A&O Shearman is set to cut 10% of its partnership, close its South Africa office and end its consulting business, in the firm’s first major reorganisation since it completed its merger this May.
Seladore Legal announced today (5 September) that it has opened its first international office in Milan. The office will be led by Laurence (Larry) Shore, who joined the firm from BonelliErede as a partner earlier this week.
Slaughter and May has raised pay for newly-qualified (NQ) lawyers to £150,000, bringing the firm to parity with its Magic Circle peers.
The firm was slated to review its pay rates in November, but has brought the review forward, with the new rate effective from 1 September.
The increase means that Slaughters no longer trails Herbert Smith Freehills and Hogan Lovells, which both announced raises to £135,000 for their NQs in June.
Burges Salmon has reported record financial results, with a 27% increase in revenue to £163m, up from last year’s £128.2m.
Profit per equity partner (PEP) surged by 42%, rising from £466,000 to £661,000, marking a significant turnaround from last year’s nearly 10% dip. Meanwhile, net profit climbed 46%, from £34.6m to £50.5m.
‘These results demonstrate the collective strength and dedication of all of our people, during a year that has seen the value of our strategic investments come to fruition’, managing partner Roger Bull said in a statement.
He added: ‘We’ve seen positive growth across the entire firm, stemming from a deep focus on our markets, our people, and, importantly, our clients. Our commitment to understanding and meeting our clients’ needs has been a driving force behind this success.’
The firm credited its performance to its sector specialisms and key practice areas. Its core sector groups – built environment, energy and utilities, financial services, infrastructure, private wealth, public sector, and transport – achieved an average revenue growth of 32%. Leading the charge were the built environment and energy & utilities sectors, which reported impressive growth rates of 40% and 38%, respectively.
A notable highlight of the year was Burges Salmon’s celebration of the five-year anniversary of its Edinburgh office launch in May. Since its opening in 2019, the Edinburgh office has nearly tripled its partner count, growing from three to eight, as part of an 80-strong team. The firm further enhanced its dispute resolution capabilities in the Scottish capital with the hire of Magnus Miller from Davidson Chalmers Stewart in June, marking the first partner in its dispute resolution team in Scotland.
‘Our chosen markets have not only shown resilience but thrived,’ said Bull. ‘We have benefited from these positive market conditions thanks to our targeted approach and sustained investment over the years. Scotland, in particular, stands out as a testament to our growth strategy, where we’re proud to have celebrated our five-year anniversary in Edinburgh with significant organic expansion and the attraction of exceptional talent.’
The firm has also sustained its growth momentum through strategic lateral hires and organic expansion. Since the launch of its 2021-26 strategy, Burges Salmon has appointed 31 new partners and increased its overall headcount by 30%. Among this year’s key appointments is Steven Hull, who joined from Eversheds Sutherland as a partner in the pensions and lifetime savings team. Additionally, the firm made 19 promotions in May, including five new partners: Chris Brown (pensions), Ros Harris (real estate), Tim Williams (tax), Caroline Brown (dispute resolution), and Lydia Cullimore (projects).
Looking forward, Bull concluded: ‘We are excited to build on this momentum and continue to progress the firm’s ambitious strategy for growth.’
‘The challenge with law, especially in big firms, is that it can be all-consuming, taking everything you have. As an individual, you must maintain some level of control and ensure there’s enough left for yourself.’
As Herbert Smith Freehills global energy co-head Lewis McDonald sums up, being a successful lawyer is a demanding business. But now, perhaps more than ever before, there is a growing recognition of the need to avoid over-work and burnout.
Despite the obvious challenges of achieving that goal, more and more lawyers are shunning the workaholic clichés of old and openly acknowledging the importance of carving out personal time to maintain some semblance of balance in the world of Big Law.
Paul Weiss has added another partner to its City restructuring practice with the hire of former Kirkland & Ellis partner Kai Zeng.
Following his initial appointment as Taylor Wessing’s firmwide managing partner in 2018, and his reappointment in 2021, Shane Gleghorn has been re-elected for another three-year term, starting from October.
The King’s Speech this July included an ambitious total of 40 bills – but there was no mention of the litigation funding bill that the last government introduced in March.
Now, the government has confirmed that it will not legislate to overturn the effects of the Supreme Court’s July 2023 PACCAR decision, which prohibited litigation funding agreements (LFAs) that allowed funders to recover a percentage of damages, until summer 2025 at the earliest.
Legal Business caught up with those who know the market to explore what this means for the sector.
Paul Weiss has continued its rapid London expansion with the hire of TDR Capital general counsel David Holdsworth, who is returning to private practice after less than two years at the private equity house
He is set to join as a partner in the US firm’s London private equity group, bringing the firm’s London partner headcount to 27, according to its website.
Algerian boxer Imane Khelif made headlines around the world when her Olympic bout against Italy’s Angela Carini ended after just 46 seconds, prompting a heated public debate about gender and eligibility in women’s boxing.
Khelif had been permitted to fight at the Olympics despite being disqualified from the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships in March 2023, after the IBA claimed she had not met the female category eligibility criteria.
Carini’s post-fight comments about Khelif’s strength, combined with renewed media interest in the earlier disqualification, sparked a culture war frenzy, with everyone from Elon Musk to the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls weighing in on the controversy.
Behind the scenes, a multidisciplinary team from Withers, led by Milan-based sports head Luca Ferrari and including London employment and sports specialist Libby Payne and disputes partner Andrew Fremlin-Key, had been working pro bono for Khelif for many months, helping her to challenge her disqualification.
Legal Business caught up with Payne (pictured) to discuss working with an athlete caught in the eye of a storm.
When did you start working with Imane Khelif?
We started working with Imane in March 2023, just after she was disqualified from the IBA Women’s World Boxing Championships. One of Imane’s managers knew our head of sports, Luca Ferrari – when this issue came up, he knew he needed a really good sports lawyer, and so he picked up the phone to Luca and asked us to help. We were only too happy to oblige.
Are you free to give your opinion on the on the IBA disqualification?
At the point at which Imane was disqualified, there were no rules about gender in qualification or eligibility criteria and there was certainly no testing protocol or well-defined policy such as the one World Athletics has. I would describe the decision to exclude someone without having a policy in place as being very open to challenge.
What is it like having such a high-profile client?
It’s not an unusual situation for us to have high-profile clients who are under the media glare, but I don’t think I’ve had a client who’s had the same amount of coverage for such a sustained period as Imane did. Whenever we advise a high-profile client, we are aware of the potential for press intrusion and that is a factor we take into account when advising.
Do you have any issues with Imane’s press coverage?
The big thing that I think people have misunderstood is the difference between an individual whose gender or sex has been questioned, who it’s reported has either chromosomal or hormonal differences, and someone who is transgender. The two issues are both complex, but they’re very different, and I think that conflating those two completely separate issues has been really unhelpful because they need different approaches and different considerations.
What is your opinion on some of the commentary surrounding the case?
I do think that some of the things that have been said about her really shouldn’t have been said. There’s been a lot that was ill-informed, and I think there’s a lot of people who perhaps if they had a full understanding of what happened, would probably really regret what they had said. There’s so much focus now on protecting athletes and their mental health. And for whatever reason, that all seems to have gone out of the window.
Do you think there will be a clear-cut resolution to cases like this?
That’s difficult to answer. Do I think governing bodies will need to have a think about how they deal with situations where there are questions raised about the gender of a competitor and potential differences in sex development (DSDs)? I think they probably do need to have an answer to that question, at least in terms of how they respond to those questions even if not a policy or criteria. Will that be the same answer across all sports? I’m not sure it will be.
At the moment, the only sport I’ve seen with what I would call a comprehensive policy is World Athletics. You may or may not agree with the rules it contains, but it is comprehensive. The new IBA policy isn’t comprehensive at all – I think it’s a couple of sentences.
Do you think this case will lead to a greater understanding of the issues involved?
Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the whole thing is that we’ve seen athletes in a similar position before. Everyone knows about what happened to Caster Semenya, and there’s a whole range of other athletes who have faced similar issues. For me, there were a lot of lessons that really could have been learned from those cases about how to treat athletes who are subject to such questions about their gender and eligibility. It’s shame that we need to have more women go through this type of situation in order for people to listen.
Conducting tests or procedures without consent and outing someone in quite a public way (e.g. at an event, as has happened before) is not how these things should be done. There are absolutely better ways of approaching these issues. To have athlete’s private medical information discussed in the newspapers feels very intrusive.
Has Withers handled any similar cases to Khelif’s?
We do a lot on the equality and discrimination side, and those issues are quite common through a lot of what we do. I think Imane’s case is pretty, but not exclusively, unique. There are not many cases like this.
Does Withers often do pro bono work with athletes?
We do a lot of pro bono sports work, and we probably don’t talk about it enough. In the sport space, you’ve got this dichotomy between doing fantastic work for professional footballers and other high-profile, well-remunerated clients. But at the other end of sport, you’ve got Olympic athletes who don’t get paid anything and need grants to fund their training, but who have complex and interesting legal matters that can alter the course of their career. I tend to have one sports pro bono matter at any moment in time.
How did you get into sports law?
I’ve always loved sports. For many years I was a fencer and I also love cycling, I love tennis, and I volunteered at the Olympics in Athens for three weeks. So, it’s always been my passion. The wonderful thing about Withers is that it’s very entrepreneurial. When I started here 11 years ago, my boss, employment head Meriel Schindler, asked me: ‘What do you really like? I said, ‘I really love sports’. And she said, ‘let’s try and find you some sports work, and you can grow the practice in that area’. And that is what’s happened.
Are all the team into sports?
We’re all really into sports and talk about it all the time. We’ve all got different things that we can bring to the party. London employment associate Lana Armstrong is a big netball player. Milan senior associate Stella Riberti and our practice head Luca are both really keen on sports, and I should also mention Littleton Chambers barrister Lydia Banerjee, who worked with us on this matter. She’s also very passionate about sport and also worked pro bono. For counsel that’s a big thing to do, and I’m very grateful to her for giving her time.
