Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Allen & Overy (A&O) have both kept on 31 members of their spring trainee intake, with retention rates of 84% and 82% respectively. Continue reading “Freshfields and A&O latest in the Magic Circle to post spring trainee retention rates, keeping on 84% and 82% respectively”
US litigation specialist Boies, Schiller & Flexner has hired Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) head of public international law Dominic Roughton. Continue reading “HSF public international law head to boost Boies Schiller City practice following Miles exit”
Eversheds Sutherland has appointed corporate partner Keri Rees to head up the firm’s global company commercial practice group following Keith Froud’s appointment as managing partner, Legal Business has learned. Continue reading “Legacy Eversheds partner Keri Rees takes top corporate role at newly-merged firm”
Slaughter and May is changing heads in three practice areas: dispute resolution, outsourcing, technology, intellectual property (IP) and sport, and pensions and employment, as Linklaters has also promoted a new real estate leader. Continue reading “Refreshing the ranks: Magic Circle firms freshen up practice area leadership”
Hearing that Legal Business was gearing up for an in-depth look at the collapse of the European arm of King & Wood Mallesons (KWM), a well-informed contact told me that this story could not be told without going back to the Stanley Berwin days. Continue reading “Comment: Myths and monsters – how KWM got swallowed by its own culture”
Latham & Watkins announced today (9 March) that it has continued bolstering its financial services offering in the City with the hire of Linklaters financial regulation partner Daniel Csefalvay.
Ahead of the tripartite merger between CMS, Nabarro and Olswang, Facebook has announced that it has taken on commercial disputes partner Anna Caddick from its external adviser Olswang as its EMEA head of regulatory and litigation.
Gowling WLG has lost its legacy Lawrence Graham private client team, including four partners, to Mayfair firm Forsters.
Private client head Anthony Thompson is to depart, along with partners Catharine Bell, Nicholas Jacob and Daniel Ugur. The partners will be joined by 10 lawyers and five staff members. Continue reading “‘The right move’: Four-partner private client team leaves Gowling WLG for Forsters”
Outside the limelight of London’s legal community, Scotland’s GCs toil in low profile. Legal Business assesses the talent north of the border
The professional life of a public company general counsel (GC) in Scotland can feel isolated at times. As a member of a small club, opportunities to plug into the professional networks that their peers in the South East of England take for granted can be limited. ‘We do get a sense sometimes that we are a decreasing community!’ confesses Christopher Morgan, GC and company secretary at Glasgow-based engineering plc Weir Group. ‘Certainly the number of Scottish-based plc GCs is thin on the ground and it’s dwindling.’
Continue reading “Northern lights – The trials and treasures of Scotland’s leading GCs”
James Wood talks to lawyers in an industry that attracts advisers for the long haul
Transport and infrastructure has long been viewed as one of the less glamorous legal practice areas, best suited to lawyers with the patience for ploughing through the minutiae of statutes. But with increasing public and political scrutiny and a rush of private investors looking to park their money in safe assets, it has become one of the most high-profile – and demanding – areas of legal work.
‘Everyone is on their own voyage of discovery. But is any law firm leveraging AI in a material way? I don’t think they are – yet.’
Derek Southall, Gowling WLG
Can legal AI match the hype? Legal Business asks key figures about the future for law technology
PUBLICITY KING
‘Of course they’ll have prices, but then you’ll try to work your way around those prices. The reason you’re seeing lots of press releases that say “law firm signs up to use [tech provider] Kira” is because Kira will give you a discount if you do that. Honestly, “law firm uses Kira” isn’t really news, let’s be brutally honest. But Kira will say: “I’ll give you a 10% publicity discount if you do it.” Why not? Why wouldn’t I do that? That then helps Kira to tell a story that says Kira is already being used by Clifford Chance, Linklaters, Freshfields… Suddenly if I’m law firm number 72 and I see all these big law firms, I’m thinking, shit, I’d better use that too.’
Nick West, chief strategy officer, Mishcon de Reya
I’ve enjoyed every minute as a barrister and a judge. Two careers. I’ve been privileged.
I didn’t want to be a lawyer. Even when I went to Oxford I didn’t know. I thrashed around, then stumbled into the Bar. I wanted to do something in the real world. My father was always starry-eyed about the Bar. I suspect that came into it too.
Continue reading “Life during law: Lord Dyson, 39 Essex Chambers”
After a 2016 inflection point for automation, which City players are going beyond the hype and pushing ahead in the use of AI?
It is like 1999 all over again. That year, the legal tech bubble reached bursting point as law firms fell over themselves to demonstrate their commitment to cutting-edge tech. And things started to feel familiar in 2016 as the Magic Circle took its first substantive steps into the sphere of artificial intelligence (AI). But while the investment and hype has expanded, so has the scepticism. Will this be the start of the long-anticipated automation revolution or another false dawn?
Continue reading “The arms race – City rivals ramp up AI tech for the battles ahead”
The travel group’s GC discusses why helping to save holidaymakers is more satisfying than dealmaking
Many in-house counsel will say that the attraction of the job comes from having greater influence on their business and this is also true for Alice Marsden, group general counsel (GC) of Thomas Cook Group. However, the real draw for her comes from sometimes getting to have an altogether more personal impact.
Continue reading “Client profile: Alice Marsden, Thomas Cook Group”
Hearing that Legal Business was gearing up for an in-depth look at the collapse of the European arm of King & Wood Mallesons (KWM), a well-informed contact noted that this story could not be told without going back to the Stanley Berwin days. True, the old SJ Berwin had a maverick spirit that mesmerised its own partners but, having twice presided over lengthy pieces about the firm, I had no stomach to dwell once more on its legend.
Continue reading “Myths and monsters – how KWM got swallowed by its own culture”
Barely into 2017 and it has already been an eventful year for verein-based law firms, with King & Wood Mallesons meeting a painful end in Europe while, in happy contrast, Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) has just secured its second substantive US merger in the shape of Chadbourne & Parke.
The deal hands NRF 300 lawyers and a major upgrade to its Manhattan practice, which it certainly wanted and needed. Given the federal structure of NRF, the deal is primarily a merger within its US business, marrying the legacy Fulbright & Jaworski to a firm with complementary strengths across energy, projects and finance, nicely combining Fulbright’s Texas heartlands with Chadbourne’s New York base.
Continue reading “NRF’s New York merger – the trade-offs of federalism”
What are we to make of the most aggressive raid between top ten City firms since Allen & Overy helped itself to the bulk of Norton Rose’s leveraged finance team back in 2002? In some ways, news this month that Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is to ship in a productive five-partner buyout group from Ashurst seems even more notable.
For Freshfields, which has shied away from lateral recruitment in its European heartlands, to make such a huge commitment is striking and speaks to the doubled-down bet the Magic Circle firm has made in private equity and related finance.
Continue reading “Hot private equity money is remaking Europe’s legal market”
It has already been a headline-grabbing start to the year for DLA Piper’s finance team. The firm turned heads with the decision to bring in serial entrepreneur Maurice Allen as a consultant, swiftly followed with a leadership change, as it was announced Leeds managing partner Sarah Day will head up the UK finance practice, with Martin Bartlam (pictured) promoted to international head of finance and projects.
While historically known for mid-market deal finance and classic volume work for retail banking clients, in recent years DLA has striven to push the practice up the value chain, particularly in the structured debt arena. The practice, which currently makes up 17% of UK turnover, including projects, has been a target for investment for years.
Linklaters has launched a pair of artificial intelligence (AI) products in the latest innovation push for the Magic Circle firm, including a tool to navigate ring-fencing reforms for core banking clients.
Both Lloyds Banking Group and The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) have used the firm’s LinkRFI software, which is used to classify thousands of customer names in a fraction of the time it would take a human to complete. The classifications are needed to help ensure separation between banks’ retail and investment arms, to comply with ring-fencing reforms introduced by the Bank of England.
DLA Piper’s finance partners are being encouraged to participate in cross-office and cross-practice collaboration within a new framework called Project Connect, led by Martin Bartlam, who takes over as the firm’s international finance head on 1 May.
Collaboration, which will be measured through statistics as well as the behaviours of individual partners, will be part of the firm’s existing remuneration structure, not isolated in the sense of a bonus pot. Partners outside the finance and projects practice are not part of the programme.
Continue reading “New DLA finance head to push collaboration pay incentives”
