Global 100 Market Comment – Word from the World

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From cooling in Asia markets to a resurgence in Europe; from increased deal work to an uptick in banking litigation – Global 100 law firm leaders share their views

A year in two halves

‘It’s been a year of two parts for quite a lot of our practices, with challenging economic conditions in the first half of the year followed by a return of market confidence, and with that the return of transactional activity. That was true across the world.’
Sonya Leydecker, joint chief executive, Herbert Smith Freehills

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Global 100 Choice of Law – Clash of the Titans

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In the global market, there remain two great powers: English and New York law. While US law has gained an edge in recent years, the debate continues over which will emerge victorious.

The popularity of English law is one of the UK’s most enduring sources of soft power, having underpinned the huge global success of London’s law firms and projected British influence for hundreds of years. And yet it is rarely commented on.

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Global 100 Regional View – Emerging Powers

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2014 is the first year since 2007 that western jurisdictions were not comprehensively outclassed by emerging markets. But Legal Business finds the siren call of eastern economies is still too hard to resist for most Global 100 firms.

‘Nothing appears to have changed in the way firms move in and out of markets,’ reflects Norton Rose Fulbright chief executive Peter Martyr. ‘When it’s good, the Wall Street firms come in sharp and fast with a big chequebook and withdraw quickly when it’s bad. The global firms, on the other hand, take the pain over a much longer period.’

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Global 100 Arbitration Focus – Battle for the City

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London has established an increasingly powerful position as a global arbitration hub. But does it have the facilities to drive forward its growth?

While Russian oligarchs flocking to London’s courts attracted much publicity – and its share of controversy regarding ‘renting’ of British justice – another little-noted boom bringing rich foreign parties to the City to settle disputes is arguably far more significant: the rise of London as an arbitration hub.

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Mobile cyber-security – Pay as You Go

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Mobile technology has enabled today’s lawyers to be more responsive to clients’ needs than ever before but brings added risk of cybersecurity breaches. How are law firms coping with the threats?

Our recent risk management survey, published in March, provided an insight into the level of concern that breaches of IT and data security raise within law firms. Every year since 2008, our annual survey has identified IT/data security breaches as the most significant threat to law firms in terms of actual damage caused and the likelihood of that damage occurring. No firm has fallen foul of a serious reported breach to date but some anecdotal horrors recounting the blasé approach of some lawyers to holding sensitive client data on mobile devices suggests such an outcome is merely a matter of time.

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Trust Disputes – The Myth of Trust

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Trust disputes can offer advisers a lucrative caseload and longer-term institutional and corporate relationships. Legal Business looks at the key players in a competitive market.

Wealthy business owners tend to have colourful lifestyles, families and ways of protecting their wealth, and these ingredients can often come together to form an explosive cocktail. Take Stanley Ho, the ageing Macau-based billionaire, who has been at the centre of a recent family feud over who would inherit his gambling empire. Having had four wives and 16 children, it was perhaps inevitable that family tensions would trigger incendiary litigation.

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The Programme – how Dundas & Wilson fits into the CMS masterplan

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With a takeover of Dundas & Wilson under its belt and a barrage of post-Lehman re-engineering in place, CMS Cameron McKenna hopes it can secure its breakthrough globally and at home. LB investigates a complex beast that some of its own partners don’t understand.

On 10 December the London partners of Dundas & Wilson were called home. Given the dramatic nose-dive that had afflicted Scotland’s proudest legal institution in the previous five years, expectations were that this would herald drastic action to revive its fortunes.

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Strategic Recruitment: The Product

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The debate over the value of partner recruitment has intensified in recent years. Legal Business analyses hiring trends at top 50 firms and assesses the link between lateral hiring and financial performance

The mixed fortunes of law firms in recruiting partners can be summed up using a simple compare and contrast exercise. Compare the fanfare surrounding Kirkland & Ellis’ May hire of leveraged finance heavyweight Stephen Lucas from Weil, Gotshal & Manges and contrast it with, at the other end of the spectrum, this observation on one top 100 UK firm: ‘A firm can either pay more, or accept someone who is slightly mental but has a book of business. Continue reading “Strategic Recruitment: The Product”