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From Chancery Lane to Waterloo – it’s time for the Law Society’s levy to go

There is a reason that the slogan ‘No taxation without representation’ has echoed through history. The rally cry of the American revolution demonstrates a basic truth that institutions and figures of authority hitting up constituencies for money without broadly representing their interests are in the long run asking for trouble.

On that yardstick, the Law Society has been asking for trouble for many years and it looks like it has finally got it as the Conservative government threatens to finish the job Labour started with the Legal Services Act and end the body’s ability to levy fees on the profession.

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Shell starts panel review as BG Group legal team undergoes post-acquisition restructure

Shell external roster set to dominate reconfigured in-house department

Royal Dutch Shell has kicked off a review of its external legal roster after finalising its £47bn takeover of BG Group last month and as their existing panels come to an end. As a result of the takeover, the second-largest energy deal on record, both companies will overhaul their legal divisions.

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Gove’s City levy kicked into long-grass amid Treasury opposition

A tax on City lawyers floated by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to subsidise the criminal court system has been effectively abandoned amid Treasury opposition, according to senior City sources.

The levy was floated by the MoJ in October last year as a means to replace revenue generated from a controversial court charge on convicted criminals that was supposed to bring in £65m to £90m annually.

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KWM restructures London as Europe managing partner returns to full-time fee-earning

King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) is restructuring its London teams, which has delayed the election of a new European managing partner and comes amid cash flow problems in the legacy SJ Berwin practice.

The move comes as the firm rolls out its 2020 strategy, which KWM global managing partner Stuart Fuller described as setting ‘a vision to be in the global elite for the next century’.

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Real estate, financial integration and Maher: the particulars of the ambitious BLP/Greenberg union

Firm leaders discuss selling points as deal goes to a vote

As Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) closes in on its merger with Miami-based Greenberg Traurig, both firms have targeted full financial integration as their leaders sell the deal to their partnerships.

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Corporate is king as Dejonghe and Ballheimer win vote to lead Allen & Overy until 2020

After a four-month election, Allen & Overy (A&O)’s C-suite for the next four years was revealed last month with corporate lawyers Wim Dejonghe and Andrew Ballheimer chosen as the new leaders.

Arguably the only Magic Circle firm to keep pace with US rivals over the last five years, A&O’s partnership opted for continuity as Dejonghe, who has been managing partner for the past eight years, was named senior partner. Co-head of corporate Ballheimer joined him as global managing partner, giving the management duo at A&O – which has traditionally included a partner from the firm’s signature banking group – a distinctly corporate look.

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Legal freelancing enters the big league as LOD seals £25m merger with Australian firm

In the largest New Law merger to date, the UK’s biggest freelance lawyer service Lawyers On Demand (LOD) has sealed a deal with Australia’s AdventBalance to create a £25m business.

Revenue at LOD rose by 42% in the 2014/15 financial year to hit £12.3m and, with the merger doubling turnover, the deal is set to catapult LOD into the UK’s 100 largest legal services businesses, pulling in more than established law firms such as Harbottle & Lewis and Boodle Hatfield, less than a decade since its launch.

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City firms line up on Asahi deal as SABMiller’s merger with AB InBev draws nearer

A&O, Freshfields and Hogan Lovells advise on €2.55bn sell-off

In preparation for one of the largest corporate deals of the year, Allen & Overy (A&O), Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Hogan Lovells won roles on the proposed divestment of SABMiller’s European beer brands to Japanese brewer Asahi, the latest sale aimed at facilitating the $275bn merger between SABMiller and Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev). Continue reading “City firms line up on Asahi deal as SABMiller’s merger with AB InBev draws nearer”

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Wall Street elite go head to head in largest ever Chinese acquisition

Continued interest in European assets by Chinese investors peaked last month, as Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Davis Polk & Wardwell landed key roles on China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina)’s $43bn bid for Swiss seeds and pesticides group Syngenta – in what will be the largest-ever acquisition by a Chinese firm.

Simpson Thacher advised state-owned ChemChina on M&A, acquisition finance and regulation with a team led by partners Alan Klein, Shaolin Luo, Chris May and Sinead O’Shea, alongside Swiss corporate leader Homburger. Davis Polk and another top-tier Swiss player, Bär & Karrer, acted for Syngenta. Davis Polk’s team included partners Louis Goldberg and Oliver Smith, with John Reynolds providing regulatory advice; Ronan Harty and Jon Leibowitz advising on competition law; and Avishai Shachar advising on tax.

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Abu Dhabi exodus continues as Simmons becomes the latest major firm to pull out

With many major law firms losing money in the Middle East after overinvesting during the oil boom in the 2000s, Simmons & Simmons has followed Latham & Watkins and Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) in shutting down its Abu Dhabi operations.

Simmons carried out ‘a detailed review’ after its losses in the Middle East, which also includes offices in Dubai and Doha, rose from £243,000 in 2014 to just under £2m in the 12 months to 30 April 2015. The closure of the Abu Dhabi office affects five lawyers, including three partners. The firm’s accounts show in total Simmons has 56 staff, including 29 fee-earners and three partners in the Middle East.

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‘We needed to move on’: Why Fieldfisher has turned its back on the dating game

Victoria Young speaks to the management duo about the transformed mid-market player

‘We’ll be the first to admit the firm of five years ago wasn’t delivering what the partners wanted,’ says Fieldfisher managing partner Michael Chissick. In 2012, Legal Business took a close look at Field Fisher Waterhouse and at the time the mid-market law firm was desperate for a suitor. Three years, two failed merger talks and several high-profile partner exits later, and Fieldfisher has undergone a reboot far beyond its change of name.

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Client profile: Tom Melbye Eide, Royal Dutch Shell

The energy group’s upstream legal chief discusses general counsel’s role as a risk partner and that £47bn deal

As BG Group general counsel (GC), and now executive vice president and GC for Royal Dutch Shell’s upstream business, Tom Melbye Eide has an enviable addition to his CV, considering his lead role in BG’s £47bn acquisition by Shell, the world’s second-biggest energy deal on record, which completed last month. Continue reading “Client profile: Tom Melbye Eide, Royal Dutch Shell”

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Here we must run, just to stay in place – what it takes to be a law firm partner in 2016

Macfarlanes’ Charles Martin reflects on the paradoxes facing the modern partner

I confess the analogy is not perfect, but reflecting on the bizarre and often contradictory pressures on partners in law firms today brings to mind the world of Alice in Wonderland. Today, many question the appropriateness of the partnership model itself. They certainly question the strange, often opaque feudal master/servant process by which the aspiring lawyer serves their apprenticeship. They then work (following the white rabbit down the hole past many locked doors) until they leave all caution behind and take the option of partnership – a bit like Alice eating the cake with ‘EAT ME’ written on it. Readers of the story will know that the result is Alice growing to such a tremendous size that her head hits the ceiling! The analogy is maybe not so imperfect after all.

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It’s high time we moved on – why legal education fails the key test

Nigel Savage argues that legal education is falling further behind the realities of the industry

Let’s get this in context right off the bat. The Training for Tomorrow proposals by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) represent the most radical change in legal education for over 20 years. When one considers the massive structural changes in the legal services market in recent years, which have been covered extensively in these pages before, we are faced with a unique situation. The legal services sector has moved on and is tackling fundamental issues provoked by a combination of market forces, regulatory changes and the impact of technology. The SRA needs to reflect that environment within the new test of knowledge and competence (the mooted Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE), which is billed as a means of raising professional standards and allowing more flexible routes to qualification). It is, however, constrained by the contradiction of a regulatory framework based as much on historic and largely outdated concepts of ‘reserved’ activity and the reality that a huge proportion of the work that takes place in the market (particularly the City) is not reserved and therefore doesn’t require solicitor status. Even where it is reserved, others can often deliver it at a much lower cost.

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The Last Word: Divide and conquer

We canvassed City partners and in-house counsel for their views on the Law Society and the state of representation in the profession


LATE TO THE PARTY

‘I endorse what the Law Society is doing, particularly chief executive Catherine Dixon. What she’s doing to try to boost representation for the in-house community is laudable and to be encouraged. The difficulty it’s got is that it came to the game slightly later than others and it would admit that. If you look at the number of bodies and institutions that are there to assist in-house, they’re competing and therefore it makes life more difficult. My limited experience is the Law Society is doing the right thing. We would support them but there’s a long way to go.’

Robert Ivens, head of legal, Marks and Spencer

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