While mid-tier firms continue to reveal solid returns for the 2014/15 financial year, those focused on insurance are suffering from the challenges in the sector with Ince & Co posting a drop in revenues and Kennedys revealing 1% turnover growth.
Dealwatch: Skadden and Freshfields make the news on Pearson’s FT sale
Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer have both won lead roles advising on Pearson’s £844m sale of the Financial Times.
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Guest post: Who’s afraid of IBM Watson? Machine learning and the future of law
Recently in New York, Adam Smith Esq had the opportunity to invite a couple of dozen law firms to ‘An Introduction to IBM Watson’ at the brand new $1bn IBM Watson facility down on Astor Place. This is not going to be a report on that event, except insofar as it helped advance our thinking on the general concept of ‘machine learning,’ which was also the topic of a lead article in the current McKinsey Quarterly.
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Trowers UK revenues support 3% turnover growth as international offering goes into reverse
UK top-50 firm Trowers & Hamlins has recovered from the mixed set of financial results last year but is yet to match previous form as the firm posted revenues of £79.4m for the 2014/15 financial year – up on last year but still down 11% on a five year view.
Former News International adviser Abramson found in breach of solicitor practice rules as Chapman cleared
Having been plagued by allegations of cover-ups in the high profile phone hacking scandal, former News International adviser Lawrence Abramson has been found in breach of the Solicitors Practice rules by the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) on one out of three accounts, while all allegations against the newspaper group’s former legal director Jonathan Chapman have been dismissed.
Frontrunners emerge at Linklaters in race for managing partner
Finance & projects head Michael Kent and global banking chief Gideon Moore have emerged as the frontrunners to succeed Simon Davies (pictured) as managing partner of Linklaters with a replacement set to be elected by November.
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A&O boosts Spanish office ranks as it hires Ashurst’s banking head
After having launched a second office in Spain last year, Allen & Overy (A&O) has continued to build its offering in the country by recruiting finance partner Juan Hormaechea from Ashurst, where he most recently led the Spanish banking and international finance department.
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Supreme Court finds conditional fee agreements in line with human rights treaty
In a decision providing certainty to recovering litigation costs, the Supreme Court has ruled that the costs regime put in place by the Access to Justice Act 1999 (AJA) complies with European Convention on Human Rights.
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Guest post: Enforcing a patent is an abuse of process, except where it isn’t
Last week the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) delivered its judgment (16 July) in Case C-170/13 Huawei Technologies v ZTE on a matter of great concern to the standard-essential patent (SEP) community.
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PLMJ focuses on international expansion as it elects new managing partner
Portuguese firm PLMJ has elected a new managing partner, Luís Pais Antunes (pictured), with a remit to focus on further international expansion and developing partnerships with other law firms over his three year term.
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Regulators look to cut ABS red tape in Legal Services Act reform push
The Legal Services Board, along with the other legal sector regulators, has published suggestions to reform the Legal Services Act 2007 to make enforcement action easier to undertake and to cut red tape for alternative business structures (ABS).
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Standard Chartered appoints acting global legal head while group GC Fein wins new role in management reshuffle
Standard Chartered has appointed an acting global head of legal and compliance as incumbent Jamie Kelly goes on sabbatical while the bank’s group general counsel (GC) office has been reorganised amid the large scale overhaul of management by new chief executive Bill Winters.
Q&A: CMS Cameron McKenna managing partner Weston on ‘making sure high quality firms understand what CMS is’
With an election for the top leadership job looming at CMS Cameron McKenna, the firm’s incumbent managing partner Duncan Weston (pictured) talks to Sarah Downey about the firm’s performance, targeting Asia and securing an elusive US merger.
Comment: Momentum – the little-discussed magic that can lead to big success
Momentum versus quality. That’s the question for the upper reaches of the legal industry that is never on the lips of managing partners but probably should be. The industry likes to focus on partnership models, strategies, practices, geographic spread and culture. These are all fine up to a point but as major determinants of success, they get too much air time.
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‘A broad-based City professional services firm’: RPC breaks into insurance and financial consulting with software business buy
In a move to widen it offering to its insurance clients, RPC’s consulting arm has branched out from a legal and management focus and into insurance and financial consultancy work with the purchase of UK-based software business Marriott Sinclair.
Dealwatch: Linklaters and Ashurst lead on Schneider Electric’s £1.3bn reverse takeover of Aveva
A four-partner team from Linklaters advised France’s Schneider Electric on its £1.3bn reverse takeover of UK engineering software company and Ashurst-client Aveva.
‘It has certainly shown its teeth’: Fraud specialists fear SFO budget cuts put agency’s progress at risk
The Serious Fraud Office’s (SFO) annual report has shown improvements on last year, both in its levels of activity and the number of convictions achieved but white collar crime specialists are worried that planned budget cuts of 34% will ‘put that progress at risk.’.
Revolving Doors: US firms kick-on with big hires as Clydes invests Stateside
As firms move to finalise their lateral hires before the holiday season starts, a string of US hires were wrapped up last week as Cooley brought in Reed Smith’s global head of corporate and securities in a four-partner hire to grow on both sides of the States, while Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton launched an antitrust practice in the City. Meanwhile, UK firm Clyde & Co went in the other direction to grow its US offering.
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Slaughter and May’s trainee retention slips to 89% for 2015 autumn intake
The first Magic Circle to report its trainee intake numbers for autumn 2015, Slaughter and May has revealed it is keeping on 33 trainees out of a cohort of 37 – unusually low for the firm which regularly posts rates of over 90%.
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A&O and Freshfields win big on 888’s £900m purchase of Bwin after bidding battle
Magic Circle duo Allen & Overy (A&O) and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer acted as the bidding battle for online gambling company Bwin.Party Digital Entertainment came to an end today (17 July) with 888 beating GVC to acquire the FTSE 250-listed rival for £898m.
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