environment to navigate on …

The Client Profile: Sonya Rogerson, Bank of China

The Client Profile: Sonya Rogerson, Bank of China

Born in Hong Kong to an English father and a Chinese mother but raised in Australia, Sonya Rogerson’s passion for different cultures and foreign travel is no surprise. ‘Do I miss home?’ she asks herself. ‘Well, home is where I make it.’ Now based in London, she is two years into her role as UK …

Disputes perspectives: Geraldine Elliott

Disputes perspectives: Geraldine Elliott

I wanted a professional career. My father was a doctor but very keen I didn’t do medicine. I had a scientific background and law is a very analytical process. I’d watched a few television programmes about criminal lawyers. Law was the right career for me. The life of doctors is very tough and there’s effectively …

In-house: RPC and DWF among four new firms on Dixons Carphone’s expanded roster

In-house: RPC and DWF among four new firms on Dixons Carphone’s expanded roster

Retailer Dixons Carphone has added four firms to a revised legal roster, with DWF, RPC, Bristows and Carson McDowell winning spots. The panel will run for four years following the expiration of its previous arrangement in March, which was the result of a 2016 review. The new additions join ten firms Dixons Carphone has kept …

In-house: Novartis to withhold 15% of fees if new panel firms miss D&I requirements

In-house: Novartis to withhold 15% of fees if new panel firms miss D&I requirements

As in-house legal departments continue to push their law firms to be more diverse, Swiss pharmaceutical giant Novartis has pledged to withhold 15% of fees if diversity and inclusion (D&I) levels are not met by its 22 panel firms. The measure introduced as part of the company’s panel review, announced yesterday (12 February), has seen …

In-house: DWF leads as Eversheds loses sole adviser role on Severn Trent’s expanded panel

In-house: DWF leads as Eversheds loses sole adviser role on Severn Trent’s expanded panel

Eversheds Sutherland has lost its sole-adviser mandate to Severn Trent after the FTSE 100 water company appointed five firms to its new panel, with listed firm DWF the big winner. Severn Trent, which had run a sole-adviser mandate with Eversheds for more than a decade, has appointed DWF as its retained provider of legal services to …

In-house: TransferWise cashes in on competitor’s legal head as mammoth US GC pay packets revealed

In-house: TransferWise cashes in on competitor’s legal head as mammoth US GC pay packets revealed

In a month of significant hires and departures, online money payment company TransferWise has snapped up rival Monzo Bank’s chief legal officer Dean Nash (pictured) as its new general counsel (GC) following the departure of Jenifer Swallow in July. Nash, who featured in the GC Powerlist 2019, has left the company after nearly four years …