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The new black – the spin and substance behind collaboration

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

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One man band: Can Ropes & Gray maintain the momentum without Allen?

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?”

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Sponsored briefing: Offshore but not off limits

Navigant logo

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”

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The emerging GC – shrouded in the vague

Do you ever get the feeling you’re flying blind as a general counsel? Not in the context of your own business, which will generate reams of numbers and facts to indicate how the legal function is performing within that one company. But in the context of how GCs and legal teams are developing at a wider level, profession-wide and within industry sectors, the question stands.

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Simmons, BLP and Reed Smith win places on Lloyds’ specialist roster as bank gears up for commercial panel review

Simmons & Simmons, Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), Bond Dickinson and Reed Smith are among 24 firms to win a place on Lloyds Banking Group’s (LBG) specialist sub panel, which sits below the bank’s main core roster of eight firms. Continue reading “Simmons, BLP and Reed Smith win places on Lloyds’ specialist roster as bank gears up for commercial panel review”

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The emerging GC – shrouded in the vague

Do you ever get the feeling you’re flying blind as a general counsel? Not in the context of your own business, which will generate reams of numbers and facts to indicate how the legal function is performing within that one company. But in the context of how GCs and legal teams are developing at a wider level, profession-wide and within industry sectors, the question stands.

Continue reading “The emerging GC – shrouded in the vague”

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Significant matters – Winter 2016/17

Energy giant pushes through alt billing

The march away from hourly billing continues as Royal Dutch Shell, one of the world’s largest consumers of legal services, confirmed that all its work must be priced under ‘appropriate’ fee arrangements (AFAs), following its 2016 panel review. AFAs, which include capped, fixed and contingency fees, had been in place for all litigation work since June 2014, but now apply to all legal matters. In addition, every piece of work will be put out to tender to three or more panel firms. The shake-up was overseen by associate general counsel for global litigation, strategy and co-ordination Gordon McCue, who led Shell’s overall panel review.

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‘Crisis accumulates for years’ – a fascinating insight into the roots of risk

Stefan Stern assesses a new book on how institutional weaknesses let corporate risk wreak havoc.

If you found the events of 2016 unsettling you may wish to look away now. For the foreseeable future. Brexit means Brexit, apparently, but no-one seems able to provide much more detail than that as yet. A new US president unlike any most of us have ever seen is starting a four-year term in the White House. World War Three could break out at any moment, on Twitter.

Continue reading “‘Crisis accumulates for years’ – a fascinating insight into the roots of risk”

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‘Crisis accumulates for years’ – a fascinating insight into the roots of risk

Stefan Stern assesses a new book on how institutional weaknesses let corporate risk wreak havoc.

If you found the events of 2016 unsettling you may wish to look away now. For the foreseeable future. Brexit means Brexit, apparently, but no-one seems able to provide much more detail than that as yet. A new US president unlike any most of us have ever seen is starting a four-year term in the White House. World War Three could break out at any moment, on Twitter.

Continue reading “‘Crisis accumulates for years’ – a fascinating insight into the roots of risk”

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A buyers’ market

In-house teams may have grown in size and stature over recent years, but their external adviser panels are definitely shrinking. As a result, law firms find themselves increasingly at the sharp end during adviser reviews (see box ‘Cutting back’, below), with clients pushing for better rates, greater efficiencies and added extras.

Continue reading “A buyers’ market”

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A buyers’ market

In-house teams may have grown in size and stature over recent years, but their external adviser panels are definitely shrinking. As a result, law firms find themselves increasingly at the sharp end during adviser reviews (see box ‘Cutting back’, below), with clients pushing for better rates, greater efficiencies and added extras.

Continue reading “A buyers’ market”