After an eventful few months following its acquisition by Gordon Dadds, Ince has put down some roots with the appointment of Nick Goldstone and Michael Volikas as joint managing partners of the London office.
The move came after Gordon Dadds last month posted a 69% revenue hike from to £52.6m and a 73% rise in profit to £15.2m on the back of its £43m acquisition of Ince. Continue reading “Revolving doors: Ince appoints London managing partner duo as City players hire globally”
Irwin Mitchell has hiked profit 76% to £21.3m in a ninth consecutive year of growth that has also seen 9% added to its top line.
The pace-setting results compare with last year’s slight fall in profit to £12.1m and modest 3% increase in turnover to £241.8m, meaning the firm has added £21.4m to its top line to hit £263.2m in 2018/19. Continue reading “Profit soars 76% as Irwin Mitchell hits ninth consecutive year of revenue growth”
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Morrison & Foester have all been enlisted by litigation funder Burford Capital to pursue claims of illegal market manipulation by short-seller Muddy Waters.
Burford today (12 August) said in a statement that a preliminary finding of its analysis of trading shares last week displayed ‘evidence consistent with illegal market manipulation.’ The statement came after more than £1bn was wiped off the company’s value last week after San Francisco-based Muddy Waters published a report suggesting Burford was ‘a perfect storm for an accounting fiasco.’ Continue reading “Disputes heavyweights weigh in as Burford Capital alleges ‘illegal manipulation’ of shares after Muddy Waters attack”
HFW is to launch a Monaco office after hiring a team from Ince led by partners Ian Cranston, Andrew Charlier and Marco Crusafio. The team, which specialises in shipping, yachts, business aviation, international trade, commodities, energy and insurance, will include legal directors Ian Fisher and Ruth Monahan. The team is set to join in early September.
Cranston had been Ince’s Monaco office head, while Charlier was previously global head of yachts. He has more than 30 years of experience advising on transactional yacht, business aviation, and corporate and commercial matters. Crusafio specialises in shipping, international trade and commodities disputes. Continue reading “HFW brings on board Ince shipping team to launch Monaco office”
Judging the world’s largest law firms, it is becoming a familiar tradition after we unpack the results of the Global 100 to look ahead to a more troubled outlook… which then turns into another year of robust growth.
Take 2019’s results, one of the strongest showings since the banking crisis a decade ago, which have seen the group push revenue up 9% to $113.51bn, while profits per equity partner (PEP) across the 100 increased 7% to an average $1.87m. Over a third of firms saw revenues increase by more than 10%, up from 16 in 2016; just four saw declining turnover. While underlining revenue per lawyer once again barely moved upwards, there are now 19 firms with PEP in excess of $3m, all bar one American, and eight exceeding $4m. Continue reading “Comment: Global 100 reportcard – US leaders continue decade-long surge as City rivals dither”
Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, RPC, Mayer Brown and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner were among the firms to enjoy a pre-summer deal rush this week as Sports Direct bought Jack Wills and private equity player Aurelius acquired BT’s fleet business.
Fried Frank advised high street clothing retailer Jack Wills on the buy-out of its UK businesses with a team led by restructuring and insolvency partner Ashley Katz and including corporate partner Dan Oates, finance partner Neil Caddy, real estate partner Patrick Williams and restructuring and insolvency partner Gary Kaplan. Continue reading “Dealwatch: US and UK outfits line up on Jack Wills sale, BT fleet group buy-out and Majestic Wine”
Following a consultation launched in January this year, the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has decided to exclude the head of legal of all of the banks, insurance companies and other financial institutions that it supervises from senior manager accountability under the Senior Managers & Certification Regime (SMR). You can access the FCA’s policy statement here.
A group of us at UCL Laws submitted a detailed response to the consultation. In that response we objected to the proposal to exclude general counsel from SMR. Our response paper drew on both our own research and learnings from other scholarship; we argued that inclusion would strengthen the position of in-house lawyers within regulated financial firms and deliver benefits both for the firms themselves and for the economy and society. We found the arguments made against inclusion during the consultation misunderstood the broad-ranging and significant role that most in-house legal departments play in those firms. The FCA’s grounds for exclusion were not in our view compelling, not least the argument that legal professional privilege should be given super-priority over the public interest arguments in favour of inclusion. You can read our detailed response here. Continue reading “Guest post: Conferring with poachers – Bank GCs excluded from Senior Managers Regime after entirely predictable lobbying”
Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has made what its senior partner James Palmer described as a ‘game changer’ for its Chinese practice by signing a joint operation agreement with 20-lawyer Shanghai firm Kewei.
The move announced today (7 August) makes HSF the sixth Western firm to acquire PRC law capability in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ), as part of the scheme launched by the Chinese government in 2013 in a bid to boost foreign investment. Continue reading “HSF becomes latest Western firm to gain Chinese law capability through new Shanghai alliance”
There are times in my career as a legal pundit where I’ve gone against trend to argue the unpopular view. This is not going to be one of those columns. Instead, this is about speaking up for a truism that is unusual for being largely true and one that law firm leaders themselves frequently cite. I am here to sing the praises for law firms being more specialised in the practices and markets they cover.
Radical stuff, eh? And yet despite how easily the benefits of specialism fit the rhetoric of managing partners, is there much evidence to suggest that the commercial legal profession as a whole is moving in that direction? Far less than commonly believed. Continue reading “Comment: As specialists thrive in law’s Darwinian age too many drift on”
In an otherwise sedate week for City legal recruitment, DAC Beachcroft has proved the exception to the rule for August hiring, adding a seven-strong insurance team from Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) in London.
The team joining DAC was led by insurance litigation partner Kirsty Hick who joined on 1 August and acts for global and London market insurers. She has experience advising on complex coverage and defense issues as well as warranty and indemnity claims. The firm has been trying to grow its high-end international insurance business for the last few years with the London hires being a significant boon to that strategy. Continue reading “Revolving doors: NRF loses insurance team to DAC Beachcroft as Taylor Wessing taps Fieldfisher for life sciences co-head”
Adding to a recent spate of high-profile in-house moves, Ruwan de Soyza (pictured) has joined FTSE 100 company Halma as its first general counsel (GC) and company secretary, while the highly-rated Erica Handling has left funds manager BlackRock.
De Soyza announced in November he was leaving payment processing company Worldpay after nearly eight years for a FTSE 100 technology company. Continue reading “In-house: former Worldpay GC becomes FTSE 100 company’s first legal head as BlackRock’s European GC departs”
Profit and profit per equity partner (PEP) increased at shipping specialists Hill Dickinson last year but revenue dived following the sale of its insurance business to Keoghs.
PEP was up 26% to £370,000 from £294,000 last year, as distributable profits likewise grew 7%, from £15.7m to £16.8m. Turnover, however, saw a contraction of 7% from £96.8m to £90.4m. Continue reading “Insurance business sale reduces Hill Dicks revenue 7% as shrinking partnership boosts profit”
Baker McKenzie and its former London head Gary Senior have instructed partners at law firms Kingsley Napley and RadcliffesLeBrasseur as they face prosecution by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT), with the first hearing scheduled for Monday 12 August.
Partners at Clyde & Co and Howard Kennedy have also been instructed after the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) announced this week (30 July) it had referred Bakers and Senior for prosecution to the SDT after Senior ‘sought to initiate intimate activity’ with a junior member of staff in 2012. Continue reading “Kingsley Napley, Clydes and Howard Kennedy instructed as Bakers and former London head Senior face SDT prosecution”
No-one got into journalism to be consistent, the trade typically being more attractive to trouble-makers than those hunting for enduring responsibility. But while hoping that proud tradition continues, in one area the legal media has pushed its licence for hypocrisy that step too far: the debate around law firm profitability.
This over the years has typically resulted in law firms being entreated to do better on all manner of broader concerns one minute… only for the same publications to turn around and berate such institutions for not driving partner profits up to whatever stratospheric figure is deemed appropriate. Don’t bother to send in examples, LB’s done it with the rest. Woe betide the law firms that try to invest or think imaginatively about retaining profits for the middle term. Continue reading “Comment: Profit per equity partner and law’s other enduring hypocrisies”
The UK legal services market could experience a 10% fall in revenue following a no-deal Brexit, according to a Law Society report, labelled by one City partner as ‘sensationalist’.
The findings, published today (1 August), predict that the UK legal sector would see a £3.5bn decrease in turnover, as well as 10,000 job cuts, if the UK leaves the European Union on 31 October without a deal. Continue reading “No-deal Brexit could trigger £3.5bn revenue drop in UK legal market”
Hogan Lovells’ South African headcount is being slashed as its merger partner splits from the firm following a troubled six-year tie-up.
The firm confirmed today (1 August) that it is undergoing a ‘restructuring’ of its South African practice that will see 71 of its lawyers set up an independent law firm, while Hogan Lovells will re-launch a 20-lawyer office in the country under its UK LLP. Continue reading “Hogan Lovells losing bulk of South African practice as merger partner breaks away”
Dentons is to grow its global headcount further past the 10,000-lawyer mark after announcing a merger with 113-strong full-service New Zealand firm Kensington Swan.
The combination, announced today (31 July) and subject to approval by partners, will see Dentons enter the New Zealand legal market, with offices in Auckland and Wellington, nearly three years after launching in Australia. Continue reading “Dentons to enter New Zealand legal market through merger with 100-lawyer Kensington Swan”
The deal teams of elite City firms have seen a busy end of July amid several multibillion-pound deals, as the London Stock Exchange (LSE) launched a $27bn bid to acquire Refinitiv and Advent International announced the £4bn acquisition of UK aerospace supplier Cobham. Meanwhile, another private equity house investing in the UK aviation industry, CVC Capital Partners, acquired BBA Aviation’s aircraft parts unit Ontic for $1.37bn. Continue reading “Deal watch: LSE acquisition and aviation industry spell busy summer for the Magic Circle”
DWF chief executive Andrew Leaitherland (pictured) says the £20m cost of its London Stock Exchange listing is ‘money well spent’ after the firm reported double-digit revenue growth and set out its ambitions for further expansion.
The firm said today [31 July] its revenue rose 15% to £272m in the 2018/19 financial year, of which 12.5% was attributable to organic growth. Earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation rose 9% to £33.6m, but profit after tax fell 42% to £12.2m, impacted by the cost of March’s IPO. Continue reading “‘Money well spent’: DWF revenue climbs 15% as £20m IPO cost weighs on profit”
The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has referred Baker McKenzie and its former London head Gary Senior for prosecution to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) after he ‘behaved in an inappropriate manner’ and ‘sought to initiate intimate activity’ with a junior member of staff in 2012.
In a decision announced today (30 July), the firm was referred to the SDT for allowing Senior to ‘improperly influence’ the investigation launched into the episode and for not reporting the matter to the SRA until February last year despite being aware of the facts. Continue reading “SRA refers Bakers and former head Gary Senior for prosecution over ‘inappropriate’ behaviour as #MeToo cloud hangs over firm”
