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LB100 North – Northern Soul

The line-up of North peer group firms has changed again. Following the departures of DWF and Hill Dickinson to the Major UK group last year, Weightmans joins them after 2011’s merger with Mace & Jones and the acquisition of Vizards Wyeth’s insurance team propelled the firm’s revenues into the big league.

Last year Weightmans was already £10m ahead of its nearest rival, Pannone. This year it is over £30m. Keoghs now tops this group with revenues of £47m.

But even without Weightmans, there is still a large gulf between the top firms and those bringing up the rear in this peer group. Dickinson Dees is now the largest firm by fee-earners in the North and its revenues are up by a modest 1% to £46.1m. This means the firm has arrested a three-year slide in revenues but is still some 23% behind its 2008 peak of £60m. Its five-year compound annual growth rate (CAGR) stands at -4% – the worst in the group behind Cobbetts.

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LB100 Scotland – Flying the Saltire

One firm in particular again stands out from the morass of misery that has beset the Scottish legal market in recent years, as it did last year: Brodies.

Brodies has recorded one of the highest real-term turnover increases this year in the entire LB100: up 16% to £42.8m, leapfrogging Shepherd and Wedderburn, which has remained static. This is no flash in the pan either: Brodies five-year revenue compound annual growth rate (CAGR) is 7%, easily the highest in the peer group and all achieved without a merger.

The firm is also highly profitable. Net income is up 30%, again the highest in the group, putting profit per lawyer (PPL) at a healthy £50,000.

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Ireland – Céad míle fáilte

hurling

Shanghai’s location at the estuary of the Yangtze River attracts rainfall for a third of the year. Lawyers from the region will feel at home in Ireland then, a country not renowned for its weather. Earlier this year, law firm A&L Goodbody officially launched its pioneering Chinese Lawyer Exchange Programme, signing agreements with 15 Chinese law firms and universities, such as Beijing’s King & Wood Mallesons and Shanghai’s East China University of Political Science and Law. The programme will provide six-month placements at the firm’s Dublin office as well as in-house experience with clients such as Pfizer, Bank of Ireland and Telefónica O2. Such is the initiative that Irish Prime Minister Enda Kenny applauded the firm for its ‘enterprise’ and ‘courage’.

The purpose of the project is to promote inbound and outbound investment between the two countries. Foreign direct investment (FDI) into Ireland has long been a bright spot for the Irish economy, with headline multinationals such as Microsoft and Google choosing Ireland to base their European operations during the 1990s. More recently, however, there has been a surge in momentum. Continue reading “Ireland – Céad míle fáilte”

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Ireland – Court Appeal

rugby game

Asked whether the Irish legal market is awash with contentious work, one leading litigator sighs deeply and quips: ‘Well, the country is certainly full of contention.’ Every dip in any economic cycle brings a raft of litigious work, but the spectacular collapse of Ireland’s banking and property sectors following the global credit crisis has brought unprecedented large-scale litigation, restructuring and administration (termed examinership in Ireland).

‘We are busier than we’ve ever been,’ confirms Liam Kennedy, head of dispute resolution at A&L Goodbody. ‘The first half of last year was all crisis litigation, but since then we’ve had a lot of big-ticket work, such as high-level restructuring, insolvency, regulatory and international asset tracing litigation.’ Continue reading “Ireland – Court Appeal”

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Malta – Island Haven

Despite the ongoing European crisis, Malta has proved to be one of the best performers in the eurozone. LB asks Malta’s leading firms what is so special about this Mediterranean island.

Although Malta has shown resilience during the global downturn, it has not been bypassed completely. M&A volume has reduced and the island’s banking sector is more cautious than ever about credit exposure. Nonetheless, Malta’s own slowdown has been relatively painless when compared to other European jurisdictions. The island is fiscally conservative and its level of state debt is fairly low, with most of it held locally. Consumer debt is also low.

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Wealth management – Filling big shoes

The global diversification of wealth continues to drive the efforts of law firms’ private client teams as the world’s population of affluent individuals continues to climb. LB tracks the latest developments.

The international private client teams at major law firms are thriving. The practice area, for decades regarded as the black sheep of the family, has now been warmly accepted into the fold. In some cases private client has become more than a much-loved practice area.

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Global 100 – Global Elite – Hollow victory

The Global Elite continues to dominate the international legal market. But with ailing global markets and little to no M&A, not every firm has much to celebrate

Europe is in crisis, the UK has hit a double dip recession and US markets continue to fluctuate. Likewise the debt markets are closed, M&A sits on ice and big-ticket litigation is few and far between. But the Global Elite retains its dominant position. The world’s behemoths remain relatively unscathed by the knock-on effect of ailing global economic and financial markets.

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Global 100 – Dewey & LeBoeuf – Lessons from a downfall

Dewey & LeBoeuf went from 26th in last year’s Global 100 to filing for bankruptcy in May this year. What can the Global 100 learn from the firm’s demise? 

Finley, Kumble, Wagner, Underberg, Manley, Myerson & Casey; Brobeck, Phleger & Harrison; Heller Ehrman; and Howrey, the US legal market has quite a track record when it comes to large law firm failures.

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The reality gap and the Global 100

There is a curious phenomenon that affects both the NHS and, now it seems, the legal sector. The reality gap. Ask a patient treated in hospital for a broken leg what their experience of the doctors and hospital was, and in the main it will be positive. But ask the same person what they think of the NHS on the whole, and usually they will say that the whole system is going to the dogs.

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Magic Circle sees revenues up after muted financial year

Turnover at Magic Circle firms rose by a modest 2.6% this year, with the UK’s five Global Elite firms pulling in over £5.2bn of fees and £4.2bn worth of profit in the 2011/12 financial year.

As the UK’s financial reporting season kicks off, Allen & Overy emerges as one of the top performers after another strong year that saw turnover climb by 5% to reach £1.18bn, up from £1.12bn in 2010/11. The firm is one of the best performing in the group over the past five years, growing revenues by an average of 3% each year since 2008. Much of that can be attributed to the firm’s network in emerging markets, with around 15% of A&O’s lawyers now based in Asia.

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Creditors draw battle lines over Dewey & LeBoeuf assets

An intense and long-running battle is set to begin over the assets of Dewey & LeBoeuf which, as many observers had long predicted, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the US Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan on 28 May.

The filing sets the stage for a struggle between creditors that experts predict could run for years in a process that one observer likened to ‘bear-baiting’.

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Scottish fire sale continues as DWF snaps up Biggart Baillie

Merger fever continues to grip the Scottish legal market after veteran firm Biggart Baillie announced in June that it would be joining forces with ambitious Major UK firm DWF on 1 July.

The merger between Biggart Baillie, a Scottish blueblood which can trace its origins back to 1894, and LB’s 2011 National/Regional firm of the Year DWF, is the fifth Anglo-Scottish union since the start of the year. It follows a joint venture between DAC Beachcroft and Andersons, which was announced in March; the acquisition of niche Scottish practice Anderson Fyfe by TLT, which takes effect in July; the announcement in June that Shoosmiths would acquire Archibald Campbell & Harley; and the high-profile merger of Pinsent Masons and McGrigors, which went live on 1 May.

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