Legal Business

Eversheds, Pinsent Masons and DLA Piper lead the UK pack in The Legal 500

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Magic Circle DLA PiperEversheds SutherlandPinsent Masons
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National heavyweights score for breadth of recommendations as CC shines in the City

Eversheds has once again emerged as the most recommended law firm in this year’s The Legal 500 UK edition, which was released at the end of September. The top-20 Legal Business 100 firm achieved 198 recommendations overall, thanks in part to its significant City and national coverage.

The three top-ranking firms in the 2013 directory are consistent with last year, when Eversheds gained 202 recommendations in total. Pinsent Masons again appeared in second place with 179 recommendations, while the world’s largest firm by revenue, DLA Piper, was placed third with 155. Two new entrants are featured in fourth and fifth places this year, largely due to significant consolidation. DWF, which rose dramatically to the top 25 of the LB100 after completing five mergers in around two years, came recommended 128 times, while Bond Pearce and Dickinson Dees, which combined to form Bond Dickinson on 1 May, managed 114 recommendations.

Legal Business

European expansion: Speechlys opens second Swiss base as Pinsents and OC bolster Euro offices through lateral hires

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Europe Charles Russell SpeechlysOsborne ClarkePinsent Masons
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It’s been a year of highs and lows for private client firm Speechly Bircham which, after enduring flat revenues for 2012/13 and unsuccessful merger talks with rival private client firm Withers earlier in the year, has opened an office in Geneva this week. Meanwhile, both Pinsent Masons and Osborne Clarke have made key strategic hires to European offices.

For 221-lawyer Speechlys, Geneva will be the firm’s second office in Switzerland, having opened in Zurich in 2011. According to the firm, the region is home to a third of the world’s privately held wealth and a quarter of the world’s private banking, and subsequently a major hotspot for firms honing in on private client work.

The new office will be headed by private client specialists Michael Wells-Greco and Francis Rojas, and will work alongside head of the firm’s Swiss practice Mark Summers. Ironically, both are former Withers lawyers.

Michael Lingens, senior partner at Speechly said: ‘Growing client demand for joined-up corporate and private wealth expertise made a second presence in Switzerland a logical next move for us.

‘Zurich and Geneva are both important centres for the private banking sector and having an on the ground presence in both cities demonstrates our commitment to the Swiss market.’

Elsewhere, Pinsent Masons’ launch of a French tax practice coincides with the hire of Eugénie Berthet, a partner at Marccus Partners (part of French audit firm Mazars), who specialises in cross-border employee share schemes and international tax planning for individuals. Berthet brings considerable experience to Pinsent Masons, as her industry experience extends to working at Landwell, the legal arm of PricewaterhouseCoopers, as well as several years as a tax specialist at French blueblood Bredin Prat and at Slaughter and May.

Berthet rejoins former Marccus Partner colleagues, after Pinsents launched in Paris almost exactly a year ago after hiring a nine-partner team from Marccus, including office head Christoph Maurer, providing corporate, commercial, restructuring, finance, real estate, IT, IP, employment, litigation and arbitration advice.

On the new appointment, Jason Collins, head of tax at the firm said: ‘Eugénie is a standout tax practitioner and her specialisms fit well with a cross-section of our corporate clients as well as our focus on financial services, and the needs of our private wealth clients whose personal and business interests cross many borders. We see significant opportunities around offering cross-border tax advice generally and the growth in share plans specifically.’

Meanwhile, Osborne Clarke has bolstered its Brussels and recently launched Paris offices with the hires of IP specialist Claire Bouchenard, founding partner of Paris boutique B-Cube and corporate and technology lawyer David Haex, who was a managing associate at Linklaters in Brussels. Both will become partners at OC.

The extension of the Paris and Brussels offices come after OC dissolved its European alliance last year, parting ways with Belgium’s De Wolf & Partners, Dutch firm Ploum Lodder Princen and France’s Stehlin & Associés of France, before taking on with Italian and Spanish firms SLA Studio Legale Associato and Osborne Clarke Spain.

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Litigation heads from Lloyds Banking and Pinsent Masons leave for US and South African LPO providers

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US legal process outsourcing (LPO) provider Clutch has signalled its intentions to expand its UK presence with the hire of Lloyds Banking Group retail and wealth dispute resolution head Aamir Khan as its general counsel and senior director for the UK and Europe.

The move comes as South African LPO rival Exigent today announced it has hired Pinsent Masons head of litigation Nigel Kissack to join its board as global strategy consultant.

Khan (pictured), who joined Washington, D.C-headquartered Clutch at the end of June, has been brought in to manage key client relationships in the UK as the group moves to meet the needs of UK companies in the face of a sharp increase in legal and regulatory enforcement.

A statement from the company, which works with over 40 of the largest law firms in the US, said: ‘The United States (US) has seen significant ramp up in legal and regulatory enforcement across several industries in recent years. Businesses in the UK and the European Union (EU) are now facing a similar ramp up.’

Clutch’s chief executive officer (CEO), Abhi Shah, added: ‘Aamir is a critical hire that will help to expand our presence in the UK and meet the burgeoning needs of European financial services institutions given the changes occurring in the legal and regulatory environment.’

For Khan, who has observed first-hand the growing demands on the financial services industry, the move is, he says, an opportunity to expand his responsibilities ‘to a more entrepreneurial and business focused position.’

Prior to joining Lloyds, Khan worked as an assistant solicitor in the commercial disputes group at Reed Smith and before that at Hammonds (now Squire Sanders).

Meanwhile Kissack, who had a leading role in Pinsent Masons’ own outsourcing agreements with Exigent, has had a working relationship with the Cape Town-headquartered LPO for a number of years.

He will advise clients on LPO strategy and outsourcing of legal activities across all major practice groups and CEO of Exigent, David Holme, said: ‘We have been working with Nigel for many years changing the way litigation support is delivered at Pinsent Masons. Nigel has a reputation for innovative thinking around legal service delivery.’

Kissack said: ‘The industry is fast evolving and adaptation is going to be critical to success. My keen interest in the use of new technology to add value and make professional services more cost effective will play a major part in all discussions.’

francesca.fanshawe@legalease.co.uk

sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Revolving Doors: Squire Sanders, Pinsent Masons and Bird & Bird boost corporate and finance capability

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Strategic recruitment Bird & BirdPinsent MasonsSquire Patton Boggs
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Squire Sanders has today announced the hire of US Dorsey & Whitney City-based corporate finance partner Matthew Doughty in a week that has also seen Pinsent Masons take on a new head of banking in Birmingham and Bird & Bird boost its finance capability in Frankfurt.

Doughty, who specializes in equity capital markets (ECM) with experience of the New York, Hong Kong, Amsterdam, Frankfurt and London Stock Exchanges, including AIM, was formerly a partner at Addleshaw Goddard’s City office, from where he joined Squire Sanders in June 2009.

The appointments mark a run of hires for the London office of the top 50 Global 100 firm, after the double hire in December of Berwin Leighton Paisner project finance partner Philippa Chadwick and asset-based lending partner Paula Laird from Wragge & Co.

Elsewhere, David Doogan (pictured) joined Pinsents in May from top-tier public sector firm SGH Martineau, where he held the same role. The move will further bolster the UK top 20 firm’s financial institutions and human capital group, which now has around 260 lawyers following a number of recent hires, including banking and restructuring specialist Claire Massie in Glasgow, restructuring and insolvency partner Richard Tripp in Leeds and national head of banking litigation Michael Isaacs in London.

Head of financial institutions at Pinsent Masons, John Cleland, said: ‘Birmingham remains an important hub for several prominent financial institutions for whom we act around the UK. His experience ties in with all of the key areas of banking and restructuring work which we carry out in Birmingham and adds to our comprehensive coverage around the UK.’

Over on the continent, meanwhile, Bird & Bird has appointed international banking and finance partner Bernhard Gemmel, who will officially move across from Dentons’ Frankfurt office on 1 July.

Gemmel, who is also qualified under French law and advises clients on cross-border activities in both Germany and France, was previously a partner at Wall Street-based Shearman & Sterling and German firm Beiten Burkhardt.

francesca.fanshawe@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Pinsent Masons’ post merger revenue up by 40%

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Financial results 2013 Pinsent Masons
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Top 20 UK law firm Pinsent Masons has seen its year-on-year turnover increase by 40% from £221m to £309m thanks to its merger with McGrigors in June last year.

The firms, which would have had a combined turnover last year of around £294m, have in real terms seen a growth in revenue of 5%.

The increase comes after a year of international expansion during which Pinsents opened new offices in Munich, Paris and Istanbul, for the first time giving it more offices overseas than in the UK.

The 1500-lawyer firm has also doubled the size of its Shanghai office with the hire of 13 lawyers from US Salans, led by former regional managing partner Bernd-Uwe Stucken and corporate partner Wei Liu, taking the office to around 50 staff. In Singapore it launched a TMT practice with the hire of the founding partner of local IT boutique Keystone Law Corporation.

Announcing this year’s results the firm pointed towards a number of significant client wins including its panel appointments by Spanish infrastructure giant Ferrovial and UK energy regulator Ofgem, and to several important lots on the Government Procurement Service panel. It was also appointed by Balfour Beatty to advise on complex and critical matters, and act as sole provider on all UK business-as-usual work.

The firm has also made a number of senior hires during the same period, including a four-partner life sciences team from Fasken Martineau’s City office led by Paul Ranson; Dundas & Wilson’s rated restructuring expert Claire Massie to head up its Scotland and Northern Ireland restructuring team; tax specialist Darren Mellor-Clark who joined last month as a non-lawyer partner from KPMG; BP energy disputes specialist John Gilbert and Addleshaw Goddard City-based financial services disputes specialist Michael Isaacs.

However, last year the firm cut 62 support roles and this year made 13 employment fee-earners redundant as it restructured the department, blaming the changed demand across the UK and internationally.

David Ryan, managing partner of Pinsent Masons, said: ‘We are pleased to report a 5% increase in turnover at a time when the UK market in particular remains challenging. The firm has changed dramatically over the past 12 months and we have made significant investment into the business.

‘We continue to see strong demand in global sectors such as energy, infrastructure and advanced manufacturing and technology, particularly in litigation, tax, competition and regulatory. The firm has moved forwards in financial services, with strong growth in insurance and restructuring.’

According to Ryan, the year saw ‘significant and encouraging’ contributions from the new Paris and Munich offices, while Asia Pacific was ‘a real bright spot’, with turnover up by 30% in the region for the second consecutive year.

In addition to international expansion the firm has also focused on developing new services to meet the changing shape of client demand. At the beginning of 2013 it launched Vario, a flexible resources hub to provide qualified lawyers to clients on a contract basis. Earlier this month it launched Cerico, a joint venture with IT consultancy Campbell Nash developed to help large businesses meet global compliance requirements.

Another firm to have seen its 2012-13 results boosted significantly by merger is DWF, which saw its turnover jump by 84% to £188m.

caroline.hill@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Revolving Doors: Chadbourne, A&O, Trowers and Pinsent Masons boost City offering

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Strategic recruitment Allen & OveryChadbourne & ParkePinsent MasonsTrowers & Hamlins
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London dominated the lateral hiring scene over the past week with firms including US Chadbourne & Parke, Allen & Overy (A&O), Eversheds and Pinsent Masons strengthening their City offering.

Chadbourne’s 36-lawyer London office, which acts a hub for the firm’s emerging and developing markets practice, has hired banking and finance partner Partha Pal from the City arm of top 15 US firm Sidley Austin.

‘Strengthening Chadbourne’s banking and finance capabilities in London is critical to enhancing our ability to execute emerging-markets transactions governed by English law,’ said newly-elected regional managing partner Adrian Mecz.

Pal was a partner in Sidley’s global finance group, focussing on banking and structured finance transactions and related restructurings and dispute resolution.

The good news story for the firm’s London office comes days after its New York counterpart lost a three-partner litigation and arbitration team to Hogan Lovells Manhattan office.

Elsewhere, A&O has hired Goldman Sachs lawyer Denise Gibson as a banking partner in its leveraged finance practice. Gibson left the Magic Circle firm two years ago as a senior associate to join the US investment banking giant.

A&O has regularly advised Goldman Sachs as a joint lead arranger on deals such as Tesco Plc’s series of credit-linked CMBS-style financing, led by structured finance partner Christian Lambie and real estate finance partner Arthur Dyson. The sixth in the series, worth £490m, was announced in February this year and involved Goldman Sachs and Barclays as joint lead managers.

In other hires, Eversheds equity capital markets (ECM) head Neil Matthews is leaving to join Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW) as a partner in the firm’s London corporate practice. Matthews, who will join FFW in August, has been at Eversheds since 1989, making partner in 1996 advising on IPOs for companies including Abcam, Ilika, May Gurney, Norcon and Plusnet.

FFW managing partner Michael Chissick said the appointment was part of a wider recruitment programme largely covering corporate, which he described as ‘underweight.’

Meanwhile, top 20 UK firm Pinsent Masons has appointed Bircham Dyson Bell’s head of major projects Robbie Owen to head its infrastructure planning and government affairs division within the firm’s planning & environment team, which will now include a parliamentary agency capability at Westminster.

Owen, who will join Pinsents City office later in the summer, is an authorised ‘Roll A’ parliamentary agent authorised by parliament to act as an agent for those promoting and opposing private bills and hybrid bills. He is currently advising on projects including the London Underground’s Northern Line extension and the high-speed HS2 rail line.

Elsewhere, top 50 firm Trowers & Hamlins has hired RadcliffesLeBrasseur’s tax and private client head Simon Goldring as head of private wealth. Goldring has been a partner at RadcliffesLeBrasseur since 2008 before becoming department head in 2009.

Trowers & Hamlins senior partner Jennie Gubbins said: ‘Private wealth is proving an increasingly integral part of our service offering, and with his reputation and experience, Simon is perfectly placed to lead the charge in taking our practice to the next level.’

In a further London hire, City firm Fox Williams has strengthened its employment team with the appointment of Pinsent Masons partner Helen Farr.

Farr has extensive experience in the application of TUPE and has advised on a variety of TUPE transfers, including business acquisitions, mergers, private sector outsourcing and PPP/PFI projects within the private and public sectors.

Jane Mann, head of the employment practice, said: ‘Helen’s expertise across all areas of employment law and her involvement within the financial and professional services sectors make her a brilliant fit for our firm. We are experiencing increased demand from clients in the financial and professional services sectors and are able to offer them a broad range of contentious and non-contentious advice across our specialist teams.’

francesca.fanshawe@legalease.co.uk

To be included in future Revolving Door round-ups send your lateral hire announcements to caroline.hill@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Three steps forward… will Tyco-style deals ever sweep the market?

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In-house Balfour BeattyPinsent Masons
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As infrastructure giant Balfour Beatty signs up Pinsent Masons as its sole legal adviser for general matters, Legal Business asks why the trend for single-supplier deals hasn’t really taken off yet.

The single-supplier legal advisory model pioneered by Tyco International has resurfaced yet again. In April, infrastructure giant Balfour Beatty announced a radical overhaul of its panel arrangements, selecting Pinsent Masons as its sole adviser for all its ‘business as usual’ legal work. The three-year contract with Pinsents, which was agreed for an undisclosed amount, will cover all repetitive and predictable legal work that the firm faces on a daily basis.

Legal Business

Pinsents boosts partnership by fourteen

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Partnership promotions Pinsent Masons
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Pinsent Masons has promoted 14 lawyers to its partnership with a further 11 awarded the position of legal director.

The firm made up 11 partners across its UK offices and a further three in Asia, in the second round of promotions since its merger with Scottish firm McGrigors last May.

The number of partnership promotions have increased by one on last year, with the energy and real estate sectors the biggest winners, at four partner promotions each. Financial services will receive two and corporate, infrastructure, sport and TMT will receive one each when the promotions take effect on 1 May.

The City office sees sports lawyer James Earl, real estate lawyer Simon Gardiner and Tom Cartwright in financial services move up the ranks. In Manchester, energy lawyer Ian Stubbs was made up alongside real estate specialist Nicola Buchanan, and in Leeds real estate lawyer James Long and financial services lawyer Philip Scott become partners.

In Scotland, real estate lawyer Paul Connolly and energy lawyer Scott Johnston have been promoted in the Glasgow office, as have energy lawyers Chris McGarvey and Richard Scott in Edinburgh and Aberdeen respectively.

In the firm’s Asia offices, Shanghai will see corporate lawyer Amanda Yao move up along with TMT specialist Paul Haswell in Hong Kong and infrastructure lawyer Ellen Zhang in Beijing.

The firm has also promoted 11 others to legal director status, with three in London, two in Manchester, one in Leeds, four in Scotland and one in Shanghai.

The announcement is the latest of a series of firm partner promotions, which also saw SJ Berwin promote five lawyers to partner in April. Other firms to have announced their partner promotions are Holman Fenwick, Nabarro and Irwin Mitchell.

francesca.fanshawe@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

Pinsent Masons launches Singapore TMT practice with key local hire

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Strategic recruitment Pinsent Masons
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Pinsent Masons has launched a technology media and telecoms (TMT) practice in its Singapore office through the hire of local specialist Bryan Tan. Tan is moving from

Keystone Law Corporation, a boutique law firm in Singapore specialising in TMT, where he was founding partner and director.

Tan also founded Singaporean heavyweight Rajah & Tann’s leading technology group and also has experience working at Baker & McKenzie and another leading Singaporean firm, Allen & Gledhill.

Tan told Legal Business: ‘It’s a great opportunity, Pinsent Masons is on the up. The firm is aligned to my area of practice and there is great growth potential.’

Clive Seddon, head of TMT at Pinsent Masons, said: ‘Bryan’s arrival shows Pinsent Masons’ commitment to become a leading global TMT and sourcing practice, serving international and regional clients.’

Tan will lead and develop the TMT and commercial practice in Singapore and source work locally and internationally working closely with Peter Bullock in Hong Kong.

‘It’s a growing market, most Fortune 500 companies come here more than anywhere else in Asia, it’s especially good opportunity for localised lawyers,’ said Tan.

Pinsent Masons represents a good opportunity for Tan, as although the firm does not have the qualifying foreign law practice licence (QFLP) needed to practise Singapore law, its has been in a joint venture with local firm MPillay since 2010.

David Ryan, Pinsent Masons’ managing partner, said: ‘Bryan is a significant appointment for us in Singapore given its increasing prominence as a global hub for the technology sector.’

A rival local practitioner suggested that the increased presence of international firms in Singapore was a key motivating factor behind the move. ‘I think the local firms are feeling the chill wind of competition and there is still a perception gap between an international law firm platform and a local platform from clients,’ they said.

david.stevenson@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Redundancies: Pinsent Masons to lose 13 fee-earners in employment reshuffle

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Job cuts Pinsent Masons
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Pinsent Masons is to cut 13 fee-earners from its employment practice in a third round of redundancies since the firm’s merger with McGrigors last May.

The firm was keen to emphasise that this latest round of cuts was unrelated to the 62 support roles lost last year but instead come as a result of department restructuring.

In a statement, Pinsents said: ‘As a firm we continue to grow and have made a number of strategic investments over the past 12 months in those sectors and markets where we see most potential for growth.

‘However, like any business we also need to monitor our resourcing levels and recognise and respond to market changes. This is particularly true in the field of employment law where market dynamics have shifted fundamentally. As a result we are taking steps to restructure our employment practice to create a group that is the right size and shape to respond to the changed nature of demand across the UK and internationally.’

Following a consultation in June 2012, 47 back-office employees were laid off in August across a number of divisions, including business development, HR and facilities many of which the result of duplication of roles post-merger. A further 15 were made redundant in December.

Conversely, the firm has appointed 14 new partners laterally since the beginning of the year, including Simmons & Simmons competition partner Jenny Block, a four-partner life sciences team from Fasken Martineau and banking litigation partner Michael Isaacs from Addleshaw Goddard.

Pinsents joins the growing list of firms to announce job cuts this year, including DLA Piper, Eversheds and CMS Cameron McKenna.

The news comes after Pinsents revealed at the end of March that it had won the contract to supply all of infrastructure giant Balfour Beatty’s business-as-usual legal work at the end of March.

francesca.fanshawe@legalease.co.uk