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Strategic Recruitment: The Product

The debate over the value of partner recruitment has intensified in recent years. Legal Business analyses hiring trends at top 50 firms and assesses the link between lateral hiring and financial performance

The mixed fortunes of law firms in recruiting partners can be summed up using a simple compare and contrast exercise. Compare the fanfare surrounding Kirkland & Ellis’ May hire of leveraged finance heavyweight Stephen Lucas from Weil, Gotshal & Manges and contrast it with, at the other end of the spectrum, this observation on one top 100 UK firm: ‘A firm can either pay more, or accept someone who is slightly mental but has a book of business. Continue reading “Strategic Recruitment: The Product”

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The last word – strategic recruitment

From disastrous due diligence to delusions of grandeur, leaders from LB100 firms and senior recruitment specialists give their take on making lateral hires work.

Bigger picture

‘Be patient and think long term. Moving firms isn’t easy for anyone. It never works out exactly how you’d planned it and the client market can shift significantly, but if the character fit, quality, strategic fit and business fit were right at the outset, then it should come good in the long term. In the meantime, the profit-sharing system needs the flexibility to accommodate this.  Continue reading “The last word – strategic recruitment”

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Strategic Recruitment: What Lies Beneath

More law firms are formally vetting potential senior recruits. Legal Business investigates the growth – and controversies – of partner due diligence.

The legacy of failed lateral hires can damage reputations and even affect the finances of a firm, and this can be particularly galling when the failure is down to an absence of basic due diligence, or that process is flawed. Even the most established firms can get things badly wrong. One recruitment consultant recalls the time a Magic Circle partner called an old law school colleague for their opinion on a potential candidate. As it turned out, the old school chum was the potential recruit’s current boss.

Continue reading “Strategic Recruitment: What Lies Beneath”

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The Programme – how Dundas & Wilson fits into the CMS masterplan

With a takeover of Dundas & Wilson under its belt and a barrage of post-Lehman re-engineering in place, CMS Cameron McKenna hopes it can secure its breakthrough globally and at home. LB investigates a complex beast that some of its own partners don’t understand.

On 10 December the London partners of Dundas & Wilson were called home. Given the dramatic nose-dive that had afflicted Scotland’s proudest legal institution in the previous five years, expectations were that this would herald drastic action to revive its fortunes.

Continue reading “The Programme – how Dundas & Wilson fits into the CMS masterplan”

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Portugal – A New Hope

Portugal’s European bailout is over and its privatisation programme is winding down. Legal Business asks the country’s lawyers what happens next.

While the instances in which Europe’s ailing economies have been talking up their prospects have been as frequent as rain storms this past year, Portugal has more reason than most to be bullish. It exited the European Union (EU)/International Monetary Fund (IMF) bailout programme at the end of last month; activity levels and employment figures are exceeding expectations; and the government aims to reduce the budget gap further in 2015.

Continue reading “Portugal – A New Hope”

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Second Best – The Pros and Cons of Borrowing Your Talent

The secondment has long been leant on by corporates to plug holes in their resources but, as the economy recovers and law firms’ resources become strained, does the model still deliver?

Often billed as a win-win for resource-strapped in-house teams and private practice firms looking to deepen their client relationships, secondments are arguably also a convenient window dressing for clients to get something for nothing in the name of relationship building.

Continue reading “Second Best – The Pros and Cons of Borrowing Your Talent”

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Life During Law: Nilufer von Bismarck

There were different challenges during the downturn, you had to look to different markets. Challenges are always there and you are always after that next deal or that new client. I don’t think you could be here for 24 years without still being ambitious for that.

Working on the bailout was very intense – almost surreal, sitting in the Treasury trying to figure out how best it should be done. There was a deadline for having to announce something before the markets opened on the Monday. We all started on Saturday morning and worked all the way through to Monday morning. There were three banks we were looking at: RBS, Lloyds and HBOS, and then the Lloyds/HBOS combination. Each had a different thing to think about, they all had their own lawyers so there were three sets of documentation. The challenges faced and the creativity needed to get that off the ground were a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

Continue reading “Life During Law: Nilufer von Bismarck”

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DISSENT: A self-deceiving return to business as usual

RSG’s Reena SenGupta argues an improving economic climate is leading top law firms to wrongly assume the ‘new’ normal is the same as the old one

In 2010, Georgetown University, under the direction of Professor Milton Regan, held a conference of academics, practitioners and leading thinkers on the profession. To delegates, the atmosphere was heady; change was palpable in the room.

There were no dissenting voices. People knew that there was no turning back for the legal profession. Legal services would be unbundled, equity structures in law firms would change, clients would exert their buying power and demand radically different fee arrangements, Chinese law firms would stride onto the global stage and new technologies and service providers would fundamentally alter the law firm business model. It was going to be, as the title of the conference predicted, a brave new world.

Continue reading “DISSENT: A self-deceiving return to business as usual”

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Associate pay 2014 – ‘A good year’ sees CC boost salaries and bonuses across the board

Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance (CC) has significantly raised its salary package for its newly qualified (NQ) lawyers and junior ranks.

Salaries will be raised across the board, with first year trainees seeing an increase from £39,000 to £40,500 while year two trainees will receive an extra £1,500 to £45,500. Continue reading “Associate pay 2014 – ‘A good year’ sees CC boost salaries and bonuses across the board”

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Zoopla! Freshfields and Slaughter and May line up for £1bn float of the UK’s second biggest property website

The anticipated £1bn initial public offering (IPO) of the UK’s second largest online property website has seen Magic Circle firms Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Slaughter and May retained to advise as Zoopla prepares to list on the main market later this month. Continue reading “Zoopla! Freshfields and Slaughter and May line up for £1bn float of the UK’s second biggest property website”

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Asia-Pacific: Taylor Wessing launches in South Korea with local tie-up

Taylor Wessing last month became the latest international firm to set up in South Korea, establishing an association with local full-service firm DR & AJU International Law Group.

Founded in 1994 and one of the region’s ten largest law firms, DR & AJU will add 120 lawyers, including 18 partners, to Taylor Wessing’s international reach. The Seoul-headquartered firm also provides offices across Russia, Kazakhstan and Singapore, and services in M&A, litigation and various corporate matters.

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In-house: Ben Sherman’s GC moves to Myla; DfT’s former GC Muttukumaru joins Monckton

Lee Gage has left Ben Sherman after five years as general counsel (GC) to join luxury lingerie retailer Myla in the same role. His move comes as Monckton Chambers yesterday (3 June) announced the arrival of the Department for Transport’s (DFT’s) former GC Christopher Muttukumaru as a tenant. Continue reading “In-house: Ben Sherman’s GC moves to Myla; DfT’s former GC Muttukumaru joins Monckton”