Slaughter and May corporate luminary Nilufer von Bismarck has been awarded an OBE in the Queen’s New Year’s honours list for services to financial services.
Von Bismarck (pictured), who is a corporate partner and head of the magic circle firm’s financial institutions group and equity capital markets, told Legal Business that the gong came ‘totally out of the blue’. Continue reading “‘Totally out of the blue’: Slaughters’ von Bismarck awarded New Year OBE”
It’s been another eventful year on the front lines of the City and global legal profession marked by mergers, expensive transfers of big-name partners and sharply-dividing fortunes of individual law firms. Underpinning this are ominous structural shifts in the industry thanks to changing buying behaviour and technology. A consultant friend of mine asked last week if I thought the profession was being complacent because dramatic change has yet to happen. My view is that the problem is not that change has yet to be felt, it is that it is clearly happening already but many prestigious law firms remain in denial.
Anyway, to chart a turbulent 2017, we took a quick look back through our coverage this year to pick out a few pieces that highlighted the key issues impacting the profession. We have divided the list below into a section on some of our set-piece features for subscribers and a second set of recommendations of shorter comment pieces that we have also made available in open access form online. Continue reading “Tough times, new entrants and mobile talent – A Legal Business year in review”
Capping off another busy year for European buyouts, Linklaters lined up opposite Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Dentons as Unilever agreed to sell its spreads business to private equity giant KKR for €6.8bn (£6bn).
Corporate partner Matthew Bland (pictured) led the Magic Circle law firm’s team for the consumer goods group, which announced on Friday (15 December) that it had received a binding offer to sell brands including Becel, Flora, Country Crock, Blue Band, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Rama and ProActiv. Linklaters partner John Crozier also worked on the deal. Continue reading “Deal watch: Linklaters and Simpson line up on £6bn KKR deal as Ashurst leads on £575m float”
Despite a recent overhaul of its partnership to reward top performers, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has lost private equity heavyweight David Higgins to Kirkland & Ellis in one of the most expensive lateral hires ever in the City.
Higgins is set to join the US law firm as London co-managing partner in a deal worth around $10m a year, in one of the most significant UK departures ever from an elite London law firm. He will sit alongside finance playmaker Stephen Lucas on Kirkland’s core executive committee as its second London-based member. Continue reading “Buyout star David Higgins quits Freshfields for Kirkland in landmark $10m transfer”
Well, 2017 promised to be a challenging year and it did not disappoint with its disappointment. With the Brexit vote upsetting an already-delicate balance in key markets, an inconclusive general election in the summer managed to ramp up the uncertainty further. Continue reading “Comment: Forget the Silicon Valley guff – can your firm shift course in 2018?”
Watson Farley & Williams has capped off an impressive year of financial growth with international expansion, securing a formal law alliance (FLA) with Singaporean firm Wong Tan & Molly Lim (WTL).
The tie-up, which will be known as WFW & WTL, will allow WFW integrated marketing, billing, client and legal services thanks to the FLA. The FLA structure was introduced by the Singapore government to allow greater flexibility between local firms and their international colleagues. Continue reading “‘Established where we need it’: Singapore tie-up sees Watson Farley & Williams round off standout year “
Osborne Clarke (OC), one of only three firms in the current UK top 100 to have more than doubled its revenue organically since 2012, has seen Andrew Saul re-elected as senior partner for a second four-year term.
Saul (pictured), a corporate partner at the firm for more than 21 years and head of that team for seven years, was voted in unopposed to the position he first took on at the start of 2014. He will remain a member of OC’s international council with his re-election. Continue reading “Better Call Saul: Osborne Clarke re-elects veteran senior partner”
Everyone knows the legal industry has been a different place since the banking crisis but it is only when you take the long view that you realise how dramatic these changes have been.
For this month’s cover feature, we looked at three mid-tier law firms that have sustained above-trend growth for ten years. To identify our trio we looked long term at the performance in the LB100, focused on organic growth. Our working assumption was that, while top firms dominated until the credit boom, in relative terms smaller practices excelled over the last ten years. It turned out we had underestimated just how wrenching that post-Lehman shift has been. Continue reading “Comment: Super growth or decline? Which firm are you?”
Jeremy Cohen will lead Dentons’ UK and Middle East operations until 2021 after the partnership approved him for a second term following an election in which he stood unopposed.
Meanwhile, the firm also announced today (14 December) that UK managing partner Brandon Ransley has decided to step down from his role in April 2018 and retire from the partnership. Continue reading “Dentons re-elects Cohen as UKME chief as UK managing partner steps down”
A raft of transatlantic firms have won roles advising on The Walt Disney Company’s $52.4bn acquisition of 21st Century Fox, including Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Allen & Overy and Hogan Lovells.
The deal includes the Twentieth Century Fox Film and Television studios, as well as the company’s cable and international TV businesses, in addition to its 39% stake in satellite broadcaster Sky. Disney will also add 21st Century Fox’s entertainment properties such as X-Men, Avatar and The Simpsons to its portfolio. Continue reading “Mouse grabs a Fox: Global 100 firms take centre stage as Murdoch sells empire to Disney for $52.4bn”
Mayer Brown will open a new office in Tokyo next year after hiring the former head of Ashurst’s Tokyo office.
Rupert Burrows, Ashurst Tokyo’s former managing partner, will lead a new team at Mayer Brown as it looks to expand its offering in Japan in 2018. Continue reading “International round-up: Mayer Brown launches in Japan as Mills & Reeve cements European ties”
‘Lockstep in its current form has to go. It’s just not working.’
Legal Business, June 2015
‘The current incarnation of lockstep is an overly restrictive model that was a child of its time…. The failure to substantively adapt the model… has increasingly threatened to shatter a system that still delivers considerable benefits.’
Legal Business, October 2013
*** Continue reading “Comment: Ditching lockstep – better too late than never?”
In the latest sign of pressure to secure the best young talent, Slaughter and May has confirmed it is to pay five-figure bonuses to many associates amid modest salary rises for junior lawyers.
Slaughters today (13 December) announced that associates achieving ‘a good or exceptional level of performance’ will receive a bonus ranging between 9% and 16% of salary, broadly matching the rates the City leader paid out last year. Continue reading “Slaughters unveils five-figure bonus awards as junior lawyers’ pay edges higher”
Following the trend of tech incubator programmes set by City firms, insurance heavyweight Clyde & Co has launched a data analytics lab to develop products and services for its clients.
The new initiative is being ran in conjunction with University College London (UCL), with which the firm has a longstanding relationship. Continue reading “‘Another mechanism for unlocking insight’ – Clyde & Co launches tech initiative with UCL”
In what has been a busy week for landmark retail property deals, a host of firms from across the globe, including Clifford Chance (CC), Shearman & Sterling and Debevoise & Plimpton are advising as French property company Unibail-Rodamco bids £18.5bn for Westfield Corporation.
Westfield owns 35 shopping centres across the UK and the US, including centres in Stratford, White City and Croydon. Unibail-Rodamco, meanwhile, also owns a number of retail outlets internationally, with the merger expected to create global retail property group worth $72bn. Continue reading “Retail property crush as international firms battle to land roles on £18.5bn Westfield bid”
Days after veteran managing partner Tim Eyles announced he is stepping down next year, Taylor Wessing has elected Dominic FitzPatrick as its new senior partner, effective immediately.
Private equity specialist and a former head of the firm’s energy group, FitzPatrick replaces Adam Marks after six years. Continue reading “Taylor Wessing elects new senior partner as season of change for firm continues”
It has been ten years since the Legal Services Act gained Royal Assent, ushering in the most liberal services market in the world by some margin. Given that span of time, and the five years since the most radical elements of the act came into force with the regime for alternative business structures (ABS), it is natural to ask if it has lived up to billing. Continue reading “The Legal Services Act ten years on – still waiting for the Big Bang”
National Grid, which carried out its last full panel review in 2015, has reappointed 12 firms to its roster including Norton Rose Fulbright, Addleshaw Goddard, Irwin Mitchell and Herbert Smith Freehills. These firms, which were newly appointed in 2015, join CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang, DLA Piper, Eversheds Sutherland, Linklaters, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Bircham Dyson Bell, Dentons and Shakespeare Martineau on the panel. Since 2011, the British utility giant has cut its advisory panel by half.
Look out law schools, there is a disrupter in town. Naturally, that town is Silicon Valley, the home of innovation. And the innovator in question is University of California Berkeley, which includes a leading US law school, renowned for its prowess in technology and IP.
A key session of the Commercial Litigation Summit tackled aspects of global investigations from an in-house and external adviser perspective. Clifford Chance partner Judith Seddon began by looking at deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) and self-reporting. She posed the question: ‘How effective are DPAs in changing corporate behaviour? From a corporate-governance perspective, does the failure-to-prevent offence focus the board’s attention on the importance of ensuring it has adequate or reasonable procedures?’ Continue reading “Nowhere to run”
