As the associate pay war rages, Thomas Alan finds major firms are falling back on cultural tropes in the expensive jostle for trainee talent
When Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer announced in May a pay hike for newly-qualified salaries, rising from £85,000 to £100,000 with bonuses on top, new battle lines were drawn in the war for junior talent. Continue reading “Prestige, cash and a bit of spin: how to get ahead in trainee recruitment”
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 “As specialists thrive in law’s Darwinian age too many drift on”
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 “Profit per partner and other enduring hypocrisies”
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 “Global 100 results show US question looming ever more ominously”
Lawyers are a pessimistic bunch by nature and, with the big four Magic Circle firms posting another year of solid but unspectacular revenue and profit per equity partner (PEP) growth, the consensus view is that 2018/19 could have been a lot worse.
Amid a wider slowing of the UK economy and Europe’s deal markets in the face of Brexit and a range of cross-border headwinds, the City’s big four international players posted another year of the moderate results that have defined their post-banking-crisis form. Continue reading “Linklaters leads Magic Circle pack amid solid 2018/19 trading but uncertainty looms over the City elite”
The City offices of progressive US firms continue to set the tone for the London lateral recruitment market – a charge most recently exemplified by Goodwin Procter, which has secured a four-partner technology and life sciences team from Taylor Wessing.
Goodwin hired Malcolm Bates, David Mardle, Tim Worden and Adrian Rainey in a move that makes good on the firm’s promise to build out its City technology and life sciences bench. Mardle started in mid-June, while the remainder will join after completing their respective notice periods. Bates was head of the life sciences practice at Taylor Wessing and advises licensing, collaboration and distribution, manufacturing, outsourcing and R&D projects, as well as contract and patent disputes and regulatory matters. Continue reading “Taylor Wessing quartet boosts flourishing Goodwin City office as O’Melveny losses stack up”
Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) made an ‘offensive move’ against the much-hyped threat of the Big Four on legal operations consulting with the hire of the well-regarded former Barclays head of external engagement, Stéphanie Hamon (pictured).
Hamon, who quit the bank earlier this year, joins as a fee-earner in August to head the new practice and help ‘in-house departments function like a business’. Continue reading “NRF launches legal ops consulting arm with the mind behind Barclays’ radical panel reforms”
With Brexit entrenching divisions, Britain’s patchwork constitution is being increasingly pitted against political upheaval. Do legal experts see crisis brewing?
Britain has developed an uncharacteristically laid-back attitude to constitutional change, with once-rare reforms to the UK’s ad hoc democratic settlement coming at a startling pace in recent years. The previous Labour administration ushered in varying degrees of devolution in Scotland and Wales, before in 2003 pulling the UK’s highest court out of the House of Lords and into the new Supreme Court (tacked on was reform of the Lord Chancellor’s historic role). The process of further EU integration under the Maastricht Treaty, not to mention Labour’s 1998 Human Rights Act, which gave domestic force to the European Convention on Human Rights, also had significant impact. Continue reading “Brexit vs Dicey – The constitutional lawyer’s view on these strange days”
Thomas Alan assesses the early financial results in a tougher year for the UK’s chasing pack
The latest financial results from the UK’s mid-table firms show a more challenging economic environment is producing a lag on growth in the domestic market, as firms look to Europe to continue Brexit-proofing their growth. Continue reading “Challenging Brexit headwinds force City middleweights to look to Europe for growth”
Hamish McNicol reports on Eversheds Sutherland taking the partnership shackles off its Konexo offering
The alternative legal service provider (ALSP) market is estimated to be worth more than $10bn annually. Research led by Thomson Reuters, called Alternative Legal Service Providers 2019: Fast Growth, Expanding Use and Increasing Opportunity, found that the revenue generated from ALSPs had grown to that amount in 2017, up 13% from an estimated $8.4bn a couple of years earlier. Continue reading “Eversheds spins off New Law arm to supercharge growth and attract external investment”
Anna Cole-Bailey rounds up the latest senior corporate in-house moves
A string of general counsel (GCs) have made career changes of late, including high-profile names such as the long-serving Bank of America Merrill Lynch (BAML) European legal chief Sajid Hussein and Rio Tinto GC Philip Richards. Continue reading “‘Time for a change’ as multiple corporate legal chiefs leave posts for pastures new”
The leadership of Slaughter and May’s Italian ally, BonelliErede, claims the firm has moved far ahead of its competitors after the recent takeover of litigation and corporate independent, Lombardi e Associati.
In a significant move for a market traditionally used to schisms, the merger – effective from July – sees Bonelli strengthen its position as the largest of the country’s three champions, growing its lawyer headcount by 70 to more than 500. Continue reading “Italian legal market consolidates as local champion Bonelli merges with rival Lombardi”
Eversheds Sutherland has chosen one of the most competitive legal markets for its first US office launch since its transatlantic union went live just over two years ago.
The firm in June opened its seventh US base in Chicago, home to strong Global 100 players Sidley Austin and Mayer Brown, and the world’s highest-grossing firm, Kirkland & Ellis. The focus will initially be on real estate, M&A and litigation, targeting the diversified industrials, technology, media and telecoms, financial institutions and energy sectors. Continue reading “Eversheds launches in Chicago and dreams of California in first post-merger US moves”
Slaughter and May and Clifford Chance (CC) are representing the City elite on a £4.8bn offer for Merlin Entertainments, in a deal that brought together a line-up of heavy hitters with Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins also fielding veteran partners.
The deal was announced on 28 June with Merlin, which is being advised by Slaughters, agreeing the terms of a recommended offer. The acquiring consortium comprises Kirkbi – the investment vehicle for Lego’s founding family – alongside private equity houses The Blackstone Group and the CPP Investment Board (CPPIB). Continue reading “City and US heavyweights line up on Lego owner’s £4.8bn offer for Merlin”
While some law firms claim to be all things to all clients, for almost a decade Simmons & Simmons has focused its efforts with increasing rigour on a select number of sectors. Given its unhappy period of drift as a generalist corporate finance player, recent years have delivered far better results. And nowhere is that more in evidence than in its particular take on financial services.
Its importance is reflected in the numbers. Currently the firm has 117 partners across its financial markets practice, 63 of which are in the UK, while 40% (around £150m) of firm-wide revenue comes from finance. Even here the firm has often avoided too much business-as-usual work for banking clients – a certain route to poor margins – to zero in on funds, asset managers and more esoteric areas of regulation. Continue reading “Deal View: A niche within a finance niche gives Simmons that much-needed edge after years of drift”
If there’s one City practice that has barely paused for breath in recent years, it is private equity (PE). Global buyout values reached a record high in 2018 and, while Mergermarket data suggests the first half of 2019 slipped back somewhat, activity levels remain strong, with take-privates driving much marquee M&A activity.
This has only served to underline the drawing power of the sector’s top dealmakers and recent years have seen a flurry of lateral moves. Kirkland & Ellis, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Latham & Watkins are among the most potent threats to the Magic Circle, but others, such as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Willkie Farr & Gallagher have also made investments to build out their City operations. Continue reading “Top Trumps, City-style – Who holds the cards in private equity?”
This issue holds our annual Global 100 survey results, but which Global 100 firms top The Legal 500 for number of top-tier recommendations?
To view the editorial commentary of the rankings go to: legal500.com Continue reading “Legal 500 Data: Behind the story”
It is a complex world. Globalisation, increasingly interconnected economies, decades of tougher regulation and, yes, frenetic levels of law making across the world mean that getting business right is harder than ever and not all the proliferating risks can be managed.
All perfect conditions for litigators, which is why much of the post-banking crisis boom in legal services has been driven by demand for contentious law, rather than the transactional work that used to underwrite the high-end legal market. Continue reading “The clean-up crew – The rise of the in-house litigator”
