Angry shareholders, rising demands for transparency, tougher regulation, declining trust in business and the need to access new markets. Just some of the reasons why a growing number of plcs are moving to improve their focus on long-term performance and ethical standards… and calling in their general counsel (GCs) to help. Continue reading “GCs take on corporate sustainability briefs as plcs strive to protect brands”
For my sins I committed Legal Business to a lengthy piece on the 2015 general election, focusing on the policies impacting the City, business and law, back in an era that now seems a decade away. You may remember that one: the Conservatives were to deliver stability against those Labour mavericks on the assumption that its pledged Brexit referendum was in the bag. Continue reading “Election comment – Many a slip between cup and hardcore Brexit”
The Solicitors’ Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has today (9 June) cleared Leigh Day and three of its lawyers accused of professional misconduct relating to allegedly pursuing false damages claims of torture and murder made by Iraqi civilians against British troops in Iraq. Continue reading “SDT clears Leigh Day and three of its lawyers in high-profile Iraqi claims misconduct prosecution”
With City law firms braced for Brexit-related shocks, the first 2016/17 results from a major London practice will ease Square Mile nerves with Simmons & Simmons today (8 June) confirming a 7% hike in revenues and an emphatic rise in partner profits.
At the debate I recently attended on future of law-type stuff everything was proceeding to plan. Once the panel finished on artificial intelligence (AI), the law firm model and partners being useless, conversation turned to the Big Four. You know the gist: HERE THEY COME – GLOBAL – SLICK – WAY-AHEAD-OF-LAW-FIRMS.
Continue reading “Comment: The Big Four – they’d have done it by now if they cared”
Ashurst’s hopes of stabilising its European practice have been dealt a body blow with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher today (8 June) recruiting a four-partner team from its Paris arm. The move – which comes just months after a five-partner corporate team quit Ashurst’s Paris outpost for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer – sees a team led by litigation and restructuring partner Jean-Pierre Farges decamp to the US-based giant.
Partners at Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) will vote on a merger with Australian law firm Henry Davis York within the coming months, after both firms confirmed they were in late stage discussions.
The Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) has hit the Law Society with a costs order of up to £230,000 to pay an online training provider after finding it breached competition law in a ruling published this week, while the first CAT opt-out consumer class action was withdrawn.
Channel 4 has appointed Wiggin media litigator Amali de Silva as its new legal and compliance head, following the departure of long-serving general counsel (GC) Prash Naik. Continue reading “Channel 4 appoints Wiggin media litigator de Silva legal chief following GC Naik’s exit”
Navigant’s David Lawler on recent developments in asset-tracing claims
Given the multiplicity of channels available to money launderers and the increasingly sophisticated methods they use to cover their tracks when routing dirty money, claimants in asset-tracing cases face many barriers to recovering funds. Indeed, electronic banking means that funds transfers across borders and through multiple accounts allow fraudsters to quickly and repeatedly splinter assets into sub-accounts, almost instantaneously. They have many ways to hide money, involving webs of credits and debits between banks and intermediaries.
Restructuring and insolvency situations call for practitioners who combine thorough legal expertise with in-depth knowledge of the market and a strong focus on the clients’ needs.
Prager Dreifuss is one of the leading Swiss law firms for insolvency and restructuring, including over 40 lawyers and a total of around 80 employees at our offices in Zürich, Bern and Brussels.
With specialised experience ranging from M&A and banking and finance to dispute resolution, insurance law, private clients and tax, the firm is ideally placed to offer our clients a full and well-rounded service.
Continue reading “Insolvency and Restructuring: Responsive approach to clients needs”
Within a month of Mark Cooper joining National Grid (NG)’s in-house team in 2015, things became very busy very quickly. UK general counsel (GC) Rachael Davidson told him that one of the businesses he was looking after – NG’s gas distribution network – was going to be sold off.
When I was 11-years old a teacher asked us to write down what we were going to do when we left school. I said ‘solicitor’. Half the class didn’t know what that was. My uncle was a solicitor and it seemed interesting. He used to do quite a bit of criminal law so I got it in my head I would do that.
Coming out of university I didn’t feel ready to go straight to law school. I wanted to experience the world. Two options: go travelling (but I had no money and a huge overdraft) and the other one was to do something different, so I joined the Avon and Somerset Constabulary.
Continue reading “Life during law: Lee Ranson, Eversheds Sutherland”
David Patient, Travers Smith
Rarely, if ever, has a 12-month period seen such a dramatic change in the prospects, opportunities and risks facing leading law firms. As we assembled a group of law firm leaders at the end of April to mark our annual Legal Business 100 report, the turnaround since last summer in business, legal and political circles is remarkable. The period has been defined by the Brexit vote, sustained political upheaval and the shock US election of Donald Trump, to say nothing of a looming general election and Europe’s largest-ever legal collapse in the shape of King & Wood Mallesons’ local arm in January.
At the debate I recently attended on future of law-type stuff everything was proceeding to plan. Once the panel finished on artificial intelligence (AI), the law firm model and partners being useless, conversation turned to the Big Four. You know the gist: HERE THEY COME – GLOBAL – SLICK – WAY-AHEAD-OF-LAW-FIRMS.
Of course, the case that these professional service giants with superb boardroom access and resources way beyond the largest law firms should become leaders in law sounds persuasive. And yet discussion of the Big Four still gives so little weight to the plain fact that, with varying degrees of enthusiasm, they have been at this for more than 20 years and have yet to get anywhere near justifying the hype. The only conclusion can be that there is something fundamental to their approach and models that frustrates their progress.
Continue reading “The Big Four – they’d have done it by now if they cared”
Forget the casual observer, even some keen observers are bemused by the current passion for reforming legal education displayed by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) with plans to tear up the framework for legal training.
The gist of the proposals is to create a central, two-stage assessment regime to become a solicitor, which will in theory end the need for a legal practice course or training contract, where candidates would demonstrate their skills after two years of relevant work experience.
Continue reading “Education: not broke, fat chance of a fix”
Compiling our second annual Euro Elite report this month reminded me of when the late Rodrigo Uría, then managing partner of Spanish leader Uría Menéndez, recounted how he ended a heated meeting with Linklaters’ irascible former managing partner Terence Kyle by pointing out the armed guards at the entrance to his firm’s Madrid office. Back in the late 1990s, the UK elite was desperate to get into Europe. Emotions ran high.
With Brexit, the UK now wants out (the legal profession less so). But in the Continental market you could argue the English firms have been in withdrawal mode for years. Although the buccaneering expansion across the region in the 1990s and early 2000s means firms with Anglo-Saxon origin are ubiquitous, few dominate. With the exception of France, where the locals have potent competition, and the Netherlands, where Allen & Overy became a major force (by force), Global 100 firms rarely compete at the top level. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is a leader in Germany, but by virtue of the only merger of equals between a European and an English firm, and even it is currently looking to strip down its local practice to bolster profitability. The Magic Circle has been on some level of modest reversal in Germany for a decade now.
Continue reading “Royaume-Uni, nil points: why the true Eurovision is independence”
‘I’m very optimistic about our model.’
Jason Mogg, Kinstellar
As part of our annual Euro Elite report, management at independent firms in Europe give their views on market challenges, Brexit and technology
‘Brexit will probably have an impact on UK clients but there is no feeling here that Brexit will harm either the position of the German economy, or German independent firms. However, it is not the time for us to be looking at the UK and saying: “Poor UK firms, you will have a problem and Frankfurt is going to be even stronger.”‘
Alexander Schwarz, managing partner, Gleiss Lutz
As Deutsche Bank baulks at paying for junior lawyers, is a tough line on ‘paying for training’ making its way across the Atlantic?
Even for City lawyers used to increasingly heavy-handed tactics in panel reviews from banking groups, it proved something of a shock. News earlier this year that Deutsche Bank had notified pitching firms of its unwillingness to pay for trainees and newly-qualified lawyers during its last adviser review sent a jolt through the UK legal market.
Continue reading “Whose dime? – GCs push back against paying for junior lawyers”
In his 1962 work Capitalism and Freedom, the economist Milton Friedman complained that ‘the view has been gaining widespread acceptance that corporate officials and labour leaders have a “social responsibility” that goes beyond serving the interest of their stockholders.’ This ‘fundamental misconception’ about how markets work, argued Friedman, ought to be replaced by the consensus that the only social responsibility of business was to increase profits ‘so long as it stays within the rules of the game’.
Continue reading “Dollars and sense – charting the GC response as sustainability hits the boardroom”
