Osborne Clarke (OC), after being the fastest growing firm in the LB100 last year with a 26% rise in revenue to €169m, has consolidated that increase and posted another strong result for 2014/15 of €195m, up a further 15%.
‘The first phase’: EY launches financial regulatory service with Bakers hire and 11-strong team
EY Law is set to launch a financial regulatory practice in the City with the hire of Baker & McKenzie financial services partner Steven Francis, alongside an 11-strong team of lawyers.
Taking the plunge: Gateley set to be UK’s first firm to float
After Australian-listed Slater & Gordon demonstrated the benefits of greater access to capital by using a share offer to part fund its £637m Quindell acquisition, Gateley has confirmed it is set to gain the same advantages by floating on the London Stock Exchange’s AIM listing this year.
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Listing in London – King & Spalding carries US biotech to AIM listing
King & Spalding’s recent recruits in the City have helped handle Californian biotech company Verseon £300m stock market listing in London while Covington & Burling advised from San Francisco.
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Comment: Going native – ethics and the modern GC
The in-house profession has doubled in size in the UK over the last 15 years and gained once unthinkable levels of influence in delivering legal services to corporate Britain. And what have the profession and its watchdogs done to recognise that seismic shift in the legal industry, with all its far-reaching ethical implications? Pretty much nothing.
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Frontbench reshuffles: Gove replaces Grayling at MoJ as Lord Falconer set to shadow
Former education secretary Michael Gove has replaced Chris Grayling (pictured) as Secretary of State for Justice as part of Prime Minister David Cameron’s post-election reshuffle while Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher partner, Lord Falconer, has been named as the Labour Party’s opposition spokesperson for the ministry.
Hiring the team: 15-strong group exits Simpson & Marwick to join Brodies
Scottish firm Simpson & Marwick’s well-regarded, 15-strong, family law team, including its current head Shaun George, has quit the firm to join Brodies.
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Can Clydes seal the deal? Firm in advanced merger talks with Simpson & Marwick
Following the failed merger attempt between Scottish firm Simpson & Marwick and Kennedys in 2013, UK top-20 firm Clyde & Co is hoping to seal the deal this time having confirmed it is in advanced merger talks with the Scots outfit.
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Coming off the naughty step: Bakers’ Jonathan Walsh charts the quiet rehabilitation of asset-backed lending
Securitisation has taken a battering in recent years. A complex financing technique, little understood by the public, it was an easy scapegoat as a principal cause of the global financial crisis. For a while after the crisis it seemed as if various supervisory authorities would regulate it to the point of extinction.
Poll-axed: The City gets shock election result it wanted but EU vote looms after Conservative sweep
It has turned out to be the biggest election upset since 1992 and months of polling have been proved wrong but as the final results from the 2015 UK general election come in, the Conservative Party looks highly likely to win enough support to secure a working majority.
A Noble pursuit – DLA Piper launches corp fin boutique to build TMT profile
DLA Piper has made its first foray into the consultancy business, launching corporate finance advisory arm Noble Street to focus on media and sports ventures that have been neglected by traditional banks.
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‘A curious atmosphere of consensus’ – HSF fraud veteran Robert Hunter on how smart teams can make bad decisions
Many admire John Kennedy and his advisers’ deft handling of the Cuban missile crisis. It is generally thought to result from some of the best-judged decisions of the era. Yet a year earlier, much the same group of people decided to support the Bay of Pigs invasion (a crackpot scheme for the invasion of Cuba in which the US pitted 1,600 men against 200,000), conversely thought of as one of the most idiotic.
Simmons & Simmons votes through new business plan targeting stronger US links and looking after the ‘crown jewels’
In a unanimous vote, Simmons & Simmons has voted through a new three-year business plan with a focus on strengthening referral relationships in the US, transforming its partner-client relationships and committing to a set of firm-wide values.
Legal Business Awards – GC Power List 2015 Reception
On 24 March 2015 Legal Business held the GC Power List 2015 reception, sponsored by RPC, Barclay Simpson and Thomson Reuters at the Grosvenor Hotel, London.
Photos from the event can be viewed here.
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‘They embody what we stand for’: OC takes partnership to over 200 with five UK promotions
Osborne Clarke (OC) has promoted five associate directors to its UK partnership, taking its total number of partners past the 200 mark for the first time.
Electoral maths: Partners at top firms to pay £42k more under Labour tax plans while associates are set to gain whoever wins
Law firm partners at major City firms are facing the prospect of a substantive hike in tax if the Labour Party forms a government in this month’s general election with current manifesto pledges expected to see many partners at LB100 firms with a five-figure increase in their annual tax bill.
Keeping the talent: Clifford Chance votes through changes to lockstep in bid to stem flow of star partners
The partnership at Clifford Chance (CC) has voted through proposed changes to its remuneration system which will see the firm deploy a more flexible lockstep by stretching the top of the ladder in a bid to retain star partners.
Targeting Russia: Kennedys launches in Moscow with former Clyde & Co Russian insurance head
Following troubled markets in Russia across 2014, a handful of firms have signalled a renewed interest in the region, with Kennedys being the most recent to set up a Russian base.
Legal boutiques: unheralded, thriving and coming after your lunch
The rise of boutiques has been yet another development shaping the legal industry that no-one predicted. Conventional wisdom for years held that law firms should go global or specialise but that was largely in the context of mid-tier players becoming more tightly defined around a handful of profitable practice areas (which pretty much hasn’t happened either).
What we have seen instead – as we address this month – is a flourishing of highly specialised and lean law firms launched or expanded since the financial crisis reshaped the market. Obviously, much of this is due to the post-
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Going native – ethics and the modern GC
The in-house profession has doubled in size in the UK over the last 15 years and gained once unthinkable levels of influence in delivering legal services to corporate Britain. And what have the profession and its watchdogs done to recognise that seismic shift in the legal industry, with all its far-reaching ethical implications? Pretty much nothing.
As Legal Business reported last month, a band of academics and in-house veterans are trying to fill this void with the report, ‘Legal Risk: Definition, Management and Ethics’, billed as the start of a wider conversation around the ethical standards and framework that in-house counsel employ.