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Leader: A challenging time for disputes teams in a polarised market

The return of our Disputes Yearbook finds the wider outlook for contentious work considerably changed over the last 12 months. The flood of disputes that were not so long ago carrying along pretty much all vessels has receded on both sides of the Atlantic. Limitation periods have dramatically slowed the flow of litigation linked to the banking crisis, while rising business confidence has turned the mind of executives to deal-doing rather than cleaning up old messes. It is a more challenging time for the run-of-the-mill disputes team.

Nevertheless, it remains a more-than-respectable environment in which to ply the services of high-end disputes shops. Even if the march of more proactive enforcement and regulation across many sectors has paused for breath, the long-term trends show no suggestion of abandoning the global-wide push towards a more regulated business environment. The creeping extension of corporate liability and the vogue for developing economies to start clamping down on at least the most flagrant corruption look set to continue for years to come.

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The specialist court the City needs

Herbert Smith Freehills’ Tim Parkes welcomes the overdue launch of London’s financial court but warns of the dangers of test cases

Not before time, the English court system will soon add to its stable of specialist courts a Financial List, to deal with major banking and other financial disputes. This is a positive illustration of the English courts not resting on their laurels as a pre-eminent venue for commercial dispute resolution but taking active steps to ensure that they meet the needs of financial markets users and enhance London’s status as a global financial centre.

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Undisputed – the next generation of partners setting the disputes agenda

As contentious work increasingly drives revenues at major City firms, Legal Business canvasses the leading teams to find the new partners setting the disputes agenda.

Over the last decade, an undeniable emphasis on contentious skills has occurred among the elite City firms. While seasoned litigators and arbitration specialists still dominate the landscape, firms are working harder than ever to develop their younger generation of partners.

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Perspectives: Mark Howard QC

When I came to the Bar I didn’t know anybody, but fortunately got introduced to Tom Bingham and I was his marshal during my pupillage for about six weeks. He was a very inspiring figure. He was quite a junior judge then but he had tremendous insight. I was only with him for six weeks but he’s the person I’ve learnt the most from.

At that stage I liked the sound of my own voice too much. The problem at the Bar is that you’re always arguing a corner, it’s very difficult in your personal life. My wife always says ‘stop cross-examining me’.

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Perspectives: Emmanuel Gaillard

In a small resort called La Féclaz in the Alps, a lawyer was sitting next to me in the restaurant telling stories about criminal law. I said then: ‘That’s what I’m supposed to do.’ I was just going through the motions before that and being made miserable by studying maths.

I spent two summers at Rockefeller Plaza being a New York lawyer when I was 30 at a two-partner law firm called Layton & Sherman. They were typical New Yorkers… always in pinstripe suits! I had never been to Manhattan. I lived near the Upper West Side and I was going out in jazz bars and going downtown meeting artists.

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Perspectives: Sir Bernard Eder

I’ve had a happy time. My wife said at school I spent most of my time in the library. I came to 4 Essex Court in 1975. This is my home. In those days, 4 Essex Court was the number one set of chambers for commercial work and I met the head Bob MacCrindle. He was Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt, Obama, Putin… a mixture… it was like getting a part in a Hollywood film because no one got into 4 Essex Court in those days.

I remember Bob saying: ‘I’ll tell you three things. One, I’m leaving’. He went to Shearman & Sterling in Paris around the time tax rates were 98% or something like that. Second, he said, ‘you’re going to buy my chair and table’. I was 22, didn’t have any money and he said ‘that will be £100’. I said ‘okay’. I still have that furniture. Thirdly, he gave me some advice and said: ‘If you don’t have to say anything, don’t.’ That stayed with me. I’ve been incredibly short in my judgments.

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The fix – how to resolve the tensions at the heart of modern arbitration

With growing caseloads and global appeal, international arbitration is blossoming – as is criticism of rising costs and delays. As some practitioners develop tactics to ‘fix’ arbitration, will they do more harm than good?

It has taken 25 years since the end of the Cold War for states to fully embrace the notion of settling their disagreements through a third party, but as the recent and resolved case between Singapore and Malaysia shows, inter-state arbitration can be a powerful force in international relations. Similarly, large and sophisticated corporate consumers of dispute resolution services have developed a growing enthusiasm for arbitration when it comes to settling their disputes.

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The US disputes outlook – After the feast

US disputes lawyers are seeking their next hunting ground as the wave of financial crisis litigation nears its end. Legal Business asks what the next big prize will be.

‘I remember a science class in high school where I watched a snake swallow its prey. Its body became distended where the food was stuck, before moving slowly towards the end of the snake. That’s where we are with the financial crisis litigation. We are really getting towards the end of the snake with all these cases.’ So says Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s New York co-head and former global co-chair of litigation, Mark Kirsch, summing up the disputes market in Manhattan today.

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Eversheds inches closer to US tie-up as Foley & Lardner emerges as front runner

Eversheds is moving closer to its much sought-after US merger, with Foley & Lardner identified as the primary candidate for a deal.

After a vote last June in which the Eversheds partnership heavily backed a US tie-up the firm’s executive, which includes chair Paul Smith and chief executive Bryan Hughes, have narrowed discussions down to two law firms. Milwaukee-based Global 100 firm Foley & Lardner, with revenues this financial  year of $665m, has emerged as a leading candidate.

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More than half of GCs expect AI to reshape their teams within five years

In-house lawyers have been notoriously slow to embrace the tech-backed delivery of legal services, but our survey of more than 600 global legal spend decision makers shows many believe technology will transform the way they work.

More than half of those surveyed expect automated legal services to have a significant impact on the way corporate legal functions serve business within the next three years.

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Sharing the pie: DLA Piper launches meritocratic remuneration review

Sector activity to become core part of pay assessment

While other major firms break their locksteps to bring in high-profile recruits, DLA Piper is going the opposite way, launching a review of its remuneration structure to encourage greater cross-selling throughout the firm.

The review is being led by co-chief executive Simon Levine, who pledged to review the firm’s remuneration system as part of his successful bid to take over from Sir Nigel Knowles last year.

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BT kicks off strategy review to overhaul internal function

BT’s in-house legal team has begun a wide-reaching strategic review on how to change its internal structure to bring its lawyers closer to the business, while the telco also prepares for its next panel review.

Chris Fowler, general counsel (GC) for UK commercial legal services, said the review will see the team ‘centrally manage the legal resource (such as litigation and certain commercial functions) but keep senior lawyers as close as possible to individual business units to act as a business partner and meet their specific business needs’.

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Commercial Dispute Resolution Survey

As Legal Business publishes its second annual Disputes Yearbook, Cornerstone Research scopes the views of in-house counsel and private practitioners to shine a light on trends within the international disputes market

At Legal Business’s first International Arbitration Summit held in London this September, esteemed practitioner Sir Frank Berman KCMG QC spoke about investor-state arbitration increasingly moving into public consciousness.

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‘Absolutely outrageous’ – Gove floats £60m-plus tax on City law firms to fund criminal courts

New justice secretary Michael Gove is set for a tussle with City lawyers after floating a plan to impose a multimillion-pound tax on commercial law firms to pay for the abolition of a controversial criminal court charge on guilty defendants.

Gove’s plan has been proposed as a means to replace the revenues generated by the court charge that was supposed to bring in between £65m and £90m annually. A report in The Times in October said that a 1% levy has been floated as a means of appeasing the Treasury. Such a levy on the top 100 UK firms, which have combined revenues of £20.64bn, would potentially generate more than £200m annually but promises to ignite controversy over arbitrary taxation of one industry.

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Shearman abandons defined-benefit scheme to defuse pensions time bomb

While some US law firms have long ignored mounting pension liabilities, relying on annual profits to pay retirees, Shearman & Sterling has become the latest firm to alter its pensions system to limit future payouts.

Shearman’s 200-strong partnership has voted to remove defined-benefit pensions for future partners, a plan that typically hands retirees an annual payment based on a percentage of their final ‘salary’.

The change was introduced in the middle of October and affects any new partner, whether a promotion or a lateral hire.

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DLA shows African ambition with dual office launch

Global 100 firm goes alone after warning alliance firms to integrate

DLA Piper’s split from South African associate firm Cliffe Dekker Hofmeyr two months ago has spurred the world’s second largest law firm into action, deciding to go it alone in Africa through launches in Morocco and Johannesburg.

The moves mark DLA’s first on-the-ground presence in Africa, having enjoyed a relationship with firms on the continent through its Africa group since 2006. The office in Casablanca is already open for business, while Johannesburg will launch by March 2016. The launches follow a warning to its associated firms that failure to integrate with the rest of the network could result in broken relationships and a competitor instead of a friend.

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La Dolce Vita: Dentons opens first Italian office with DLA hires

Dentons has opened its first office in Italy having hired 21 lawyers, including three partners from DLA Piper, as well as from a local employment law boutique.

Leading the team from DLA is the firm’s former managing director for Europe and Africa, Federico Sutti, who also previously served as Italy managing partner for more than 16 years. He joins energy partner Matteo Falcione and real estate expert Federico Vanetti. Partners Aldo Calza and Iacopo Aliverti Piuri are also joining from employment law boutique hELP, which was founded by Calza after leaving DLA Piper.

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‘Like Scotland leaving the UK’: Bank ring-fencing reforms herald big changes

Further proposals for banking reform issued last month by the Bank of England are expected to cause significant internal restructuring of in-house legal teams, with some banks effectively having two separate legal functions.

Under the reforms, banks with core deposits greater than £25bn, including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group, The Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander UK and The Co-operative Bank, will from 2019 need to separate their retail banking function from the rest of their group, which will divide the activities in the legal team. Banks are currently in a transitional phase of determining where the line is drawn between retail banking and investment banking operations.

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Disputes Yearbook 2015

Introduction

Opening Statements

Features

Pespectives

Market views

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