Marco Cillario caught up with CMS UK managing partner Stephen Millar to discuss the first year since the three-way union with Nabarro and Olswang went live
Legal Business (LB): What’s your general take on the first year and a half of life of CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang? Continue reading “The CMS interview: Pains and gains”
Simmons & Simmons have been going through a period of growth. For coverage of the firm’s ‘threatened revival’, see LB’s interview with the Simmons’ leadership.
Sabine Chalmers was concerned about coming back to the UK. Absent for more than two decades, most recently in the US as chief legal and corporate affairs officer at drinks giant Anheuser-Busch InBev, she had built a reputation as one of the leading lights of the general counsel (GC) community. But when she first left the UK, the GC role lacked stature, particularly in contrast to the US. ‘I was concerned about how a UK role would compare to the experience I’d had in the US.’
But she did return in 2018, to one of the most senior legal roles in the UK – BT group GC. ‘It’s been encouraging and interesting because the role of the GC has grown. They sit at the top table and report to the chief executive, they have the compliance and company secretary hats: that’s great for the function.’ Continue reading “From monkey to organ grinder – assessing the modern in-house team”
‘The truth is no-one’s got the faintest idea what finance practices will look like in the future,’ shrugs Tony Bugg, Linklaters’ head of banking, when asked to describe a top City finance practice in 2030. Of the dozens of London finance chiefs and partners to whom Legal Business posed the question, Bugg’s take is at least one of the more candid.
If the last decade is any guide, the finance world will be girding itself for more wrenching change. The post-banking crisis environment has seen a dramatic increase in regulation and oversight of banks and helped encourage the growth of institutions filling the void as senior lenders retrench. Continue reading “Banking and finance focus: Back to the future”
Interviewed for our in-house lawyer survey, some leading general counsel give their views on ethics, law firm engagement and technology
‘There’s no question that stakeholders and the population at large have higher expectations of ethical conduct by companies and that this is only going to increase. Some of that will manifest itself as greater regulation. In-house functions play a greater role in ethical matters. It’s not just advising on legal issues – in-house functions can play a leading role in ensuring companies continue to follow the ethical path.’
Richard Price, group general counsel, Anglo American Continue reading “The Last Word: The clients’ view”
Lehman Brothers International (Europe) (LBIE)’s 5,500 employees left the London office at 25 Bank Street on Friday 12 September 2008 expecting to return on Monday morning to their weekly routine. As did their colleagues in the rest of the world.
Not that life had been easy up to that point. Global financial turmoil had been going for around a year and Lehman had just posted a $3.9bn third-quarter loss amid the subprime mortgage crisis. Yet, the sense was that the bank founded in 1850 would be bought out by either Barclays or Bank of America, despite the US government’s resistance to bailing it out. Continue reading “‘No blueprint’: Looking back at Lehman’s wind-up”
Encapsulated in the 1982 hit song by US soft rock band Toto, Africa is frequently referred to in hoary metaphors in the West. However, in a business context, tired clichés of a ‘scramble for Africa’ have made way for the less-frenetic tones of international law firms committed to proven, revenue-generating strategies. Nonetheless, the continent still attracts its fair share of figurative language. ‘The elephant is waking up,’ as one partner puts it. But if Africa is an elephant, some firms are eager not to get caught under its feet.
‘We have consciously decided not to plant a flag in one or two jurisdictions in Africa,’ says Shawn der Kinderen, co-head of the Africa group at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer. ‘It doesn’t enable us to do the work our clients expect us to do in cross-border transactions.’ Continue reading “Legal leaders in Africa: Waking the elephant”
Alongside the oft-spouted rhetoric of ‘more for less’, in-house lawyers are more frequently bringing work in-house and trying to wean themselves off external advisers and panels. In our survey, 85% said their company has a policy of retaining more matters in-house to reduce legal spend. When asked the same question in 2015, only 70% of GCs responded the same way.
Matt Wilson, Uber’s associate GC for the EMEA region, says that when he joined the ride-hailing app in 2017 around 75% of the company’s legal budget was being spent externally. For 2018, Wilson estimates that figure is around 58%. ‘We’re working through next year’s budget at the moment; I would love to get it to around 50%.’ Continue reading “Shake it all about: in-house versus external advisers”
Despite clear progression in the use of non-legal business professionals within in-house teams, general counsel (GCs) often still see ‘legal ops’ as more buzzword than beneficial.
There have been successes. Mo Ajaz is the highly-regarded chief operating officer (COO) at National Grid and, according to GC Alison Kay, he is vital in driving efficiencies. ‘We have a drive to make us much more business friendly and to act more like a business, as well as bringing in tech. We know which outside vendors to look to when it comes to tech.’ Continue reading “Legal ops of horrors”
For all the rampant spin around alternative legal suppliers, it is safe to say general counsel (GCs) have been less than satisfied with their services.
Trainline GC Neil Murrin has few qualms around the quality of the people the likes of Axiom, Lawyers On Demand (LOD) and Obelisk provide, but finds pricing a sticking point. He has used Axiom and LOD for various one-off projects over the last year: ‘They provide very good people. Everyone they’ve sent has been really high calibre. If you want to bring in someone yourself, you have to interview thousands of people, but they do that filtering for you.’ Continue reading “Assault on the alt: GCs on the new law providers”
In-house legal teams have become more sophisticated over the last 20 years but, according to many general counsel (GCs), the pressure to widen their skillsets over the next decade is intense.
For Pearson GC Bjarne Tellmann, the roundedness of the modern in-house lawyer starts with the training they receive, but he laments a hole in the market. He sends his trainees to receive mini-MBAs or ‘executive MBA-style training’ from a range of institutions, including Deloitte University. Oxford and Harvard also provide mini-MBAs. Continue reading “The MBA all-stars: training and development for GCs”
The sheepish evasion now emanating from the once-lauded social mobility project PRIME is an abject lesson in what ethically ails the modern profession. Flashy initiatives, heavily promoted and then… nothing. Because the truth is that large commercial law firms confronted with all manner of social dilemmas have developed an increasingly unhealthy reflex response of reaching for gestures to give the facsimile of action with at best minimal focus on tangible results.
As you can see in Thomas Alan’s piece this month, the lack of rigour and quantifiable results emerging from PRIME, the most celebrated response to a social affairs issue to ever emerge from the commercial UK profession, is an ominous sign for an industry that purports to be getting more progressive. Continue reading “Comment: PRIME and the rise of law’s tick-box diversity ‘solution’”
Firms began their Christmas shopping in earnest last week, with LB100 pacesetter Fieldfisher strengthening its energy practice while Pinsent Masons recruited in structured finance and King & Spalding enhanced its City corporate practice.
Meanwhile, TLT made a hire in the regions as Bird & Bird and Dentons made moves abroad.
In probably the worst kept secret in Chicago legal circles, Kirkland & Ellis has confirmed that partner Jon Ballis will become its next chair when highly-rated incumbent Jeffrey Hammes steps down in February 2020.
Ballis’ elevation was officially confirmed last week, though Legal Business reported the succession plan back in July. Nevertheless, the Chicago-based private equity specialist faces a challenge in taking over from a leader who transformed Kirkland from regional challenger to unquestioned global elite. Continue reading “After the hammer, a scalpel – Kirkland confirms long-groomed successor to ‘visionary’ chair Hammes”
As a crunch parliamentary vote on Theresa May’s Brexit deal looks to be postponed, the European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled the UK is free to unilaterally revoke its decision to a divorce from the EU.
The landmark ruling means that UK parliament can instruct the government to bring an end to the Brexit process, if it so wishes. Continue reading “European Court of Justice makes landmark Brexit ruling as Fieldfisher prevails in $1.9bn Ukrainian banking dispute”
South west-based Ashfords and Thames Valley firm Boyes Turner are primed to merge, creating a 100 partner-strong £60m southern law firm.
The merger will go live on 1 May 2019, subject to due diligence and legal agreements, while initial talks taking place in early 2017. The new firm will have a total of 700 employees and seven offices, with scale, future investment opportunities and client wins the cited motivations for the move. Continue reading “‘Scale and investment capability’: Ashfords and Boyes Turner merger to create £60m southern force”
Newly-installed Serious Fraud Office (SFO) director Lisa Osofsky has suffered her first major setback, as the agency’s prosecution of two former Tesco executives was quashed this morning.
At Southwark Crown Court, Judge Sir John Royce instructed the jury to acquit John Scouler, formerly Tesco’s UK food commercial director, and Chris Bush, previously Tesco’s UK managing director. Both men had been prosecuted by the SFO on fraud and false accounting charges over a £250m profit overstatement by Tesco in 2014. Continue reading “First big defeat for Osofsky as SFO fails in Tesco prosecution”
Dechert is continuing a recent spate of investment in its London office with the promotion to partner of three in the City amid a scaled up 16-strong global round.
The Philadelphia-headquartered firm has continued its commercial litigation push by making up Matthew Banham and Timothy Bowden from its white-collar crime bench in London, while tax lawyer Daniel Hawthorne has also been promoted. Continue reading “‘Commitment to London’: Dechert makes up three in the City amid 16-strong partner promotions round”
London law firm Hodge Jones & Allen (HJA) has brought in sweeping changes to its ownership model, making it the first firm to be wholly owned by its employees.
The reform, which has been implemented through an employee ownership trust (EOT), is intended to secure the firm’s long-term future and address succession issues posed by the impending retirement of senior partner Patrick Allen. Continue reading “City criminal law firm HJA ushers in sweeping ownership changes amid succession problem”
