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Ashurst expansion continues full throttle

Ashurst’s recent appetite for international expansion shows no sign of abating, with the firm announcing in November the launch of a new operation in Saudi Arabia.

The firm will soon be able to practise Saudi law after establishing a partnership with Faisal Adnan Baassiri, the former head of legal at Ashurst client Saudi Economic and Development Company (Sedco).

Baassiri has experience working in private practice: he worked at Osama S. Al-Yamani law firm in Jeddah, where the Ashurst office will open under the official name of Law Office of Faisal Baassiri in association with Ashurst. Continue reading “Ashurst expansion continues full throttle”

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Parabis Group storms into Scottish insurance market

Private equity backed Parabis Group recently entered the Scottish legal insurance market with a bold statement of intent, hiring local rival HBJ Claim Solutions’ litigation head Tony O’Malley in the process.

Parabis, an alternative business structure in England and Wales, has opened a single-partner-regulated law office known as Parabis Scotland. It will offer claimant and defendant insurance law services with the defendant branch carrying its Plexus Law brand.

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Mike’s Mechanics

White & Case sent Mike Goetz to London in 2000 to take its City finance practice to a new level. Thirteen years – and two law firms – later, he’s still one of the biggest names on the London scene. LB meets a banking legend.

Ropes & Gray’s London office has just turned three years old and more than a few cynics didn’t expect it to last that long. Former White & Case finance partners Maurice Allen and Mike Goetz had just spent a disastrous 18 months at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer before announcing that they would be fronting the Boston-based private equity firm’s London offering in 2009. The aftershock of the collapse of Lehman Brothers was in full effect and Allen and Goetz had failed in their quest to build a strong transactional banking practice at Freshfields to rival Clifford Chance and Allen & Overy.

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Is it a Law Firm?

Times they are a-changing. Meet the international law firms with hardly any offices, no trainees, and the bare minimum of overheads. Clients are waking up to a very real alternative.

When Ryan Stafford, general counsel (GC) and vice president at $700m-turnover US manufacturer Littelfuse, was looking for a team at short notice to handle a transaction in Scandinavia and the Baltics, he wasn’t afraid to think big. He wanted a firm that could move fast, with people on the ground around the world, and a single contact point that he could speak to pretty quick. The usual suspects dropped the ball.

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On the Mend

When the credit crisis hit, leveraged finance lawyers were among the first to fall. They are still in the doldrums, but there’s light at the end of the tunnel. After some serious market reshaping, LB asks which firms will reap the rewards when the market finally returns.

To say that leveraged finance lawyers have had it tough in the last few years is the ultimate understatement. Some feel like they’ve been to hell and back.

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Germany: Unsung heroes

Europe has been ravaged by the debt crisis and Germany has been far from immune, but the resilience of one segment of the economy is a boon to domestic law firms. Meet the Mittelstand

Germany’s hidden champions are keeping its law firms in the pink. While European law firms continue to feel the effects of the prolonged hangover caused by the eurozone crisis and general economic malaise, a number of German domestic law firms are seeing work pour in from German family-owned, small-to-medium sized businesses, the so-called Mittelstand.

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Know your numbers

When former Dewey & LeBoeuf partners blamed Citibank for not telling them about the dire state of the firm’s finances, they got short shrift. In today’s legal market, there’s no excuse for not scrutinising the balance sheet. Here’s LB’s definitive guide to all you need to know

When law firms fail, the fallout can be spectacular. Take the case of DLA Piper’s Berge Setrakian, a one-time corporate partner in the New York office of Dewey & LeBoeuf, who now finds himself on the hook for $3.5m that he has agreed to pay in return for being released from liabilities in the largest law firm failure in US history. His former colleague, white-collar defence attorney Ralph Ferrara (now at Proskauer Rose), will stump up $3.7m; M&A supremo Morton Pierce (now at White & Case) is set to pay $1.02m. The lesson: when things go wrong, partners get hit where it hurts. 

To avoid any costly surprises, it pays to know your firm’s balance sheet inside out. But many don’t.

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Clarke Willmott: running to stand still

Stephen Rosser became Clarke Willmott’s chief executive two years ago as the firm really started to suffer a post-boom hangover. Since then, the bottom line has gone from bad to worse. It’s time for more radical thinking 

Stephen Rosser, Clarke Willmott’s chief executive, ran the London Marathon in 3 hours 59 minutes this year. While there probably aren’t many in law firm management who could run 26.2 miles, let alone in less than four hours, it is perhaps the least of his challenges. Completing a long distance race takes dedication, stamina and the ability to withstand a certain amount of pain – abilities that Rosser will need in abundance if he is to make Clarke Willmott competitive again.

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Picking up Field Fisher

After years in the mid-market wilderness, Field Fisher Waterhouse is finally ready for a revolution. It wants to grow internationally and shake up its meandering management. The right suitor might just find a little sweetheart

The last 12 months have not been easy for Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW). The acrimonious failure of merger talks with LG was followed by discussions with Osborne Clarke (OC) that leaked rather earlier than hoped. Then the firm’s newly appointed managing partner Matthew Lohn, tasked with turning the firm around, suffered a family bereavement that has taken him out of the business for a prolonged leave of absence.

Add to that the departure of the firm’s much-liked chief operating officer Charlie Keeling, a public squabble over the way the LG discussions ended, and a drop in PEP of 20%, and it’s clear this is a firm in need of a boost.

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Africa: into Africa

African desert

Recently it seems that not a week goes by without new clamour surrounding another legal market as law firms race to enter countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. But of all the new frontiers that have been gaining favour with law firms, Africa’s focal points are the most difficult to pinpoint.

Australia’s immense popularity clearly leverages off its status as an English-speaking platform into key Asian markets, while the most popular hubs in Latin America are Brazil and Mexico – the two largest economies in the region. However Africa’s size and multiplicity of languages dictates that the continent has a plethora of regional springboards: UK firms are attracted to South Africa; Francophone firms have made Morocco their regional hub; while Lusophone players have rushed into Portuguese-speaking countries. And collaboration between those centres is far from straightforward. Continue reading “Africa: into Africa”

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Russia: pipelines east

energy plant

The Russian legal market can be an unpredictable beast. A history of interfering politicians, corruption and debt crises, both internal and external, have meant that since the collapse of the Soviet Union, law firms in Moscow have struggled to maintain a steady grasp on just what might be around the corner. Despite all the variables, however, there is one constant, and that is the energy and natural resources sector, which dominates Russia’s foreign exports – in 2011 oil and gas revenues accounted for 10.4% of Russia’s GDP (up from 7.6% in 2009). Provided that commodity prices don’t drop for a sustained period of time – particularly crude oil, which has been strong since going above $50 a barrel in 2005 – a decent volume of work can be assured.

This was underlined in 2010, when the Russian state-owned oil producer Rosneft launched projects in the Kara and Barents Seas after obtaining licences to explore four blocks in Russia’s Arctic shelf. Three major joint ventures with the Western energy companies Exxon Mobil, Statoil and Eni were subsequently signed in 2011 and 2012. Continue reading “Russia: pipelines east”

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Consolidation changes the face of Scottish elite again

At the end of a dramatic year for the Scottish legal market, the recently announced union between Glasgow and Edinburgh star Burness and one of Aberdeen’s strongest firms, Paull & Williamsons, looks set to redefine the Caledonian top-tier.

The merger, which was announced last month and takes effect on 1 December, will see the two firms combine to form Burness Paull & Williamsons, a firm with 400 staff, including 60 partners and 158 fee-earners. The Aberdeen, Edinburgh and Glasgow offices will each be roughly the same size. Combined revenues based on 2011/12 figures will be around £37.6m, which will place the new entity ahead of Big Four firm Shepherd and Wedderburn and just behind local rival Brodies.

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Turkey and Africa expansion on the cards for Pinsents

Following an extremely acquisitive year since its strategic alliance with Salans came to an end, Pinsent Masons shows no signs of slowing down, with Turkey and Africa next in its sights for 2013.

According to a spokesperson at the firm, Pinsents is considering a joint venture or alliance in Turkey next year and its recent launch in Paris also potentially provides access to the energy and infrastructure market in northern and sub-Saharan Africa.

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Baker & McKenzie becomes first global firm in Peru

Baker & McKenzie has extended its increasing strategic focus on Latin America by becoming the first international law firm to establish in Peru.

The firm announced a new partnership with Estudio Echecopar, a leading Lima-based firm, in October. It is one of the largest firms in Peru, with over 200 staff, and is ranked in the top tier in the current issue of The Legal 500 Latin America for corporate, M&A, disputes, projects and banking and finance.

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Places up for grabs on FSA investigation panel

City law firms unimpeded by banking relationships will be seeking a place on a new Financial Services Authority (FSA) panel of external advisers to carry out investigations into financial institutions. The panel, which will be announced in spring next year, will comprise firms that will compile reports under section 166 of the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA), also known as ‘skilled person’ reports, as part of the FSA’s drive towards a risk-based regulatory approach.

The FSA put out a tender questionnaire in October as part of its process to appoint the panel. The FSA will use firms on the panel when a financial services institution finds itself in trouble, using the reports to decide whether to fine or impose other sanctions.

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Firms set sights on Asia investment into Middle East

Squire Sanders expanded both its Middle East and South Korea operations in October, as Latham & Watkins reported a surge in investment activity between Asia, most notably China, and the Gulf states.

Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton also announced in October that it will open an office in Seoul, following approval from the Korean regulatory authorities. This follows the opening of the firm’s office in Abu Dhabi in September. Squire Sanders expanded its Middle East practice through the acquisition of El-Khoury & Partners’ Middle East and North Africa (MENA) business, which formerly operated in Saudi Arabia as EK Partners & Al-Enezee.

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Lateral thinking required with international expansion

Last month, Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton did something that it has only done once before – open two non-US offices in the same year. Seoul became the firm’s sixteenth office, launching just a month after Cleary opened its fifteenth office in Abu Dhabi. The only time the firm has previously opened two offices in a year was 1991 when it launched in Frankfurt and Moscow.

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