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Shearman & Sterling plans first African office opening

Firm prepares for association in Egypt with energy focus

US law firm Shearman & Sterling is preparing to open an office in Egypt, marking the firm’s first foray into Africa with plans for an international arbitration and projects practice.

Shearman, which has a five-partner office in Abu Dhabi handling project finance and arbitration work, and a satellite operation in Dubai, is hoping to extend its on-the-ground presence in Egypt as investors return to the country after the revolution in 2011.

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Addleshaw Goddard to establish flexible resourcing capability after strategy revamp

Addleshaw Goddard (AG) is looking to establish a flexible resourcing capability by creating a pool of qualified lawyers and paralegals to backfill gaps in services left by lawyers seconded to clients or where extra capacity is needed for discrete assignments.

The firm has already spoken to recruiters about setting up a roster of flexible workers and may expand its use in the future. It is understood that the new flexible resourcing will form part of the client development centre (CDC) headed up by key clients senior manager Greg Bott, although after an initial pilot, progress is still in the early stages. The model is seen as a first step to potentially offering a flexi-working service to clients, similar to those offered by Berwin Leighton Paisner’s Lawyers On Demand (LOD) and Pinsent Masons’ Vario network. A spokesperson for the firm added: ‘This is just one of many initiatives that we are looking at to improve our agility and operational effectiveness.’

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Tackling ‘passive disobedience’: Layton sets CC course with new strategy

CC international plan for increases in US and Asia revenue

With the partnership keen to improve retention rates and eager to re-establish itself as an iconoclastic, ambitious and imaginative business, Clifford Chance (CC) managing partner Matthew Layton has laid out the firm’s international strategy, which includes greater focus on client satisfaction, making new leadership appointments, and increasing US and Asia revenues to approximately 20% and 25% respectively over five years.

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Weil tops City partner promotions at leading Global London firms

US firms continue to break ground in London and are increasingly investing in moving their City lawyers up the partnership ranks.

Three out of Global London’s top ten US firms made over a fifth of their partner promotions in the City. Weil, Gotshal & Manges led the way with the highest percentage of partner promotions in January, having a total of 33% of its promotions round in the City. The firm recently announced strong partner profits – up 16.5% in 2014 after two disappointing years of falling profits – and stated its restructuring, finance and transactional practices in London were performing well.

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Can Cooley make good on its City ambitions?

Sarah Downey talks to chief executive Joe Conroy about its high-impact City launch

‘Eight years ago, I couldn’t get anyone to talk to me – I couldn’t even get my face slapped,’ says Cooley chief executive Joe Conroy on his attempts to establish a London presence for the Palo Alto-based leader.

It’s difficult to picture such a scenario now. Despite its late entrance in the UK, Cooley is undoubtedly a major force in the US, being well-established as one of the premier names in California’s legal technology community. After much speculation and one or two false dawns, largely due to long, drawn-out negotiations with prospective laterals, the firm announced in early January it would create a 55-lawyer UK practice, including a 15-strong partner team from Edwards Wildman’s beleaguered London office and a further five from Morrison & Foerster (MoFo).

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More outward-facing but does new leadership have a message for Pinsents?

Pinsents has delivered operational competence at the expense of flair and visibility. Kathryn McCann asks if a more outward-facing leadership team can energise a low-profile thoroughbred.

‘If you were to ask: “What’s Pinsents’ vision and where is it ultimately going?”, I’m not sure you will get a consistent answer. I myself would struggle to answer it.’

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Life During Law: Ciaran Carvalho, Nabarro

I decided I wanted to be a lawyer aged 14. My parents’ friends were looking after me while my parents were away. They didn’t have children and wondered what to do with me – we started playing around with words during a game of Scrabble and after that it turned into a career talk because I was slightly argumentative. It struck a chord.

Titmuss Sainer & Webb was a real estate firm before forming an alliance with Dechert Price & Rhoads. The London property guys were worried because they wondered what a US firm would think of real estate. For me, it was an enormous benefit. It opened my eyes to international clients, the wider world, and not just domestic practice.

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From suits to silks: the rise of the solicitor QC

The five solicitors to take Queen’s Counsel in the latest round of appointments had one thing in common: they were all arbitration specialists. While the number of solicitors taking silk remains low, the latest round, announced in January, saw the highest percentage of applicants from law firms, with 4% of the 223 applications coming from solicitors and a record percentage of successful solicitors taking silk, with 5.4% of the 93 new QCs coming from law firms.

Clifford Chance (CC)’s Audley Sheppard, Hogan Lovells’ Simon Nesbitt, Boies, Schiller & Flexner’s Wendy Miles, King & Spalding’s Thomas Sprange and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Paris-based Peter Turner all made the cut.

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A robust year for M&A shows challenge for City leaders in competing with US rivals

With no single UK law firm having made a significant impact on the US market, it was no surprise that the Magic Circle surrendered more ground to their US peers in the annual M&A league tables for 2014, given the deal splurge US corporates have been on.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Linklaters, Allen & Overy (A&O) and Clifford Chance (CC) all slipped down Thomson Reuters’ global adviser rankings for value of deals completed during 2014. Ironically, Slaughter and May, which markets to clients and US law firms for UK advisory spots on US deals, was the only Magic Circle firm to rise up the law firm rankings for global M&A, jumping from 28th to 12th.

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Cultural revolution: will the UK Anti-Corruption Plan create a US enforcement regime?

Michael West reports on how a shift in enforcement will herald a raft of new advisory work

At the tail end of last year, the government launched its long-awaited UK Anti-Corruption Plan, a disparate collection of actions, initiatives and priorities aimed at improving the UK’s transparency, strengthening investigation powers and toughening enforcement options. The strategy, if implemented, will mean an increasing workload for defence lawyers and further overhaul of companies’ compliance regimes.

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Slaughters, Davis Polk and Skadden cash in on Shire’s biggest ever takeover

Dublin-headquartered Shire, took to the January sales with the $1.5bn it received in a break-fee from US pharma giant AbbVie following the collapse of their proposed $55bn tie-up late last year, securing the acquisition of biotech firm NPS Pharma.

The company returned to Slaughter and May, which drafted the AbbVie break-fee due to the political climate around tax inversion deals, to advise on the purchase of biotech NPS for $5.2bn. The deal is Shire’s largest-ever acquisition and comes amid increased pressure to deliver shareholder value.

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The firm most likely – can anything halt Latham’s global rise?

The most upwardly mobile member of the international elite has handed its leadership to a ‘global hawk’. Can anything halt the rise of Latham & Watkins?

At the end of a lengthy call mulling the prospects of Latham & Watkins amid a once-in-a-generation change of leadership, one Allen & Overy partner summarises: ‘They’re still doing better than we are though! Can you hand Bill [Voge] my CV when you see him!’

Indeed. To many neutral observers, Latham has been the most upwardly mobile firm in the upper echelons of the global legal market in the last 20 years, having transformed itself into an international force after deciding to go international in 2000. This rise was overseen by long-term head Bob Dell, one of the most forward thinking and admired leaders in the US legal market. Having led the firm for 20 years, Dell in January handed over as chair and managing partner to fellow Latham veteran Bill Voge (pictured).

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Birmingham’s £307m NEC sale puts the limelight on Eversheds, WLG and Gateley

Lloyds’ private equity arm acquires landmark event venue

Birmingham City Council brought in the New Year with one of its largest ever sales with Eversheds, Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co (WLG) and Gateley all winning mandates on the sale of the National Exhibition Centre (NEC) to Lloyds Banking Group’s private equity arm LDC.

WLG acted for the council on the £307m deal, which is for all NEC Group businesses except the leases of the Hilton Metropole and Crowne Plaza hotels. That included a 125-year lease for the NEC site itself plus a 25-year leasehold interest in the International Convention Centre and Barclaycard Arena. The transaction involved a substantial amount of property work as well as corporate aspects and saw Eversheds act for LDC, with Gateley for the management.

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Dentons becomes world’s most lawyered firm with Dacheng tie-up

Firms set to create a 6,600-lawyer, $1.7bn law firm giant

In a bid to create the world’s largest firm by lawyer headcount, Dentons is to combine with China’s biggest firm, Dacheng Law Offices, to form a 6,600-lawyer giant operating under a Swiss verein structure.

With offices across over 50 countries, combined revenues will be in the region of $1.7bn. At the end of the financial year 2013/14, Dentons’ turnover was $1.3bn, while Dacheng confirmed that its revenues currently stand at $400m, although revenues were reported to have hit just RMB1.78bn ($287m) in the 2013 financial year. The firm will have revenue per lawyer of $257,000, compared to $769,000 across the Global 100. Both partnerships confirmed the tie-up in late January, although at the time of press, both firms were awaiting approval from Chinese regulators.

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Withers targets Asia through new Australian presence

The end of 2014 saw two Legal Business 100 firms open international offices targeting new markets. Private client leader Withers launched in Australia, creating Withers SBL through an alliance with Sydney tax practice Balazs Lazanas & Welch (BLW) and Melbourne-based corporate boutique SBL Shmith, while Penningtons Manches set its sights on the US with the opening of its first overseas office in San Francisco’s financial district.

Withers has hired immigration law partner Rita Chowdhury to head up, on its side, the alliance with its Australian partners BLW, which was established in 2009 by three former Baker & McKenzie tax partners and SBL Shmith, a Melbourne boutique led by former Ashurst corporate partner Justin Shmith.

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Succession planning: RBS and Barclays lose their GCs

Last month saw both Barclays and The Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) put succession planning into place as global general counsel (GC) of corporate and investment banking at Barclays, Judith Shepherd, announced she would step down in the first half of 2015, while RBS’s group GC Chris Campbell was replaced as he prepares to retire.

Shepherd had risen steadily through the ranks, having joined as deputy group GC in 2006 from US firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, where she was a partner specialising in M&A, particularly public takeovers and cross-border securities issues.

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Client profile: Neil Harnby, Royal Mail Group

The postal service provider’s GC on unique legal work for an iconic British institution

As general counsel (GC) of Royal Mail, it would be fair to say that Neil Harnby’s corporate calendar over the last three years has been busier than most: a privatisation, a panel review, an inaugural corporate bond and an Ofcom-led Competition Act investigation are just some of the set-piece activities he has faced since joining the company in January 2012.

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The blessed – unheralded, Wall Street’s elite comes roaring back

New York’s legal elite re-asserted themselves through 2014, reaping the benefits of a bountiful market for high-end work. Have they done enough to preserve their legacies?

On a crisp September morning, the sun shines brightly from the newly refurbished rooftop offices of Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher, 55 floors up on Park Avenue. There is no hustle on this terrace and time for a few photos of the stunning view. Even with the long trail of cars far below dividing the city, it is a calm place. The calm, of course, is utterly deceptive. 2014 was a breakthrough year for top Wall Street law firms. In the streets and offices in Midtown and Wall Street, the market is buzzing and no-one is benefiting more than the traditional legal lords of New York.

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Strangling the golden goose – English law needs reform

Slaughter and May’s Nigel Boardman, James Shirbin and Andrew Blake argue that English law needs drastic reform to remain internationally competitive

English law occupies a privileged position. Thanks in significant part to the City’s role as a major global financial centre, England has become the jurisdiction of choice for many enterprises and deals (and subsequent disputes) that may otherwise have little territorial connection to the UK. The primary beneficiaries of this happy arrangement have been London’s major commercial law firms, who have received a steady flow of major transactional and litigious work.

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