BT, Latham & Watkins, Burges Salmon, Freshfields and Sidley Austin picked up some of the big prizes at this year’s Legal Business Awards, which saw a host of top legal leaders flock to London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.
Award-winning comedian Katherine Ryan hosted the evening, handing out 27 prizes to firms, chambers, in-house legal departments and individual lawyers to celebrate their achievements over the last 12 months.
Legal Business editorial director Georgina Stanley introduced the evening.
This year, there were four coveted firm of the year prizes up for grabs: Boutique Law Firm of the Year, Regional Firm of the Year, International Law Firm of the Year and UK Law Firm of the Year.
Latham took the award for International Firm of the Year after an incredibly busy year that also saw it post record revenue of $7bn. Burges Salmon meanwhile picked up the award for top UK firm of the year after the Law Firm of the Year category was split into two.
Sidley picked up US firm in London of the Year.
Among the teams taking home the top practice area awards were Slaughter and May, which won in the competition category, Linklaters, which won in the corporate category, and Freshfields, which picked up commercial litigation team of the year.
Freshfields also continued its winning streak in the individual category, with managing partner Georgia Dawson picking up management partner of the year. Dawson is the first woman to take on the role in the firm’s 300-year history, and has spearheaded an aggressive growth strategy in the US.
Private practice lawyer of the year went to Des Collins, founder and senior partner at Collins Solicitors. The award recognises his work representing the victims of the highly publicised and long-running infected blood inquiry, which concluded last year. Collins worked tirelessly, offering many hours of free advice to the victims of one of the biggest scandals in NHS history.
The awards were judged by an esteemed panel of general counsel at leading companies, including VodafoneThree, DHL, Reach, Fremantle and Smith & Nephew, as well as former law firm managing partners.
BT picked up the award for in-house team of the year after an incredibly busy year defending numerous complex antitrust claims, including the collective action case Justin Le Patourel v BT, the first collective action competition case to go to trial in the UK, with damages of £1.3bn sought.
GC of the year went to Rolls-Royce’s Mark Gregory, while most transformative in-house team of the year was awarded to Low Carbon Contracts Company.
Chambers of the year was awarded to 4 New Square Chambers, with 7KBW highly commended. Barrister of the year was awarded to Jason Beer KC of 5 Essex Chambers for his role as lead counsel to the Post Office Horizon IT inquiry.
The charity partner for the event was Hand in Hand International, which helps to support some of the 400 million women and girls around the world living below the poverty line, by providing skills, education, training and resources to start their own businesses and generate jobs.
