When many firms were busy cutting costs and dicing teams in 2008, Bingham McCutchen weathered the economic downturn pretty well thanks to the solid inflow of work in its debt restructuring practice.
Five years later, with corporates finding cash far easier to come by, and Bingham is feeling the pinch after its H2 2013 restructuring work slowed and its revenues for the financial year dropped by 12.6% to $762m from $871.8m in 2012.
The first global law firm to open an office in US technology heartland Silicon Valley, Weil Gotshal & Manges has secured the lead role on Facebook’s $16bn acquisition of mobile messaging service WhatsApp, led by high profile 2012 Dewey & LeBoeuf lateral hire Keith Flaum.
Flaum, an M&A partner who joined Weil’s Silicon Valley office as part of a highly-rated five-partner technology team in the same month as Dewey’s spectacular collapse in May 2012, led a team opposite Fenwick & West for WhatsApp.
In the wake of its latest high profile outsourcing deal with BT, Axiom, arguably the most touted alternative legal services provider, is to boost its senior management team with the hire of LexisNexis’ director of legal markets, Nick West, as incumbent Al Giles moves into a more senior role as executive vice president, head of regional markets.
West is to take the role of managing director of the UK business at Axiom, which Giles, who will continue to be UK-based, has held since he was brought in from Linklaters to launch the US group’s London office in 2007.
It was a performance that the Wall Street thoroughbred badly needed and at last Shearman & Sterling has proved its many doubters wrong to unveil a 9.1% hike in revenues and a double-digit percentage increase in partner profits for its 2013 year.
Under the first full year of the leadership of senior partner Creighton Condon, the top 50 global law firm has posted a 9.1% rise in revenue to $820.5m, from $752m the previous year. Profit per equity partner (PEP) jumped 18.4% to $1.8m from $1,521,000 in 2012 while revenue per lawyer hit $1m, a 13.4% annual rise.
Still basking in London in the news that it has hired leading Clifford Chance (CC) private equity partner Kem Ihenacho, Latham & Watkins yesterday (19 February) released moderate US growth figures for 2013, with revenue up by 2.7% to $2.29bn.
Profit per partner has increased by almost 2% to $2,490,000, up from $2,443,000 the previous financial year. Revenue per lawyer has also increased by a modest 1.4% to $1,110,000 from a 2012 figure of $1,095,000.
Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) is to expand its Latin American footprint as it today (19 February) announces the launch of an office in Rio de Janeiro and the hire of BP’s global corporate assistant general counsel Andrew Haynes as office co-head.
The new office in Brazil, which will be also be run by current head of Colombia, Glenn Faas, will be the LB100 top ten firm’s third in the region after Venezuela (Caracas) and Colombia (Bogotá), and its 55th office worldwide.
In a move emphasising the increasing efforts of the Serious Fraud Office to overhaul its image, the body announced on Monday (18 February) that it had launched proceedings against three former Barclays employees over allegations they ‘conspired to defraud’ over the benchmark interest rate, Libor.
Charges against Peter Johnson, Jonathan Mathew and Stylianos Contogoulas relate to the manipulation of Libor between 1 June 2005 and 31 August 2007. The criminal proceedings began yesterday and all three will be expected to attend at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 26 February.
Third-party funding (TPF) has suddenly become the black sheep of the litigation finance industry. In the wake of the spectacularly unsuccessful TPF-backed Excalibur Ventures case – a huge piece of litigation that Lord Justice Christopher Clarke described in December as “speculative and opportunistic” – questions are now being asked about what the problems that are emerging with some of the funding in that litigation mean for the rest of the industry.
In stark contrast with the recent decline in the number of Queen’s Counsel (QC) appointments, the latest round announced today (19 February) has seen 100 barristers awarded the elite advocacy kitemark, up by 19% on last year’s all-time-low figure of just 84.
The number of applicants rose this year to 225, in what may be interpreted as the latest litmus test of confidence in the wider economy, after queries were raised from within the profession over whether previous drops were a reflection of not just the circa £2,000 cost of applying to become a QC, but also fears that the associated higher rates would not be supported by cash-strapped clients.
As our Taking Manhattan cover feature underlines, the Los Angeles-bred Latham & Watkins continues to make major inroads in the key global hubs of New York and increasingly London. Making the point again, the global giant has today (18 February), announced the recruitment of high-profile Clifford Chance (CC) partner Kem Ihenacho, the third private equity partner to join Latham’s City arm from CC in the last 12 months.
The move follows the departure of former CC global head of private equity David Walker in April last year and another CC partner Tom Evans in October.
