Tom Moore looks to the future of DLA as he meets the firm’s latest leader
Juan Picón’s face now adorns the WhatsApp group ‘Executive Rules’, used by DLA Piper’s leadership to share videos of karaoke nights, office yoga sessions and champagne moments, while running the world’s second largest law firm by revenue.
Set to take on the top legal role at Santander UK later this year, The Royal Bank of Scotland’s outgoing general counsel (GC) John Collins talks to Sarah Downey about his career and the growing recognition of in-house lawyers.
Tell me about the evolution of the GC…
Continue reading “Q&A: Royal Bank of Scotland general counsel John Collins”
Every time my father got a promotion we had to move. It trains you to fit in with new crowds. He worked for the Midland Bank. We lived in Carlisle, Shropshire, Birmingham, Kingston-upon-Thames and Manchester. It focused me on academic work as each new school had a different syllabus so I was always catching up.
I used to stand in our garage handing my father spanners. My favourite car in my youth was the Lancia Aurelia B20 GT, which was one of the classic Pininfarina designs of the ’50s. They were the embodiment of high-quality engineering. I went through a severe Lancia-buying phase in my 20s. I bought five!
Continue reading “Life During Law: Chris Saul, Slaughter and May”
Following the fallout of failed merger talks between Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) and Greenberg Traurig, it has emerged the UK firm’s leadership was an issue for the Miami giant.
The merger had promised to create a property and disputes giant across the Atlantic and one of the most distinctive law firms in the global market but was called off in March.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) has been criticised for shutting down its investigation into alleged rigging in the foreign exchange (forex) market after it could not find sufficient evidence to prosecute.
Despite some of the world’s largest banks being fined billions for forex rate manipulation, the UK’s fraud watchdog dropped the probe in March without bringing any charges.
Continue reading “Fit for purpose? Critics round on SFO as forex charges are dropped”
In-house counsel are increasingly united on the benefits of mentoring programmes. Is there substance behind the corporate fad?
‘I believe very strongly in leading by example,’ says Nokia global head of litigation Richard Vary. Although his legal team has a formal mentoring system in place, he believes it is the informal connections built in mentoring that play the most important role in developing in-house counsel. ‘You bring the people along, they see what you do, they see how you work rather than [you] telling people how to do their jobs. They’re professionals, they know what they’re doing. They’re intelligent – you give them the space to figure it out for themselves but also give them an example of the model of behaviours that you want.’
Continue reading “None so zealous – how and why GCs fell in love with mentoring”
Following a major overhaul of its practice structure, King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) said in March it would axe 15% of its Europe and Middle East partnership, and make 45 business services employees redundant in London.
The move means 24 partners will leave the firm and is the second shake-up of the legacy SJ Berwin partnership in 12 months, when another 10% of the partnership across the region were asked to leave following a performance review.
Continue reading “KWM to cut 15% of legacy SJ Berwin partnership following major shake-up”
Victoria Young assesses the approach to implementation of ring-fencing rules
Though the deadline for full implementation is over two years off, the looming threat of so-called ring-fencing reforms is already having a major impact on UK banking groups and their legal teams.
Börse/LSE tie-up raises regulatory concerns
As Europe’s two largest financial market operators, the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and Deutsche Börse, begin their third attempt at a tie-up, concerns have been raised over antitrust issues.
Our annual Legal Business/Marsh round table saw law firm risk managers debate their role in fighting on two fronts – against demanding clients and internally with their fee-earners
Our 2016 risk management report, published last month, looked at a number of live issues for risk management teams within the UK leading firms, most of which place those teams at the frontline of potential battles.
Continue reading “The risk debate: The gate keepers’ burden”
Three Magic Circle firms have closed the £2bn sale of London City Airport to a Canadian-led consortium of investors.
Linklaters, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Slaughter and May acted on the sale of the airport, located six miles from London’s financial district, which was completed late March after the Canadian consortium competed with two Chinese bidders.
Continue reading “Magic Circle trio land £2bn London City Airport sale”
International firms target local mergers in regional hub
Asia’s burgeoning economic growth coupled with new initiatives from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) community has seen further interest in Singapore’s legal market spike as Global 100 firms explore new ventures in the city-state.
Garrigues continued its global expansion by hiring its first English-qualified partner in the City with the arrival of Winston & Strawn’s co-head of international arbitration, Joe Tirado, to start an arbitration practice. The launch comes in the same month the firm added Chile to its Latin American network.
Tirado will become co-head of international arbitration as the firm seeks to provide a London hub for disputes in Latin America, where alternative dispute resolution has become commonplace following a series of investor-state disputes stemming from the nationalisation of energy assets across the continent in the 1990s. Tirado becomes the second lawyer in Garrigues’ London office, alongside corporate lawyer Ignacio Corbera Dale.
Continue reading “Garrigues ramps up global push with London arbitration play and Chile tie-up”
Victoria Young talks to the singular City player about success and bucking the market
‘Strong culture’, ‘high quality’ and ‘entrepreneurial’ are phrases repeatedly associated with Macfarlanes among peers and former staff. And its recently re-elected executive has no desire to debunk the image of a hard-nosed, competitive shop.
Legal Business’ 14th annual Global London survey assesses the breakthrough of the City’s leading US shops in the past 12 months
Recently appointed to jointly lead his firm’s expansive City office, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher tax partner Jeffrey Trinklein recalls a visit to London in the early nineties. ‘Back then, the US offices in London were 100% American lawyers. Now it’s 10%.’
Continue reading “Global London overview: The eagle has landed”
The comms and IT multinational’s litigation head on the takeover of Alcatel-Lucent and its tax battle with India
When asked what keeps him in-house, Nokia’s Richard Vary is quick to tout travel and the adrenaline as two top selling points of the job. His role as head of litigation has placed him in some interesting scenarios over his ten years working for the multinational communications and IT company. ‘It was my birthday last year when I arrived at work and then discovered we had a hearing in India the next day,’ Vary told Legal Business. ‘So my 43rd birthday consisted of buying a shirt and a pair of pants, and jumping on the next British Airways flight to Delhi, sitting there in 40° heat in this packed, humid courtroom in a woollen suit, trying to follow the details in a tax case in the most run-down, awful building. There were chickens and goats outside the door of this courtroom, and some guy asleep on the floor in the back row, just fast asleep, lying on the concrete floor in the middle of a trial. It was very odd.’
Charlie Geffen argues the legal market is segmenting between two diverging arenas
A few years ago the general counsel of one of the big banks told me that they only went to outside law firms for three reasons.
First to get advice on what to do. That could be on a deal, a dispute or some other objective of the bank. It requires senior time and is not particularly price sensitive. Let’s call that ‘advisory work’.
Continue reading “Are you selling judgement or process? Few modern law firms can excel at both”
CC’s David Bickerton says the profession is yet to master training the lawyers of the future
New entrants to the legal profession will be competing head on against Kim, the virtual assistant from Riverview Law, and Ross, IBM Watson’s ‘super-intelligent’ attorney, in delivering services to clients. Ross, unlike most of us, has the ability to research every resource of legal knowledge in seconds, and, even more impressive to the older ones among us, remember it.
Jaishree Kalia sizes up the clashing egos and driving ambition at Kirkland’s City arm.
Flashy cars, Dom Pérignon and top dollar are just some of the things associated with Kirkland & Ellis’ City high-flyers. The top ten global law firm has been highly successful in London since setting up shop in 1994 to service trophy client Bain Capital. The practice is certainly substantial, generating over $180m in 2015, according to one partner.
With the publication of our annual Global London report, leading figures at US law firms in the City weigh up a volatile market
COMPELLING ALTERNATIVES
‘Global corporates, wherever they are headquartered, are increasingly recognising that we provide the same depth and quality as the Magic Circle in London but also with a global platform that extends into the US. Outside of the US, it is comparable with the Magic Circle. When you put that proposal to a global corporate, then we can provide a compelling alternative as we can speak in English and American accents.’
