Undaunted by a hectic few days in which details of Natasha Harrison’s new firm Pallas Partners hit the headlines, the former Boies Schiller leader and litigator has discussed her agenda with Legal Business.
The influential Harrison (pictured) is taking well-regarded partners Tracey Dovaston, Fiona Huntriss, Will Hooker, Neil Pigott and Matt Getz with her to staff the new firm. Continue reading “‘A big deal’: Harrison sets out strategy for building a thoroughly modern law firm”
HFW has announced that global aviation head Giles Kavanagh has been elected as its new senior partner, ending stalwart Richard Crump’s 15-year tenure.
Kavanagh (pictured), who already has significant experience from being a member of HFW’s management board, will officially take over on 1 April 2022. It will mark the end of Crump’s fifth consecutive term as senior partner. Continue reading “HFW ushers in new era as Crump ends 15-year senior partner reign”
Natasha Harrison has left Boies Schiller to set up a rival firm in the City, with five other partners also departing the firm.
The move will be a massive blow for the US litigation giant’s City ambitions, given Harrison’s reputation as one of the most influential and outspoken law firm leaders as well as a respected litigator. Continue reading “Harrison leads Boies Schiller team exodus to set up rival firm”
Keystone Law has continued to attract senior lawyers to its non-traditional model, adding 12 partner-level hires across multiple practice areas.
Banking and finance partner Greg Kahn arrives from Dentons; employment of counsel Audrey Williams joins from Simmons & Simmons; construction and projects partner Claudia Otto switches from Armstrong Teasdale; restructuring and insolvency specialist Cory Bebb jumps over from JMW; while the former head of immigration at Edwin Coe, Dhruti Thakrar, also makes the switch. Continue reading “Revolving doors: Keystone makes a dozen senior hires as UK partner recruitment ramps up”
Continuing the frenetic pace set during last week’s round of lateral partner recruitment, CMS has hired a patent litigation specialist from Allen & Overy (A&O) in London.
Toby Sears, previously a senior associate at A&O, has broad experience advising on a wide range of contentious and non-contentious intellectual property matters in the technology and life sciences sectors. Continue reading “Revolving doors: CMS continues recruitment drive with IP hire as Eversheds lures banking counsel from Linklaters”
In an extraordinarily busy week for partner recruitment, CMS has made an eye-catching corporate play in London with two Magic Circle hires.
Financial services M&A partner Emma Clark arrives from Linklaters, while private equity specialist Edward Holmes joins from Clifford Chance, where he was a senior associate. The double addition will bring the number of partners in the CMS corporate practice to 79 in the UK. Continue reading “Revolving doors: CMS makes double corporate play in London as New Year hiring spree gathers momentum”
Listed firm Knights has returned to form with a 9% organic growth in revenue to £59.7m in its half-year results.
This marks a significant reverse from its H1 results last year, when the firm conceded that a slew of acquisitions masked a 15% fall in turnover in real terms.
Knight’s buyouts of smaller firms continued apace this year though, with it strengthening in Yorkshire through the £11.5m purchase of Keebles, as well as expanding in the south east with the £5.3m acquisition of Mundays. The firm also entered the north east with the £5.2m takeover of Teeside-based Archers, completed in November. When including this raft of add-ons, revenue jumped by 29% for the period.
Knights attributed the organic upturn to improved client demand, as well as an expansion of its services. Chief executive David Beech (pictured) told Legal Business: ‘M&A was a big success for us in the past year – it’s been a boom period in that regard for most firms. But our entrance into Teeside we feel gives us a unique platform to take advantage of its new Freeport. The practice is modest in size, but big in opportunity.’
The firm saw its underlying profit before tax rise an impressive 26% to £7.6m and also boasted of ‘exceptionally strong cash conversion’ of 105%, up on the 103% reported this time last year.
According to Beech, Knights made 20 ‘senior level hires’ this year (including lawyers but also other professionals such as bankers), bringing with them significant client relationships which likewise boosted organic growth. This remains broadly consistent with the 18 such additions reported last year.
Beech said: ‘If you compare ourselves with previous years, we have recruited really well. Especially as we are in a very competitive period for partner-level recruitment. There’s a push away from the old partnership model, particularly from the next generation of lawyers. This has coincided with us being much surer of who we are as a brand – people read about us and appreciate our unique structure.’
As regards upcoming acquisitions, Beech said: ‘watch this space’. On that front, the firm has recently agreed a £60m revolving credit facility to create ‘significant headroom’, and ‘to continue to scale our business across the UK organically and through selected acquisitions.’
Well over half of female applicants were successful in this year’s Queen’s Counsel (QC) appointments, spearheading a cohort that also saw solid solicitor representation.
The five successful solicitors represented a cross-section of elite disputes firms: Ruth Byrne, dual commercial litigation and arbitration partner at King & Spalding; Allen & Overy arbitration partner Kate Davies McGill; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s London arbitration head Sylvia Maria Noury; international arbitration partner at Herbert Smith Freehills Chris Parker; and Gaëtan Verhoosel, founding partner at arbitration specialist Three Crowns. Continue reading “Silk and steel: Women lead the way in latest QC round as five solicitors make the cut”
Continuing the frenetic pace of recruitment displayed throughout 2021, 2022 has begun with Allen & Overy (A&O) adding an established antitrust partner from Sidley.
Kristina Nordlander was previously global co-head of antitrust at Sidley, and she has more than 23 years’ experience advising clients on both sides of the Atlantic. Her practice has a broad EU antitrust and EU litigation focus, with a particular strength in the tech and life sciences sectors. Continue reading “Revolving doors: Global 100 firms kick off new year with heavyweight hires”
In an unflattering revelation ahead of its planned IPO, Mishcon de Reya yesterday (5 January) received the highest-ever financial penalty issued by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) of £232,500 for a string of failures related to money laundering rules.
The firm, which has also been issued with a £50,000 costs order, admitted to failing to provide adequate due diligence on four client matters. It also accepted it had misplaced the hard copy evidence of the due diligence it carried out on those matters. Continue reading “Mishcon hit with record £232,500 SRA penalty over money laundering mishaps”
The latest strategic move in the war for junior talent, Linklaters has introduced a significant overhaul of its lockstep pay model in order to attract and fast-track high performers.
The firm’s partners last week backed a wave of measures that bring Linklaters’ remuneration policy in line with the majority of the Magic Circle. The three key changes are: an extension at the top of its lockstep for partners who make ‘an exceptional contribution’, the ability to accelerate partners up the ladder who also make outstanding contributions, and more flexibility to elect ‘top talent’ to the partnership earlier. Continue reading “Linklaters ushers in lockstep shake-up to attract and promote top talent”
The champagne corks had long-since popped when the great and the good of legacy British firm Lovells and Washington DC powerhouse Hogan & Hartson met at a practice area retreat in Barcelona in 2013. While there was cause for cheer at the bedding in of their union, there was also business to attend to.
Adrian Walker, now a global board member and head of Hogan Lovells’ ESG practice, was then a couple of years into his role as global co-head of infrastructure, energy, resources and projects, a role he shared with Hogan Lovells’ current chief executive, Miguel Zaldivar. He recalls the odd mix of levity and gravity: ‘I interviewed a load of people at the firm for a video we did at the retreat for a bit of fun. I spoke to Miguel about values, and how the world will look in 50 years. He mentioned green energy and autonomous cars but noted that core values will always remain the same. We learn them from our predecessors and pass them on to the next generation. Continue reading “Global 100: Hogan Lovells – Winning Hartson minds”
The Zoom call with Gemma Roberts, private equity partner and recently-appointed co-chair of Goodwin’s London office, has not got off to the most auspicious of starts. First Roberts has a tech malfunction and then the interview is disrupted by the world’s loudest weekly fire alarm test. ‘Learning points for our next call will be to make a computer work and to not have it at 11am on a Wednesday,’ Roberts quips. The irony of the situation is not lost, given the firm’s reputation for advising on matters with a strong technology bent.
Looking at Goodwin both internationally and in London, there appears little cause for alarm. Globally, the firm has increased revenue 12% since 2020 to $1.49bn and a striking 72% over the last five years, making it the third-fastest growing global firm by revenue after Kirkland & Ellis and Covington, which have bolstered turnover 110% and 78% respectively since 2016. In that context, the London office comfortably eclipses the firm at large, bringing in $99.1m, marking a 33% surge since 2020. The London office now generates nearly 7% of firm-wide revenue, no mean feat given this office is just 11 years old. Continue reading “Global 100: Goodwin – No guts, no glory”
When the world went into lockdown in March/ April 2020, everyone expected the worst for the economy: market crashes, sky-rocketing unemployment numbers and a wave of insolvencies. While it is safe to say that some countries struggled more than others, Switzerland weathered the crisis well, even exceeding pre-Covid-19 activity in some areas.
One of the wealthiest countries in the world, Switzerland’s GDP has been on a steady increase and almost tripled in the last 20 years. Projections also show tangible growth from 2020 to 2021, underlining the fact that the pandemic had little to no impact on the Swiss economy. This was also witnessed by Thierry Calame, who in January 2022 becomes the new managing partner of one of the leading Swiss powerhouses, Lenz & Staehelin: ‘The pandemic continued to be the largest challenge. However, thanks to the robust Swiss economy there has not been any economic downturn in 2021, but rather a significant recovery.’
I grew up in the Midlands in the ̒80s. It was hard hit by the recession. My dad lost his job as an engineer, working for Smiths Industries, which supplied the car industry. It was the deindustrialisation of large parts of the UK. My father was a businessman and entrepreneurial. He became self-employed, started his own printing business, but it was certainly not stable.
I became a lawyer because I wanted a regular job. There were no lawyers in our family. It wasn’t a profession that was accessible or easy to understand from my background. Growing up in the ethnic community in Birmingham, second generation, the only other options on the table were being a doctor, a dentist or a pharmacist and I definitely didn’t want to be any of those! Continue reading “Life During Law: Tihir Sarkar”
The words of BT Legal’s Leeanne Whaley, in ‘Held to account’, particularly stand out in this issue: ‘We spend a lot of money with external law firms. It historically suited law firms to not be transparent, but outside of big-ticket M&A and litigation, the job of a commercial lawyer is more replicable than ever.’
That this type of comment, made recently but equally has been repeated in many guises since the global financial crisis, needs to be repeated today is alarming. Put simply, in this day and age clients should not need to remind law firms that their existence is on a knife-edge: they should just vote with their feet. Traditional reputations should carry no weight with clients and firms should be judged on what they are doing now, rather than what they used to do. In the feature, Tony Williams of Jomati says firms can no longer rely on getting the lion’s share of the work based on their market reputation alone, adding that traditional law firms need to ‘get sensible’ and innovate on billing or risk being left behind. Continue reading “Take a good long look in the mirror before espousing change seriously”
At the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic, German law firms found themselves wary of what the future might hold and prepared for the worst. However, 18 months later, most say their fears were unwarranted and several have reported 2021 to be their financially strongest to date. The success of the leading German independents amid a global crisis raises the question of how they have adapted to a pandemic-driven environment, and whether hierarchies in the market have shifted at all as a consequence.
Germany’s economy is currently on the road to recovery. According to the government, the GDP is expected to grow by 2.6% in 2021 after it took a 5% dip the previous year. While private consumption is mostly responsible for this rebound, manufacturers are struggling in light of global supply shortages, with producers unable to adapt to increased demands after 2020 saw a halt in consumer spending. However, this has not yet stopped the upwards trajectory of economic growth.
A senior legal headhunter friend, who could easily be described as a Renaissance Man, recently confided that one of the lesser-known challenges of placing lawyers today is that it is no longer sufficient just to be technically brilliant. Employers want candidates to have emotional intelligence and be able to communicate with clients and colleagues – with less of the ego.
Commentators have long banged on about law being a ‘people business’ but truth be told, it hasn’t been until recently – not really. ‘The grey lawyer in the corner,’ as one Magic Circle managing partner hilariously put it, could once have had a long and happy career pencil pushing and never speaking to another soul for 25 years. The same is true of journalists. Being a people person was never really a prerequisite of becoming one, as long as you could bash out a decent story to deadline and not get the paper sued. And I am unfortunately old enough to recall the days when it was de rigueur in the newsroom to scream in the face of a hapless hack over some minor transgression. Continue reading “Welcome to the Renaissance”
It’s fair to say that legal directories have come in for more than their fair share of flack over the years, particularly when it comes to speed of change. But if proof were needed that The Legal 500 is more than capable of setting the pace, then the latest UK gender diversity stats neatly provide it.
When I joined The Legal 500 three years ago, only 5% of leading individuals ranked for premium M&A in London were women. Today, that figure stands at more than 31%. And, crucially, this progress has been replicated across the wider guide, both in London and the rest of the UK. Continue reading “L500 UK: Gender diversity hits new high – time to focus on the elephant in the room”
