So much for the rule of law – court fees and undermining the City

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Quinn Emanuel disputes veteran Ted Greeno argues that a self-defeating stance on hiking court fees will undermine London

In their piece entitled ‘Strangling the golden goose’ last month, Nigel Boardman, James Shirbin and Andrew Blake of Slaughter and May bemoaned the cost of commercial litigation in England and suggested London’s pre-eminence as a dispute resolution centre might be under threat as a result. In making this argument, they drew upon a report from the World Bank which compared the cost and ease of doing business in 189 countries around the world. One of the activities assessed was enforcing contracts and, for this purpose, the report compares and scores the cost, time and procedures involved in enforcing a claim under a sale of goods contract around the world. The UK is ranked in 36th place, suggesting our courts are relatively uncompetitive.

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The Last Word – The Team Elite

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To coincide with the annual launch of our GC Power List, we asked the City’s most experienced private practitioners: what makes an outstanding in-house legal team?

Eyes and ears

‘A good in-house team has the ear of the commercial client, an understanding of its drivers and the strength to speak out when it is going down the wrong path. Teams should ensure they understand the varied approaches to dispute resolution, adopt appropriate methods in different transactional documentation, and consider mediation as a clean and proactive process for disputes at any stage.’
Katie Bradford, head of property litigation, Linklaters

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Global Law Summit misses the mark and a big opportunity

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Here at Legal Business we like to set the agenda, so we’re feeling ahead of the game in pointing out shortcomings with this month’s Global Law Summit, the government-backed initiative to celebrate the 800-year anniversary of Magna Carta and British traditions of the rule of law.

The event has been attracting mounting controversy, including last month a scatter-gun attack in The Telegraph (who knew that Telegraph Media Group were such staunch socialists?) and wider criticism of elitism (some fair, some not).

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Pinsents and the confidence dividend – successful law firms need a spring in their step

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There are lots of factors that are supposed to have a major role in the success of a law firm that on closer examination are hard to sustain. Issues in this camp include remuneration models, culture, strategy and a specific practice mix. What this list has in common is that there is no right answer – all that matters is what you are doing is appropriate to what you are trying to achieve and the markets that you are working in (and even then it’s less central than supposed). You can be lockstep, eat-what-you kill, collegial or aggressive – it works for some and flops for others. Just look at the extent that the Magic Circle has elevated one particular model of lockstep into some half-baked sacred tenant, with disastrous consequences.

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What a ‘combination’! Dentons Dacheng pushes the concept of a firm

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In January 2005 DLA Piper hooked up with US duo Piper Rudnick and Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich, triggering a debate that looks no more resolved as I type these words in January 2015. The issue boils down to: what is a firm? And can unions between legal practices maintaining separate finances, partnerships and governance be considered by clients, staff, peers and regulators to be a single institution?

The debate has only become more intense given the string of verein-based tie-ups since 2009. Hard and fast rules are elusive. In reality some – notably Hogan Lovells and in recent years DLA Piper – operate as a single institution. But with some other firms, discerning the nature of the merger, sorry ‘combination’ – the word increasingly bandied around to reconcile these conflicting realities – is a challenge.

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Strangling the golden goose – English law needs reform

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Slaughter and May’s Nigel Boardman, James Shirbin and Andrew Blake argue that English law needs drastic reform to remain internationally competitive

English law occupies a privileged position. Thanks in significant part to the City’s role as a major global financial centre, England has become the jurisdiction of choice for many enterprises and deals (and subsequent disputes) that may otherwise have little territorial connection to the UK. The primary beneficiaries of this happy arrangement have been London’s major commercial law firms, who have received a steady flow of major transactional and litigious work.

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New year, new privacy and security strategy

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PwC Legal’s Stewart Room argues that 2015 is the year for companies and advisers to stop the denial of the realities of cyber security

New year is traditionally the time to change our ways. As we reflect back on the year just gone, perhaps we see that an inch has gone on to the waistline, or we’re more out of breath as we run for the train, or the savings have diminished even further. All good prompts to change our ways and come up with new life strategies?

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A crisis in law but not the one many claim

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Akin Gump restructuring veteran James Roome argues those seeing a threat to the legal industry have mis-read the markets

Ever since the start of the financial crisis you haven’t had to look very far to find expert opinion pieces predicting the end of growth for law firms. The observer will tell you that this is because of the commoditisation of transactional services, the pressure of client expectations of price, staffing and delivery, new entrants in the market, cyclical downturns in the economy, challenging career paths, anti-social hours and so on.

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Dissent, it turns out, comes at a price even in disputes

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Joe Tirado argues that dissenting opinions in arbitration are a double-edged sword

There are many so-called ‘hot’ topics in international arbitration that could have been the subject of this article, but ultimately the topic chose itself.

In arbitration, a dissenting opinion is a written statement that an arbitrator can make to express their disagreement with the award or the reasoning for it. It does not form part of the award. Nor is it a separate award. Under most arbitration legislation, it does not prevent the award from being final or from being an award.

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The Last Word: Done deals

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With confidence in the M&A market slowly returning, the City M&A elite reflects on a positive year and give their prognosis for deal activity in 2015.

Fragile confidence

‘With the value of M&A activity hitting $3.7trn for 2014 and M&A activity increasing in almost every sector of the economy, confidence returned in spades last year and was the result of strategies adopted by companies since the financial crisis.

‘I expect the high value of deals to continue in 2015, but a combination of factors – including the general election in May, the price of oil and the effect of geopolitical risks on business confidence – make me wary of predicting another record year.’

David Patient, managing partner, Travers Smith

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