King & Spalding litigation partner Christopher Wray, nominated as FBI director, earned $9.2m for his partnership share over the last eighteen months, according to documents.
Slaughter and May has announced today (12 July) that it will retain 91% of its second-year trainees for newly qualified (NQ) lawyer positions at the firm this autumn.
Continue reading “Magic Circle: Slaughters first to announce 91% trainee retention rate”
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Slaughter and May, Morgan Lewis & Bockius and Davis Polk & Wardwell all returned to act as co-owner Pearson agreed to sell a further 22% stake in Penguin Random House (PRH) to Germany’s Bertelsmann, with the UK education company aiming to recapitalise the business to generate net proceeds of around $1bn.
Mishcon de Reya has brought in Mike Owen from PwC as the fourth member of its expanding cyber security consultancy service, advising clients on cyber intelligence, risk consultancy and reputation management.
Continue reading “Mishcon boosts fledgling cyber security consultancy service”
Disruptive general counsel (GC) Christine Cordon has departed her role at luxury travel company Secret Escapes to become head of legal at venture capital business Arts Alliance Ventures.
Continue reading “Disruptive GC Cordon exits Secret Escapes for new role in venture capital”
Spanish banking giant Santander has appointed a host of firms including Slaughter and May, Ashurst and Reed Smith to its UK legal panel for three years.
Continue reading “Santander appoints firms including Slaughters and Ashurst to UK legal roster”
The Ashurst partnership has elected London partner Karen Davies and Sydney partners James Marshall and Barbara Phair to its 10-member management board for three years, in a year marked by revenue growth and some partner exits.
Continue reading “‘Exciting times’: Ashurst elects three new board members after mixed year”
I come from a big family. The only male. I have four sisters and was exposed to the talent and influence of women very early on.
My father’s influence led me into law. He had a very small law firm, just himself and another partner. And he was obsessed with me as his successor to get into law but in a different way from him. He was visionary enough to see that the law was going to change and it was better for me to do something different.
With a listless economy, an oil and gas industry decimated by low commodity prices, and uncertainty over its future relationship with the EU and the rest of the UK, Scotland is lacking both clarity and optimism over its future.
To recap as the UK tiptoes towards banana republic territory in the wake of last month’s inconclusive, prediction-defying general election: City professionals face the prospect of an unsteady government negotiating a logistically-epic exit from the EU with an uncertain agenda against a much larger and better prepared counter-party. That is until the next general election in perhaps the autumn.
But let us put politics to one side and assume that a form of substantive Brexit is happening. Where does that leave top London law firms with such ominous clouds hanging over London as a finance and legal services hub?
Continue reading “Magic Circle playbooks in Europe are full of contradictions”
Were an alien to descend to earth and judge the industry on the basis of these rankings they would conclude that the profession had cracked social mobility, gender diversity, gay-empowerment and quality of life… all the while generating a tonne of money.
Continue reading “Answer to law firms’ social ills is not another league table”
The firms that appear in the 2017 Global 100 are the largest 100 law firms in the world ranked by revenue.
Financial data shown is for the last financial year – either calendar year 2016 or 2016/17. Financial years differ – most end in December in the US, and in April in the UK. Continue reading “The Global 100: Methodology and end notes”
The group as a whole hiked revenues 3% to $98.82bn, pretty much tracking the increase in lawyer numbers. In part due to the strength of the dollar, there are some surprising results. The number of $2bn-plus law firms has fallen from ten to eight (thanks to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters). The number of $1bn-plus firms falls from 35 to 34. Consolidation continues to be a force in the industry but almost exclusively in the global mid-tier, not its upper echelons.
Continue reading “A grinding year for the Global 100 as US leaders assert dominance”
‘Recent events have not helped the UK’s Brexit negotiating hand – or foot, which now sports a large bullet hole.’
Andy Ryde, Slaughter and May
GOODBYE GLOBALISM
‘There has been significant M&A slowdown in the first quarter of 2017 – despite pundits commenting positively. There is no empirical survey evidence to show a drop-off in confidence, so we will have to see what happens in the next few quarters. The overall macro predictions continue to be steady but we’re not expecting spectacular growth. I fear the world as a whole is backing away from globalism – that’s bad for M&A activity – and it will disproportionately hit cross-border work.’
Richard Hall, head of M&A EMEA, Cravath, Swaine & Moore
High-stakes recruitment, financial pressures and Europe’s largest law firm collapse – here is a recap of the stories that defined the global legal market through the past 12 months. Continue reading “The Global 100 – The stories of the year”
On 19 May, Iran went to the polls for what many believed would be a tightly-fought election. By the next morning it was clear that the analysts’ predictions had been wide of the mark. Incumbent president Hassan Rouhani, leader of the Moderation and Development Party, secured a landslide victory over his nearest rival, Ebrahim Raisi, chair of the Popular Front of Islamic Revolution Forces. Shortly after the results were announced, Rouhani appeared on state television to say the election had shown Iran was committed to improving relations with the rest of the world. To investors and businesses that have been eyeing the country for years, it was a positive sign, but hopes of an open market have been dashed before. Sanctions related to Iran’s nuclear programme were lifted in early 2016, but business has so far been frustrated in the ongoing difficulties they face in the market.
Crisis is an overused term, worn out by endless repetition. For most European economies, it has meant a period of low or stagnant growth over the last decade and, in some cases, a year or two of negative GDP eventually followed by a welcome recovery. For Cyprus, however, the word has had even greater potency: between 2008 and 2015, GDP per capita declined by roughly 30%. On top of the global 2008-09 recession, Cyprus had its own domestic banking crisis in 2012-13, precipitated by the eurozone collapse. This led to a downgrade of its bond credit rating to junk status and a €10bn bailout programme from the troika of the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
It would be all too easy to dismiss Cyprus based on this performance – except that the island’s economy is experiencing a belated rebound. And what that means for investors in the medium term is significant. Despite financial services activity continuing to have a negative effect on the economy, latest GDP figures show a healthy 3% growth, which ‘surpasses all expectations’, according to finance minister Harris Georgiades. Continue reading “A new hope for Cyprus’s recession-battered lawyers”
The former law firm partner turned banking giant GC on his globally-demanding role
As a former senior staffer in the Clinton administration, David Fein has a tendency to chart his career and life against the backdrop of US politics. While working as a state district attorney, it was early in Barack Obama’s second presidential term that Fein found himself getting wistful for a new challenge, one that would see him become general counsel (GC) of the FTSE 100 banking group Standard Chartered in his first move in-house. ‘I was ready for a new challenge. I wanted something new and so I thought something I hadn’t done was be a general counsel.’
Continue reading “Client profile: David Fein, Standard Chartered Bank”
For classists, the word ‘disruptive’ still carries negative connotations of damage, chaos and disarray. But these days in corporate circles it has become the phrase of the day – a complimentary shorthand to describe tech-driven innovators remaking all manner of industries. But the cult of disruption – birthed in Clayton Christensen’s hugely influential 1997 book The Innovator’s Dilemma – has truly come of age when it has reached not only the legal profession, but its in-house branch.
Continue reading “Rebels with a clause – a new kind of group for a new kind of client”
