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Host of top 100 firms disclose increase in turnover as profit proves a more variable metric

A host of UK top 100 legal firms including Holman Fenwick Willan, Ward Hadaway, Gateley, Shoosmiths and Sacker & Partners have all reported revenue increases for 2012/13 amidst highly variable profit figures.

Top 30 UK firm Holman Fenwick Willan has seen its turnover increase by 13.8% at the 2012/13 year-end to £141m, while net profit jumped by 17% to £38m, up from £32.4m the previous year. However average profit per equity partner (PEP) at the 450-lawyer firm climbed by a modest 1% from £525,000 to £530,000, largely a result of the addition of 10 new equity partners over the past year, taking the total to 72. Continue reading “Host of top 100 firms disclose increase in turnover as profit proves a more variable metric”

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Comment: The Asian century maybe but not the Asian decade for the Global 100

The market for the world’s largest law firms remains as reliably turbulent as ever. As this month’s edition of Legal Business shows, top 100 law firms in the world as a whole eked out a 4% hike in revenues to generate $84.9bn, a figure slightly flattering underlying growth due to a handful of sizeable mergers – including the creation of Herbert Smith Freehills and King & Wood Mallesons. Revenue per lawyer was flat. In real terms, the world’s legal elite is once again flat or modestly shrinking and headline income growth slowed in comparison to the 2011/12 year. Conditions remain considerably better than seen during 2009/10 but are a long way from pre-2008 boom years. Continue reading “Comment: The Asian century maybe but not the Asian decade for the Global 100”

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India calling: Freshfields and Linklaters make key India hires as Amarchand opens up its partnership

The periodic excitement over the liberalisation of the Indian legal market may currently be reduced to background chatter but the past fews days have been a reminder that the top UK firms continue to position themselves for India work while leading local firms are themselves bulking up and adopting far more expansive strategies.

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has appointed Linklaters’ Arun Balasubramanian to co-head the firm’s India group out of Singapore, working alongside Pratap Amin, chairman of Freshfields’ India group. Continue reading “India calling: Freshfields and Linklaters make key India hires as Amarchand opens up its partnership”

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Deal Watch: Slaughters, Dentons, Taylor Wessing and Nabarro act on high profile European deals

Europe and particularly the UK has thrown up a number of high profile mandates from the nationally significant restructuring of UK Coal through to the solid £500m private equity buyout of Chesapeake by the Carlyle Group.

Nabarro has led for UK Coal on the corporate, insolvency and pension elements of a second restructuring following a devastating fire at the company’s Daw Mill in February. The company accounts for 5% of the UK’s energy needs and as a result of the restructuring over 2,000 jobs and the pensions of 7,000 members have been protected. Continue reading “Deal Watch: Slaughters, Dentons, Taylor Wessing and Nabarro act on high profile European deals”

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Litigation heads from Lloyds Banking and Pinsent Masons leave for US and South African LPO providers

US legal process outsourcing (LPO) provider Clutch has signalled its intentions to expand its UK presence with the hire of Lloyds Banking Group retail and wealth dispute resolution head Aamir Khan as its general counsel and senior director for the UK and Europe.

The move comes as South African LPO rival Exigent today announced it has hired Pinsent Masons head of litigation Nigel Kissack to join its board as global strategy consultant. Continue reading “Litigation heads from Lloyds Banking and Pinsent Masons leave for US and South African LPO providers”

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Guest post: Abu Qatada – a victory for pragmatism and the rule of law

Only a matter of weeks ago, politicians were seriously discussing the possibility that the UK might need to withdraw from the European Convention on Human Rights in order to be rid of Abu Qatada. Yet this weekend we saw him board a plane to Jordan – and no human rights treaties were harmed. It’s a triumph for Theresa May, who deserves credit for a significant achievement. Continue reading “Guest post: Abu Qatada – a victory for pragmatism and the rule of law”

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Asia Round-up: Field Fisher launches in Shanghai while Global 100 leaders position themselves in Hong Kong and Dubai

Field Fisher Waterhouse has joined forces with Ryser & Associates in Shanghai while a show of strength among the Global 100 leaders in Hong Kong over the past week has seen Jones Day, Dentons and DLA Piper bolster their finance and capital markets capability.

Field Fisher announced yesterday (8 July) that it has launched in Shanghai under the brand Field Fisher Ryser. Ryser & Associates was formed in 2004 with a focus on intellectual property and corporate. Continue reading “Asia Round-up: Field Fisher launches in Shanghai while Global 100 leaders position themselves in Hong Kong and Dubai”

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Pioneering Lawyers On Demand business secures high profile ex FT general counsel to plot growth

Former Financial Times general counsel Tim Bratton is set to join the Berwin Leighton Paisner-backed Lawyers on Demand (LOD) in September as practice development director. Jonathan Brenner (pictured), co-founder of LOD, told Legal Business he was ‘delighted’ to get the high profile Bratton on board.

Bratton joins in a newly-created role to help drive the growth of the legal service provider with in-house teams and law firms.

Continue reading “Pioneering Lawyers On Demand business secures high profile ex FT general counsel to plot growth”

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UK financial roll call: Wragge & Co, Hill Dicks, Watson Farley and Trowers reveal 2012/13 numbers

The UK top 100 financial roll call has seen Wragge & Co, Watson, Farley & Williams, Trowers & Hamlins and Hill Dickinson unveil their financial results for 2012/13, with a number suffering a significant dent in their profit figures.

Watson Farley broke through the £100m revenue barrier, reporting a firm-wide increase of 2% to £102.1m, up on last year’s £99.8m. However, PEP has dropped by 13% to £388,000 from £446,000 in 2012. Continue reading “UK financial roll call: Wragge & Co, Hill Dicks, Watson Farley and Trowers reveal 2012/13 numbers”

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Simmons sees marginal drop in turnover and PEP

Simmons & Simmons has released its financial results for 2012-13, posting a slight dip in revenues from £251.7m to £250.3m while profit per equity partner (PEP) is down from £529,000 to £525,000 – a drop of about 0.6% – following a year of international expansion.

The financial results, which remain unaudited since their appearance in the Global 100 last week in which Simmons ranks in 93rd place, show that the firm’s net income has remained largely static, up from £66.2m in 2011-12 to £66.3m in 2012-13. Continue reading “Simmons sees marginal drop in turnover and PEP”

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Revolving Doors: HSF and SJ Berwin hire finance management team as Covington and Cleary bring in litigation partners

Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has filled its two most senior finance slots with the hire of Kirkland and Ellis finance chief Nick Willmott as its new chief financial officer (CFO) and Paul Roberts from BDO as its finance director.

Wilmott, who will join HSF in September, will be responsible for overseeing integration at the recently merged firm from the perspective of the global business finance function. He has been at Chicago-based Kirkland since 2004, before which he held senior finance positions at Pepsi and real estate services firm Jones Lang LaSalle, where much of his work was focused on merger integration. Continue reading “Revolving Doors: HSF and SJ Berwin hire finance management team as Covington and Cleary bring in litigation partners”

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Comment: SJ Berwin’s choice – to soar or crash with an Asian giant

If you are going to finally do a global merger, it would be fitting for one of the most distinctive City practices to hook up with the great outlier of the Global 100. That is what is on the agenda for SJ Berwin as it this summer mulls an outline deal to combine with King & Wood Mallesons (KWM), the ground-breaking union between the top commercial law firms in China and Australia. Continue reading “Comment: SJ Berwin’s choice – to soar or crash with an Asian giant”

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Clifford Chance underperforms Magic Circle with 9% drop in PEP

Clifford Chance (CC) has underperformed its Magic Circle rivals in its 2012/13 results as the firm today announced a 2.5% decline in revenue to £1,271m and a 9% drop in profit per equity partner (PEP) to £1m.

The firm, which has expanded the number of equity partners year-on-year from 379 in 2010-11 to 411 in the past financial year, pointed to factors including the predicted Eurozone crisis together with a slowdown in the Asia-Pacific market and a change of political leadership in China as having a negative impact on its bottom line.

Continue reading “Clifford Chance underperforms Magic Circle with 9% drop in PEP”

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Guest post: You could up-skill them, instead you simply canned them – the secretarial canary in the law firm coal mine

‘A really far-sighted law firm would give its secretaries the chance to ‘skill up’ and take on more responsibility, accomplishing more advanced tasks. … Change ‘secretary’ to ‘workflow manager’ or ‘logistics director,’ and you’ve accomplished three great things at once: increased the role of software in handling clerical and financial duties, reassigned your valuable secretarial help up the productivity chain, and attended to an area in which you can find real efficiencies and carve out a true competitive advantage over other firms.’

Continue reading “Guest post: You could up-skill them, instead you simply canned them – the secretarial canary in the law firm coal mine”

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Financial Friday rolls on as Eversheds unveils increase in revenue and profits during 12/13

Eversheds became the fifth major law firm to confirm its 2012/13 results today (5 July) with the top 15 UK law firm seeing revenues edge up 3% to £376m, while profits per equity partner increased 2% to hit £642,000 for its 133 full partners.

The firm cited a strong performance in its litigation practice, while its financial institutions and energy and national resources sector groups respectively expanded by 20% and 14%. A statement from Eversheds said that it had seen ‘double digit’ growth in its network in Asia and the Middle East, where the firm has been investing.

Continue reading “Financial Friday rolls on as Eversheds unveils increase in revenue and profits during 12/13”

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102 jobs to go as BLP redundancy consultation concludes – 58 legal staff depart

Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has confirmed that it has cut 102 jobs that were placed under review in May, with 58 legal staff and 44 secretarial jobs being lost.

Of those laid off, 84% took voluntary redundancy, reflecting relatively generous severance terms on offer. The redundancy review was announced on 14 May and lasted for 45 days.

The redundancy programme also included a number of additional business service roles although the 735-lawyer firm could not confirm the number affected. It said that a targeted 15% reduction in salary costs was achieved. Continue reading “102 jobs to go as BLP redundancy consultation concludes – 58 legal staff depart”

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It’s now or… later. Hogan Lovells to make decision on dual chief executive structure

Hogan Lovells’ senior management has begun discussions over whether to retain the firm’s dual US-UK chief executive (CEO) structure or continue with a single head if UK CEO David Harris steps down as expected next year.

Harris and US counterpart Warren Gorrell have opened the discussion on succession plans with the transatlantic firm’s board, which in turn will canvass the appetite of partners to move to a single leader now the merger of UK firm Lovells and Washington DC’s Hogan & Hartson is three years down the line.

Continue reading “It’s now or… later. Hogan Lovells to make decision on dual chief executive structure”

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Comment: Weil Gotshal and the narrative of the New Normal

Whatever the business case for announcing significant down-sizing, there is no doubt that in the field of modern communications Weil Gotshal & Manges scored a significant victory last week in its handling of job cuts.

Confirming its move to cut around 170 staff on 24 June and lower the compensation of 30 partners, Weil was joined up, transparent and eloquent, with executive partner Barry Wolf (pictured) on hand to put a jargon-lite case for its actions. The expected loss of 60 associates is equivalent to roughly 7% of Weil’s associate base. Continue reading “Comment: Weil Gotshal and the narrative of the New Normal”

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SJ Berwin creates new COO role with hire of McKinsey’s Baumgartner

Top 25 City firm SJ Berwin has announced the hire of Rick Baumgartner as the firm’s first-ever chief operating officer (COO). Baumgartner will join on September 9 from leading management consultancy group McKinsey & Company.

Baumgartner has over ten years’ experience with McKinsey, prior to which he worked at the Australian stock exchange and has held senior roles at accountancy giants Ernst & Young and Deloitte. Continue reading “SJ Berwin creates new COO role with hire of McKinsey’s Baumgartner”

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Double digit growth for Macfarlanes as firm disputes ‘new normal’

A depressed transactional market in the UK has had little effect on the financial performance of Macfarlanes, with the high-performing City firm posting a 12% increase in revenues for 2012/2013 from £102.2m to £114.16m.

The firm, which recorded an 8% rise in revenues in 2011/2012, continues to be one of the most profitable firms in the City, with net income up 16% from £42.44m to £49.25m, equating to a PEP of £985,000 – an increase of 9% on 2011/2012. Profit per lawyer at the firm stands at £158,000 – a rise of 7%. Continue reading “Double digit growth for Macfarlanes as firm disputes ‘new normal’”