National Grid has reorganised its in-house legal function following the £13.8bn separation of its gas distribution business.
Continue reading “National Grid reshuffles in-house team as firms join new panel”
Cutting-edge legal tech is no longer an optional extra for law firms. In our latest round table with McCann FitzGerald, legal technologists debate the key barriers to success
The last five years have seen the emergence of early adopters in the legal technology sphere, firms that have embraced innovation and adopted artificial intelligence (AI), data analytics and predictive coding tools, not only to increase efficiency, but to reshape the way they work. Continue reading “The bleeding edge – The legal tech debate”
Five years since the turbulent union of Herbert Smith and Freehills, the global challenger has chosen Mark Rigotti as its sole chief executive. Is the culture clash over?
Managing the delicate power balance between managing partner and senior partner is tricky at the best of times. But how do you address the cultural minefield as a foreigner taking the lead executive role of a 134-year-old City institution still coming to terms with a turbulent merger, especially when your opposite is a particularly influential and strong-willed senior partner? Continue reading “Taking over – one leader at HSF but is the culture clash over?”
Victoria Young and Madeleine Farman talk to new heads on the US, high yield and China.
While in recent years Allen & Overy (A&O) has been probably the most confident of the City’s leading banking shops, it remains a fast-evolving world for even the most potent of banking teams. Since the market turned in 2008, Magic Circle firms have faced tight margins and the increasingly ominous incursion of US-dominated finance products in Europe’s credit markets. Continue reading “The Finance View – A&O’s new practice chiefs on repositioning the City’s top finance shop”
Amid a turbulent market, the three-way union of Camerons, Nabarro and Olswang has forged a UK giant. Has Camerons picked up a bargain or will there be buyer’s remorse?
September 1988. Twenty fresh-faced trainees are preparing for their first day at Nabarro Nathanson. Among the recruits are Iain Newman, Paul Stevens and Duncan Weston. Not only will the trio go on to have prominent careers in City law and remain on good terms, but more than 25 years later they would kickstart the UK’s largest-ever legal merger. Continue reading “Sale of the century – Has Camerons picked up a bargain with Olswang and Nabarro?”
After a rocky 2016 with Brexit and Trump, we ask the City’s leading corporate players how 2017 will play out. Continue reading “The last word: Dealbreakers”
Macfarlanes’ Charles Martin reviews Heidi Gardner’s much-discussed new book on collaboration in professional services
Collaboration within a law firm is as self-evidently a good thing as motherhood and apple pie. But then you might think the case for global warming is pretty clear too. So, despite the wave of professional recognition Harvard Law School professor Heidi Gardner (pictured) has received for her work on teamworking, her new book, Smart Collaboration, has the considerable challenge of getting lawyers past the outskirts of platitudinal praise and towards the town centre of actual working habits. Continue reading “A buzzword, sure, but one with edge”
As Barclays sifts through the wreckage of King & Wood Mallesons’ European practice and claims of fresh departures swirl around Ashurst, you have to say that the marriage of Herbert Smith and Australian leader Freehills could have gone worse. A lot worse. Continue reading “HSF – At least one Down Under revolution worked”
In the wake of the eye-catching tie-up of CMS Cameron McKenna, Nabarro and Olswang, Legal Business noted last year that the gnomic messages around the union made it a hard one to judge. And even after a detailed assessment of the largest UK legal merger ever, as we undertake for this month’s cover feature, it’s not easy to put the pieces together. Continue reading “There’s value in CMS’ purchase and one big hurdle ahead”
Happy New Year, profession. Barely have we gotten into 2017 and the inevitable has happened: the legacy SJ Berwin business has entered administration, becoming the largest collapse in European legal history.
From the point last spring that a high-billing Paris private equity team quit for Goodwin Procter, it was hard to see King & Wood Mallesons’ (KWM) European business avoiding a bad outcome. But this comment is not really about KWM’s fate, more about how we try to interpret events and re-write history after the fact. Continue reading “As KWM cracks, beware re-written history and schadenfreude”
Once the chief enforcer for the City, the PwC UK general counsel discusses breaking balls and finding a silver lining to the financial crisis
‘I would never have taken a role where I wasn’t sitting at the top table. I make sure I have influence in how a firm goes about things,’ notes veteran litigator Margaret Cole, PwC’s UK general counsel (GC) and chief risk officer. Continue reading “Client profile: Margaret Cole, PwC UK”
Collaboration has become the new innovation – the quality clients are supposed to want and progressive law firms strive to deliver. Does the reality match the hype?
‘Why are so many restaurants now featuring windows that let you peek into their kitchens, or seating you as close as possible to the chefs? Because customers have decided they want to be “in the kitchen”. They want to see how the sausage is made.’
Heidi Gardner, Harvard Law School
Continue reading “The new black – the spin and substance behind collaboration”
Madeleine Farman and Victoria Young ask the firm’s leaders about growth in the City.
Ropes & Gray’s rapid growth in London is an ascent which any newcomer would aspire to. Although the Boston firm was late to the party when it officially opened in 2010, its sole European base has enjoyed an impressive upward trajectory. Revenue was up by almost a third in 2015 to $83m, a successful result on the back of a 30% increase in 2014 when City turnover was $64m. Continue reading “One man band: Can Ropes & Gray maintain the momentum without Allen?”
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. Continue reading “Sponsored briefing: Offshore but not off limits”
Human rights lawyer Professor Phil Shiner has been struck off and ordered to pay costs of £250,000 by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal over the pursuit of false allegations against British soldiers in Iraq. Continue reading “Al-Sweady inquiry: Shiner struck off for dishonesty with £250,000 costs over Iraq war claims”
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan is investigating a potential class action against BT on behalf of its shareholders following an accounting scandal which saw almost £8bn, or more than a fifth, wiped off the telco’s stock value. Continue reading “Quinn prepares to mount shareholder claim against BT following accounting scandal”
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer‘s Companies House filings state turnover as £40m lower than its previously reported revenue figures for 2015/16, with the firm claiming exchange rates are the reason for the discrepancy. Continue reading “Freshfields LLPs reveal revenue £40m short of previously stated turnover”
Lawyers on Demand (LOD) has recorded an 18% upsurge in turnover for the 2015/16 financial year, according to its latest filings with Companies House. Revenues rose from £12.3m to £14.6m in the last financial year. Continue reading “Lawyers on Demand records double-digit revenue growth as top-end salaries soar”
Partners at a raft of firms including Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer are gearing up for potential damages claims against Europe’s biggest truck makers after they admitted to operating a 14 year price cartel. Continue reading “Quinn, Freshfields and HSF in drivers’ seat for firms defending truck cartel claims”
In what would be its second North American merger in two years, Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) is understood to be close to sealing a deal with $250m New York firm Chadbourne & Parke.
