Acquisitive Birmingham firm Shakespeares has continued its explosive growth of the last few years by announcing that it is set to combine with Leicester-based stalwart Harvey Ingram on 1 August 2012.
At press time both firms were expected to vote overwhelmingly in favour of a union in a partners’ ballot at each firm at the end of June, according to Shakespeares’ commercial director Hamish Munro.
Continue reading “Shakespeares and Harvey Ingram announce merger”
Ashurst is preparing to move into Seoul and is applying for a licence to practise in Beijing, as the firm looks to leverage off its recent tie-up with Australian firm Blake Dawson to bulk up in Asia.
Geoffrey Green, managing partner of Ashurst Asia, said it was vital to grow the firm’s Asian presence. ‘Ashurst has been relatively lightly represented in Asia. Compared to our competitors we are pretty underweight in Asia and given the fact the world is moving further east, that’s where the growth opportunities are,’ he said.
Continue reading “Ashurst pushes ahead with Beijing and Seoul launches”
As all eyes turn to energy as the safe hedge in a turbulent market, there is no doubt that the sector’s general counsel are in an excellent bargaining position
In terms of legal spend, an energy company is a particularly lucrative client. To begin with, the acquisitive nature of these cash-rich corporates means that transactional advice is clearly a must. Also, as the recent BP oil spill all too effectively demonstrated, the high-risk nature of the industry provides a fair flow of environmental and litigation instructions too.
The world’s 100 largest law firms have faced another challenging year of depressed economic markets and little to no transactional work. So how have they fared? LB finds out
The combined revenues of the 100 biggest law firms in the world reached new heights this year. Setting a five-year Global 100 record, combined turnover came to over $81bn, greater than the Olympian levels the market reached in the boom year of 2007. In broad strokes it has been another year of single digit rises in revenues, profits and lawyer numbers. But with inflation running at around 3% in the UK and the US, performance in real terms has been more muted than those top-line figures suggest. The past financial year was essentially a flat market, a solid performance but nothing to set the world alight.
After a series of shocks to the global economy, followed by Dewey & LeBoeuf’s downfall, there’s plenty of concern for US firms
American managing partners have become accustomed to false dawns and 2011 had a depressingly familiar feel to it. The start of the year was promising, with counter-cyclical workflows in litigation and bankruptcy joined by an uptick in corporate deal activity, but this came to a familiar halt over the summer. The continuing crisis in the eurozone and uncertainty over America’s debt ceiling undermined any hope that the activity through the first half of the year would continue for the second six months.
Singapore has emerged as the location of choice to serve the legal markets in China and India and is attracting waves of international firms. LB looks at the reasons why the jurisdiction is king of the so-called Chindia market
With the European Union in its spiralling debt mess and the US hugely overdrawn, global businesses are concentrating their efforts on Asia and, naturally, law firms are following. But whereas Hong Kong was traditionally the default outpost for international law firms, Singapore has emerged as the destination of choice for many newcomers. There are two main reasons for this. Firstly, the city state is ideally positioned to serve both India and China, two major economic powerhouses that form the so-called ‘Chindia’ market. Secondly, the shackles that restricted foreign firms operating in Singapore have been loosened.
On the face of it, news that Bristol-based TLT is to open simultaneously in Scotland, by acquiring niche firm Anderson Fyfe, and also in Belfast, by hiring a small team of local lawyers, is hardly earth-shattering.
But while the news may be dominated by major international firms’ expansion plans in Asia, or even significant full-scale tie-ups such as McGrigors and Pinsent Masons, you could argue that, relatively speaking, low-key moves such as TLT’s make better strategic sense for all concerned.
In early May, members of Dewey & LeBoeuf’s management team left the firm. One headed for the greener pastures of O’Melveny & Myers; one headed for a new home at Winston & Strawn; while the others went to Proskauer Rose and Arnold & Porter. Online message boards lit up like a Christmas tree, with commentators likening those moves to ‘rats fleeing a sinking ship’ and to Francesco Schettino, the captain who allegedly left the sinking Costa Cruise ship off the coast of Italy.
Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has ruffled Allen & Overy (A&O)’s feathers in London after the US litigation specialist hired the Magic Circle firm’s global arbitration chairman Stephen Jagusch and fellow partner Anthony Sinclair in May. The firms are understood to be locking horns over the departure terms, with a deal yet to be struck.
The hires will see Quinn Emanuel launch its own City arbitration practice, to be led by Jagusch. While the firm has already had some success in arbitration work in London, it plans to grow the office to 35 lawyers, of which ten will be partners.
Continue reading “Quinn Emanuel snags A&O London arbitration duo”
With troubled US firm Dewey & LeBoeuf on the brink of collapse, a number of firms have already stepped in to boost their City offerings by providing homes to small groups of partners. Twenty-four of the firm’s 33 London partners had plans to leave the firm at press time.
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius has emerged as the most acquisitive firm in London, taking six former Dewey partners in the capital, including its former London managing partner Peter Sharp.
Continue reading “Rival firms benefit from imminent Dewey collapse in City”
Linklaters has joined the ranks of its Magic Circle peers by moving into the Australian market via an alliance with Allens Arthur Robinson (AAR).
The alliance, which went through on 1 May, was planned over a year ago, according to a source close to the firm. AAR, which had operated an exclusive relationship with Slaughter and May, is viewed by many as one of the best in the region.
Continue reading “Australia tempts yet another major international player”
Good news for senior associates in emerging markets: there are now more partners than ever being made up in Asia. If you are an aspiring associate in Asia or Australia you stand a much greater chance of making partner at a UK firm now than five years ago. According to data collected by LB, this year the UK’s top 25 firms made up 48 partners in Asia, compared to just 26 in 2008.
Continue reading “Emerging markets dominate 2012 partner promotions round”
TLT’s recent takeover of niche Scottish firm Anderson Fyfe is the latest chapter in a flurry of movement among mid-market firms in Scotland trying to secure their futures amid pernicious market conditions.
The Bristol-based firm is set to acquire Anderson Fyfe’s Glasgow and Edinburgh operations from July, while simultaneously launching a Northern Ireland practice through the lateral hire of banking litigation partner Katharine Kimber from Belfast firm Wilson Nesbitt Solicitors.
Continue reading “Mixed fortunes for mid-market in tough Scots climate”
Financial regulation partners are now in even higher demand as financial institution clients panic after the Financial Services Authority (FSA) recently fined former J.P. Morgan Cazenove banker Ian Hannam £450,000 for market abuse.
The financial watchdog issued the fine against Hannam after he allegedly shared financial information ahead of a deal, violating the so-called ‘wall-crossing’ rule.
Continue reading “FSA scrutiny increases financial service practitioners’ workload”
Newly appointed NHS Litigation Authority (NHSLA) chief executive Catherine Dixon’s priority will be getting value for money and using law firms to engage with NHS trusts as she prepares for a legal panel review later this year.
Dixon joined the NHSLA in April from the NSPCC where she was general counsel and company secretary. She was previously head of legal at Bupa and in private practice at Eversheds. She replaces outgoing NHSLA chief executive Steve Walker.
Continue reading “NHSLA looks to control growing legal spend in panel review”
In-house teams are generally cutting back on legal spend with law firms but IP is a trend buster. As budgets continue to be squeezed, how can law firms run profitable IP businesses that offer good value?
According to his biography, published late last year, the late Steve Jobs was so incensed by Android’s alleged similarities to his beloved iPhone that he vowed to spend every cent of the $40bn Apple had in the bank defeating its rivals in court if he had to. And given the persistent arms race between Apple and the likes of Nokia, HTC, Samsung and Motorola, it seems no-one embroiled in the high-stakes smartphone and tablet wars is particularly concerned about cutting back on legal spend anytime soon.
LB meets Nigel Savage, the man responsible for turning around the fortunes of the College of Law
Professor Nigel Savage, chief executive of The College of Law (CoL), is eating his second breakfast of the day, Marmite on toast. ‘I’ve got an incredible metabolism,’ he says as he takes the lift up to a third-floor classroom at the CoL’s smart campus in London’s Moorgate. He finishes his toast, and settles in for our interview with a huge cup of tea. Over the course of the hour he stands up, paces the room, puts his feet up on a chair and bangs his hand on the table when he needs to emphasise a point.
In the first of a series of looks at the UK’s top in-house lawyers, LB profiles a few GCs who are turning heads in the property market
There was a time when private practice lawyers looked down their noses at their in-house counterparts. The logic went that in-housers had swapped the fat fees of private practice for an easier life that would let them get home in time for tea. But not anymore. Over the past few years, the role of the in-house lawyer has grown from taking a back seat to outside counsel to becoming the true powerbrokers in their respective fields.
As the Swiss Verein legal structure becomes increasingly popular among global law firms, the debate hots up over whether its use is a true representation of global expansion. But what is a Verein and who does it benefit?
The Swiss Verein is all the rage. Law firms have turned to the legal structure to help co-ordinate large international mergers, modelling their expansive structures after the Big Four accounting firms: KPMG, PwC, Deloitte and Ernst & Young. With the appetite for mergers continuing unabated in 2012, as seen recently with the March collaboration of King & Wood Mallesons, the Verein seems to be the structure of choice for law firms.
There is something momentous unfolding in the Gulf. The wave of protests and general revolutionary feeling that has swept through the Middle East since December 2010, otherwise known as the Arab Spring, has seen governments ousted in Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Yemen, while civil unrest has even battered the traditionally stable reputations of financial centres such as Bahrain and Kuwait.
Law firms have been just as affected by the tide of uncertainty as any other business and the dramatic extent of regional turmoil has seen international law firms downsize in their droves across the Middle East. As traditional thinking goes, any degree of change creates opportunities; however, the sheer scale and velocity of the market disruption makes this particular situation uncharted territory. Generally speaking, firms remain optimistic about economic growth across the region’s hotspots and recruiters are already starting to see the market look towards replenishing those areas that were the first to be cut back in 2009 and early 2010. So it seems that the outlook for the main financial centres is one of subdued growth following a few lean years. How are the region’s law firms poised to meet demand? Continue reading “Middle East: New order”
