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Standing apart – the offshore fallout from the Panama Papers

boat adrift

On April Fool’s Day this year, Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca & Co notified its clients that it had sustained an email hack. It instantly became the world’s best-known law firm following the leak of 11.5 million documents, cherry-picked by global media outlets, that revealed confidential client information. The Panama Papers made news and so did offshore law firms. Again.

But for every offshore firm, regardless of jurisdiction, the Panama Papers leak was no laughing matter: the inevitable public outcry further fuelled the enduring debate over tax and transparency. Continue reading “Standing apart – the offshore fallout from the Panama Papers”

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Aftermath – the offshore world post the Brexit vote

Sunset over EU stars

‘The morning after the night before, there was stunned silence,’ says David Cadin, managing partner at Bedell Cristin. For offshore law firms, the long-term implications of Brexit are no clearer than for their onshore counterparts and they are equally loath to make predictions when uncertainty continues to surround terms for the UK’s departure from the EU.

As Antonia Hardy, Cayman Islands managing partner of Walkers, puts it: ‘In terms of offshore access for financial services, no-one knows yet – like everything to do with Brexit the answer is possibly and hopefully.’ She offers a very positive take: ‘Offshore centres have always been required to apply for European access independently of the UK and so we do not foresee any negative impact from the Brexit decision.’

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Global 100 debate: the view from the top

To mark this year’s Global 100 report, we gathered a group of senior figures at the top of Tower 42 to debate the big issues facing Big Law

Alex Novarese, Legal Business: How are market conditions looking now?

David Bickerton, Clifford Chance: Too early to tell. Clearly there was a pent-up demand leading up to the referendum in June. What is interesting is whether all the optimism that partners are feeling will manifest itself in transactions come the fourth quarter.

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Rain men – goodbye Harvard Kool-Aid, hello plain speaking at Linklaters’ c-suite

With high-billing duo Charlie Jacobs and Gideon Moore taking the helm at Linklaters there is renewed swagger on Silk Street. Will it be enough to revive the City leader after a troubled post-Lehman run?

For a young South African who saw law as a stepping stone to business, Charlie Jacobs has had quite a journey. Something of an anomaly at Linklaters in the early 1990s, when even by the standards of the City elite, the firm was ‘stiff and English’, Jacobs found the place ‘a bit intimidating’ in the early years. But if he truly lacked confidence then, he hid it well. Now, after nearly a decade as Linklaters’ unrivalled corporate star, the youthful-looking 50-year old has this month begun his role as the City giant’s new senior partner for a five-year term.

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GC Powerlist Summer Reception – Home House truths

Ambition, Millennials, corporate guff – we gathered more than 60 GCs and FT columnist Lucy Kellaway to debate the pleasures and perils of climbing the greasy pole

Should you tweet? How do you relate to the mysterious breed of co-workers called Millennials? How should lawyers navigate the rampant office politics of a major plc when they make the move in-house?

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The art of leadership in Asia – an evolving role for legal heads

What does leadership mean in a region where the role of the in-house lawyer is rapidly evolving?

‘Becoming an in-house lawyer has not traditionally been a desirable career path for Asia’s top graduates,’ says Amy Ng, general counsel (GC) for the Asia-Pacific region at global real estate company CBRE. ‘But we are seeing a lot of change now in the number of people leaving private practice to work for a business.’

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Taught leaders – executive training for the ambitious GC

Leadership training has until recently neglected the growing ranks of GCs. To begin our Insight special with Reed Smith, we assess the educational options for in-house counsel striving to meet growing skills demands

In 2012 the MBA degree established itself as the most popular subject of postgraduate education in the US, accounting for more than a quarter of all enrolments according to the US Department of Education. Along with the usual diet of macroeconomics, management theory and financial accounting, MBA programmes have ensured that those who seek to carve out a corporate career focus on one quality above all others: leadership.

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The next step – meet the GCs determined to seize leadership roles

An ambitious generation of in-house counsel is determined to take on leadership roles, despite corporate pressure to stay in the box. We ask GCs what it takes to break out as a leader

Are in-house counsel ready to be business leaders? It seems a strange question to ask given the level of education and training of most in-house lawyers and the dramatic expansion of the size and responsibilities of legal teams over the last 15 years.

And yet, leadership remains an issue that hangs ominously over the careers of in-house counsel. As they take on work that once would have gone to law firms and deal with mounting organisational, legislative and regulatory complexity they are often pushed towards the technically-demanding side of their legal role. Meanwhile, colleagues from finance, marketing or sales teams remain far more likely to be promoted to senior leadership roles within the company.

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Leadership and the modern GC: a special report

We teamed up with Reed Smith to ask which skills the GCs of tomorrow will need to lead and what the future holds for in-house leadership training.

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