Will the real Clifford Chance (CC) stand up? It is, after all, a key moment for what was not that long ago the world’s most influential law firm but working out what it stands for now can be a challenge.
Continue reading “Comment: The Gospel according to Matthew – can CC live up to the legacy?”
Some 200 judges have taken the first step towards suing the UK government, claiming that changes to the judicial pension scheme that will cut the amount paid to those born after 1 April 1957 are discriminatory.
Continue reading “200 judges claim discrimination over UK government’s planned pension cuts”
National firm Shoosmiths has returned to its pre-financial crisis highs, breaking the £100m mark in revenues for the 2014/15 financial year and profit per equity partner (PEP) jumping 44% to £416,000.
City outfit Travers Smith has become the latest UK law firm to post strong results for the past financial year, registering a 9% rise in revenue to break the £100m boundary.
With €31bn in debt having been issued through private placements (PP) in Europe in 2014, O’Melveny & Myers has made a strategic move in the sector by hiring White & Case PP specialist Andrew Weiler to heads up its European M&A and corporate finance practice.
Innovation is a word much bandied around in the law without always a clear idea of what it means. Many lawyers or PR people have called me up over the years to proclaim their latest exciting innovation, only for me to point out that plenty of people have been doing the same thing for ages.
Continue reading “Guest post: The innovation perspective – get the right end of the telescope”
Given that it has long been a part of the sales pitch for English courts that they have the specialist judges to handle complex commercial matters – and London’s status as one of the world’s leading finance centres – it’s strange that it has taken this long. But it has been confirmed this week that the UK is to create a financial court to handle major banking disputes at The Rolls Building in London.
When I qualified (was it really 30 years ago?) I had this impression about how law firms worked. The partnership was made up of different people. There were the technical geniuses – the lawyers who were the equivalent of the rocket scientists at the investment banks. There were the managers who made things work, like meeting the deadlines. Then there were the rainmakers.
It’s long been a trusted technique for major corporates to ship in public figures for advisory roles to open doors and bring a touch of geopolitical gravitas to the table but so far the idea has rarely made it to law. But Linklaters has decided to borrow from the plc playbook with the appointment of former UK Foreign Secretary William Hague to a newly created ‘International Advisory Group’ in a bid to bring in an ‘external perspective’ on the firm’s strategy.
Continue reading “Linklaters borrows plc playbook to bring in Hague as door-opener-in-chief”
Having spent a reasonable chunk of my pundit duties over the last three years noting significant shifts against London’s elite on the global stage, I confess I had expected financial results this year to break that pattern with City leaders managing a more confident showing. Particularly as the Global 100 firms collectively grew revenues by 5% to $92.7bn, while profits increased 7% to $36.43bn.
Pound for pound one of the most successful UK firms in financial terms over the last five years, Macfarlanes has once again posted an impressive set of figures with double-digit growth in both revenue and profits for the second year running. At £1.55m, Macfarlanes’ profit per equity partner (PEP) is now stronger than all of the big four Magic Circle firms.
King & Wood Mallesons has wrapped up a review of its 170-strong partnership across Europe and the Middle East with plans to remove underperforming partners.
Withers has made up fewer lawyers to partner this year, reducing its round from seven to five, at the end of an intense period of international growth for the private client heavyweight.
Continue reading “Withers promotes five to partnership amid period of rapid international expansion”
In what will inevitably bring more work for competition lawyers acting for Asian clients in Europe, the EU’s highest court has upheld the European Commission’s €288m fine handed to Taiwanese electronics company Innolux in a ruling that puts the reach of EU competition law at odds with other antitrust regulators worldwide.
Continue reading “Landmark European court ruling to open floodgates for EU competition teams”
Ahead of its recently announced tie-up in Canada, Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co has posted turnover of £181m for its first full financial year post-merger, a moderate revenue increase of 5% over the combined results of the legacy firms Wragge & Co and Lawrence Graham.
Continue reading “Financials 2014/15: Wragge reveals £181m turnover for first full year post-merger”
The lift bank on my floor is the perfect length for a cricket pitch. My son’s old school cricket bat gets used and at 10pm it can be dangerous, as there is quite possibly a golf ball being chipped down the corridor. I have a number of dents outside my office. There is some valuable artwork on that wall, but nobody’s succeeded in hitting it yet.
I trained at Simpson Curtis in Leeds in the early 1980s, because I swore I would never come down to London. I just wasn’t going to come down to this nasty part of the world where it was a case of one-up-over-the-Joneses.
Continue reading “Life during law: Mark Darley, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom”
Pressure to cut costs and innovate, alongside an increasingly robust regulatory environment, has squeezed the UK insurance industry in recent years. How are in-house teams faring in an ultra-competitive market?
The UK insurance market is the third largest in the world, according to the Association of British Insurers, yet it is struggling to make money. Despite taking a battering, the industry has weathered the global financial crisis far better than its counterparts in other financial services and, while it has successfully avoided many of the high-profile difficulties that have undone retail banks in recent years, the retail insurance industry now finds itself in a new era of challenges.
Continue reading “Squeezed – the insurance industry and the modern GC”
With Asia overtaking Europe as the second-most wealthy region in the world, the pressure is on global private client practices to follow the money. Legal Business assesses the front runners.
Whenever money changes hands, disputes follow. Between now and 2025, predictions are that 90% of the world’s private wealth will have new owners. An awful lot of money is on the move and, in large part, that cash is set to transfer down the family line of ultra-high-net-worth individuals (UHNWI) – those with more than $30m in assets – typically from patriarchs to their offspring. Along with all this wealth will come the inevitable trust disputes.
Continue reading “Trust and estates litigation – The great leap forward”
More than 160 senior litigators and GCs came together for Legal Business’ first Commercial Litigation Summit on 13 May in central London. We bring you comprehensive coverage of the day’s debates.
A busy US deal market saw rainmakers pack a bigger punch than ever at the world’s largest law firms but the contest remains tough for aspiring firms. Legal Business separates the champs from the contenders.
Linklaters managing partner Simon Davies chooses his words carefully when describing his partnership’s feelings on the City giant’s performance in 2014/15: ‘they appear content’. The Magic Circle collectively went into the financial year with considerable hopes of rekindling their momentum after a long grind through the post-banking crisis wilderness.
