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Law Society pushes firms for increased transparency on partner pay gaps

law society entrance

The Law Society has called for uniformity in law firms’ gender pay gap reporting in a bid to ‘get ahead of the curve’ of what has proven a sluggish pace in tackling gender pay disparities.

The Law Society’s recommendations for a common set of standards were published as part of a guidance document today (6 November), with the standout focus being on how partner remuneration is included in gender pay gap reporting. Continue reading “Law Society pushes firms for increased transparency on partner pay gaps”

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Enterprise GC 2019 – Our flagship in-house event returns bigger, better and with a lot more bluechip GCs

Kate Cheetham

Consider this a call to arms or an acknowledgement that I can use all the help I can get but our team has begun turning its mind to the next Enterprise GC summit, the flagship in-house event from our parent company Legalease. It is, and has been, a group effort spanning teams across The Legal 500 and GC magazine, but this year a little more of the initial work on the conference agenda is falling to the Legal Business editorial team than in the previous three years of the event and we do not want to let the side down.

My hope is that we build on a successful event because there is no point bothering with a two-day residential GC get-together if you do not put your shoulder to the wheel, given the number of such events these days. Continue reading “Enterprise GC 2019 – Our flagship in-house event returns bigger, better and with a lot more bluechip GCs”

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SRA shoots down Government plans for post-Brexit mutual recognition of legal qualifications

Solicitors Regulation Authority

The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has condemned a Government plan to mutually recognise international legal qualifications as part of post-Brexit trade deals.

The Department for International Trade had opened consultations on its tactics for free trade agreements (FTAs) with Australia, New Zealand, the USA and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership. Continue reading “SRA shoots down Government plans for post-Brexit mutual recognition of legal qualifications”

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Revolving Doors: Stephenson Harwood and Ropes make moves in a busy City recruitment round as HFW expands in Abu Dhabi

There were a number of lateral hires in the London last week, with Stephenson Harwood, Ropes & Gray and Osborne Clarke all strengthening their City benches. Meanwhile internationally HFW bucked the recent trend of downsizing in the Middle East with a senior hire from Bird & Bird.

Stephenson Harwood’s hire came in its energy group as the firm secured partner Marc Hammerson from Akin Gump. Hammerson returns to Stephenson Harwood having been a partner at the firm between 2006 and 2011, bringing back his experience in advising on upstream, midstream and downstream oil and gas and infrastructure projects. Continue reading “Revolving Doors: Stephenson Harwood and Ropes make moves in a busy City recruitment round as HFW expands in Abu Dhabi”

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Comment: The great distraction – The innovation bandwagon has hobbled law’s market forces

Working in a lightbulb

I used to believe the UK legal profession was more imaginative than it got credit for – now I find with an increasingly jaded eye what fresh thinking there is has become stretched ludicrously thin. The vast majority of technology and new models are deployed to make the existing law firm a little more efficient to defensively preserve partner profits.

On one level, you can salute the hard-headed focus on margin. On the another, there are increasingly ominous questions about what worship of margin above other considerations will do to the legal industry at a time of structural pressure. You do not have to be devotees of Peter Drucker or Clayton Christensen to believe that aspiring to run law firms on 50%-plus margins creates a huge amount of competitive space for new entrants to operate and forge potent beachheads. It seems highly debatable that the legal industry will over the next 10 to 20 years sustain large swathes of providers operating on such fat returns. Continue reading “Comment: The great distraction – The innovation bandwagon has hobbled law’s market forces”

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Macfarlanes holds hands up to significant gender pay gap at partner level

In another stark example of the disparity in the treatment of men and women within City law, Macfarlanes has revealed an average gender pay gap of 55% at partner level.

On a median income basis, the gap between the firm’s male and female partners is even higher: a stark 73%. A key factor making this gulf so pronounced is the feeble female representation in its partnership ranks:  in the 2017/18 financial year just 12 of Macfarlanes’ 85 partners were female. Continue reading “Macfarlanes holds hands up to significant gender pay gap at partner level”

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Comment: NDA mess shows age of just-about-OK legal ethics has passed

man with a barcode mask

Once, not long ago, considerations of ethics were simple for law firms, if they bothered thinking about them at all. If what they were advising on was legal, however morally questionable, it was all good. Professional ethics? You didn’t need to worry – they were lawyers.

Those halcyon days are passing. Consider the convulsions in the profession regarding non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and their rampant use covering up harassment, a debate that has simmered for a year now. This topic skewers the profession on two fronts – NDAs have not only been used by law firms as a means of concealing poor behaviour by partners towards staff but they drew up the gagging agreements used by business at large. Continue reading “Comment: NDA mess shows age of just-about-OK legal ethics has passed”

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Life during law: Mike Francies

Mike Francies

I was probably the world’s worst children’s entertainer. I needed a Saturday job to earn money but played football on Sunday mornings and rugby on Saturday mornings. A friend had a business that did magic tricks for children’s parties and I could fit the job around the sport. No, I didn’t dress up as a clown. I might have been a bit of a clown, but I didn’t dress up as one! I was the person at whom the children shouted: ‘I know how you’re doing that trick!’

They gave you a Fisher Price magic set. My stage name was Roger because they already had a Michael. I’m amazed you managed to find out about this – I thought it was quite a well-kept secret! Continue reading “Life during law: Mike Francies”

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Point break – The extreme measures of Barclays’ adviser review

Barclays wave looming over Big Law boat

Legal spend is the second-largest ‘cost centre’ for £21bn global banking giant Barclays. This tantalising statement is in the bank’s 2018 Request for Quotation document, sent to law firms ahead of its final panel review this year and seen by Legal Business. The document provides detail on what Barclays describes as this ‘sizeable’ legal spend.

In the 18 months to January this year, for instance, around 35% of its legal budget was spent internally in running an in-house legal department that dwarfs many major law firms at more than 750 staff. The rest was spent externally, about half in the Americas and just over a third in the UK. Continue reading “Point break – The extreme measures of Barclays’ adviser review”

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Asia GC perspective – Tencent on the dollar

red colour burst

When Brent Irvin joined Tencent as group general counsel (GC) nearly nine years ago, the Chinese upstart was already a tech wunderkind, boasting revenue close to RMB20bn. But few foresaw the trajectory it would take from there: with dramatic growth in 2017, the company is now valued at more than $477bn.

‘We have always been about combining social and content, but in the beginning we were more games-focused,’ notes Irvin. Continue reading “Asia GC perspective – Tencent on the dollar”

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Letter from… Shanghai: Despite high hopes, it turns out there is no such thing as a free trade lunch

Shanghai graphic

‘The thing about China is there have always been those who think the bubble is going to burst and the die-hard optimists on the other side,’ says Holman Fenwick Willan (HFW) Shanghai head Nick Poynder. Indeed, though the second group (to which Poynder belongs) has lately been the noisiest. Not that optimists lack evidence for their confidence. With over 100 Chinese companies in the Fortune Global 500 hungry for overseas expansion, the assets of Asian banks surging since the banking crisis and an economy still growing more than twice as fast as the US, the market is impossible to ignore. Says Osborne Clarke (OC)’s Steve Yu: ‘[International firms] have to be there because their clients are there.’

Continue reading “Letter from… Shanghai: Despite high hopes, it turns out there is no such thing as a free trade lunch”

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The technology debate: Ctrl+Alt+Delete

Karyn Harty

With alternative legal services arms at Global 100 law firms in full swing, and innovation and technology experts striving to make those firms relevant and responsive to the demands of increasingly value-conscious clients, it is fair to say the future is now.

But the traditional role of the lawyer is perhaps facing its biggest existential crisis now as those new demands challenge what legal practice means today. Will the lawyer of 2030 render the celebrated black-letter technicians and swashbuckling dealmakers obsolete? Continue reading “The technology debate: Ctrl+Alt+Delete”

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Age of just-about-OK ethics has passed

man with a barcode mask

Once, not long ago, considerations of ethics were simple for law firms, if they bothered thinking about them at all. If what they were advising on was legal, however morally questionable, it was all good. Professional ethics? You didn’t need to worry – they were lawyers.

Those halcyon days are passing. Consider the convulsions in the profession regarding non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) and their rampant use covering up harassment, a debate that has simmered for a year now. This topic skewers the profession on two fronts – NDAs have not only been used by law firms as a means of concealing poor behaviour by partners towards staff but they drew up the gagging agreements used by business at large. Continue reading “Age of just-about-OK ethics has passed”

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The great distraction – The innovation bandwagon has hobbled market forces

Working in a lightbulb

I used to believe the UK legal profession was more imaginative than it got credit for – now I find with an increasingly jaded eye what fresh thinking there is has become stretched ludicrously thin. The vast majority of technology and new models are deployed to make the existing law firm a little more efficient to defensively preserve partner profits.

Continue reading “The great distraction – The innovation bandwagon has hobbled market forces”

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Mixing it with the big boys: Law tech upstarts approach adolescence following cash influx

Daniel van Binsbergen

The future is hard to predict in the combustible world of law tech start-ups. But recent big funding rounds for some of the industry’s darlings signal an increasing maturity in the space with Kira, Apperio, Eigen Technologies and Legatics all receiving hefty funding rounds in recent months.

Kira further secured its spot as the leading AI platform for law firms after landing a record $50m of private equity backing from New York-based Insight Venture Partners in September. The investment was the first external backing for the company since its inception, with the machine-learning contract analysis platform now primed for continued growth. Continue reading “Mixing it with the big boys: Law tech upstarts approach adolescence following cash influx”

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Disputes Eye: ‘Draconian’ measures as SFO tackles privilege via the back door

Serious Fraud Office

Despite the Serious Fraud Office (SFO) opting in October not to pursue its much-publicised privilege appeal against ENRC any further, it is taking an increasingly hard-line approach in other ways.

Notably, the agency has come under scrutiny for its heavy-handed use of section 2 notices, an order compelling any individual or business to submit evidence or information. Failing to provide what the SFO wants can be punishable by up to six months’ imprisonment, a fine, or both. Continue reading “Disputes Eye: ‘Draconian’ measures as SFO tackles privilege via the back door”

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Moves that matter

Alun Milford
  • White & Case’s aggressive sweep on the City lateral market continued in October with the hire of Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) infrastructure partner Simon Caridia. Caridia advises on both greenfield and brownfield transactions, and spent nearly a decade at Linklaters before joining HSF in 2015. It constitutes White & Case’s 13th lateral this year alone.

Continue reading “Moves that matter”

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Akin rainmakers quit to launch Russia independent in further apocalyptic sign for Western firms

Moscow

Lawyers have been speaking for months of a tough environment for international firms in sanction-battered Russia, but no event has been as emblematic as the news in September that two of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld’s top Moscow partners have quit to launch an independent firm.

Heavyweight litigator Ilya Rybalkin and corporate veteran Suren Gortsunyan launched Rybalkin, Gortsunyan & Partners (RGP), bringing across 11 other fee-earners from their former shop – now left with just 18 lawyers in Moscow.
While the US sanction regime bars US firms from supporting Kremlin-linked oligarchs, speaking to Legal Business Gortsunyan said Russian companies were becoming increasingly less comfortable with instructing Western advisers. Continue reading “Akin rainmakers quit to launch Russia independent in further apocalyptic sign for Western firms”