Investment costs: DAC Beachcroft issues £10m cash call amid positive half-year financials

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Financial management DAC Beachcroft

DAC Beachcroft has issued a £10m cash call to LLP members and simultaneously increased its rolling credit facility to £40m, as it aims to reach target revenue of £200m by the end of the financial year.

The top 30 firm, which merged with Davies Arnold Cooper in 2011, announced today (18 November) that its half-year results for 2013/14 amounted to £90m in total billings for the six-month period to 31 October, an increase of 7% compared to the first half of last year. Senior partner Simon Hodson told Legal Business he believes the results were ‘quite strong.’ This increase is on top of a 15% rise in revenues for the financial year 2012/13 to £188.2m.

Dentons’ Howard Morris to join Morrison & Foerster as head of business restructuring

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Strategic recruitment DentonsMorrison & Foerster

One of Dentons best-known long term senior managers and a solid restructuring partner, Howard Morris has joined Morrison & Foerster to head its business restructuring & insolvency group in London, nearly three months after the banking lawyer resigned from the firm after 22 years as a partner.

Morris (pictured) joined legacy Denton Hall in 1991 and served in a number of senior positions as the firm grew and changed names under successive mergers, including the shared role of chief executive alongside current CEO Elliot Portnoy at SNR Denton, created out of the 2010 merger with US-based Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal.

Revolving doors: Key hires for Mayer Brown, Sullivan & Worcester, Harbottle, DWF, Irwin Mitchell and Burness Paull

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Strategic recruitment DWFIrwin MitchellMayer Brown

Mayer Brown is continuing to beef up its City offering with its seventh partner hire in two months, as Allen & Overy (A&O) employment and benefits partner Stefan Martin joins the firm, the top 25 Global 100 firm announced last week.

The appointment of Martin – who joined A&O in 1992 and has been a partner at the Magic Circle firm for 13 years, having spent most of his career advising financial institutions and corporates on employment issues – comes as Mayer Brown recently revamped its international strategy, re-grouping around its large international clients and naming London as one of five global sites on which to focus much of its energies alongside Washington D.C, New York, Chicago and Hong Kong.

Quarter of in-house lawyers’ salaries frozen in past 12 months as average increase falls

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In-house

Almost a quarter of in-house lawyers suffered pay freezes in the last 12 months, double the 10% who had their pay frozen the previous year, according to recent research from Thomson Reuters.

The Incomes Data Services executive compensation review found that the impact on the most senior in-house counsel was the most dramatic, with 30% of employers freezing basic salaries for their heads of legal, up from 13% in 2012.

The review also finds that this is the third consecutive year that in-house lawyers have seen below-inflation salary rises, and concludes that the increased number of pay freezes is having a ‘dampening effect’ on salary rises generally.

New SRA figures show record solicitor numbers as profession not so much declines as changes shape

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Legal regulation

Contrary to the often bleak picture painted of dwindling numbers entering a legal profession in crisis the number of practising solicitors in England and Wales has hit record levels according to official statistics published yesterday (14 November), as a significant number of law firms and individual practitioners have closed only to be replaced by new openings.

Figures published by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) show that the number of practising solicitors in England and Wales stood at a record 130,643 at the end of October.

The new figures constitute a 9.5% increase on the number of practising lawyers (those holding practising certificates) in 2009, when the headcount stood at 119,305.

Wragge & Co sees H1 revenues and profits up as Metcalfe to leave after end of MP term

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Financial results 2013/14 Gowling WLG

Wragge & Co has named October 2013 as its highest billing month since the boom years as it joins the ranks of firms posting positive results for the first half (H1) of 2013/14, news which comes as Ian Metcalfe confirms he will be departing the firm to pursue other opportunities when he steps down as managing partner next April.

The top 30 Birmingham-headquartered firm has posted a group turnover increase of 4% to £63m, which includes the firm’s international offices both owned and affiliated, while the UK offices saw a revenue increase 6% on the same period last year to £58m.

Wragge & Co is so far unusual in announcing its mid-term profits and it has good reason to shout about them, as they are up 15% on this time last year.

Guest post: Time to face the dangerous delusion of the entrepreneurial lawyer

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Comment

For years, I’ve been hearing law firms describe their cultures as ‘entrepreneurial’ and hardly the slightest attention. Like ‘collegial’ or ‘collaborative’, it just seemed like so much white noise. Then finally I heard it once too often and had to face cold reality: I had absolutely no idea what these people – a lot of smart, articulate people – were talking about.

Picking up a dictionary, I found this definition:

characterised by the taking of financial risks in the hope of profit; enterprising

PI consolidation – Irwin Mitchell acquires Manchester’s McCool Patterson

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Legal mergers Irwin Mitchell

After becoming the first multiple-licensed alternative business structure (ABS) last August Irwin Mitchell has acquired personal injury (PI) firm McCool Patterson Hemsi Solicitors (MPH), its fourth acquisition in 12 months as the PI market continues to consolidate.

MPH – whose five directors and 24 lawyers and support staff will all join the UK top 25 law firm – will operate as an ABS and subsidiary of Irwin Mitchell from its offices in Manchester and Newmarket.

‘Renaissance man’ Dembovsky leaves HowardKennedyFsi

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Leadership Howard Kennedy

Last year Legal Business described Howard Kennedy’s chief executive Mark Dembovsky as ‘renaissance man’, having taken charge of a West End firm on shaky ground in January 2011 and orchestrated the merger of Howard Kennedy and Finers Stephens Innocent, to create the £40 million practice HowardKennedyFsi.

Today, the top 75 firm announced that its first non-lawyer chief executive has resigned, leaving the existing management committee members Craig Emden, who is currently head of disputes, and former managing partner Paul Millett to take over as joint managing partners.

Norton Rose antitrust partner to join new competition authority as body unveils second wave of directors

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In-house Norton Rose Fulbright

As the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) pulls together the second wave of its senior leadership team one of the names that stands out is Michael Grenfell, who is joining the new body as a senior sectoral director from Norton Rose Fulbright, where he has specialised in competition for 25 years, including heading the group between 2002-2011.

Grenfell, who is a leading name in competition circles and co-author of Coleman and Grenfell on the Competition Act, becomes one of five appointments to the new markets and mergers directorate of the CMA, which brings together the Competition Commission (CC) and certain consumer functions of the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).