Travers Smith has always been one to plough its own furrow and last month the firm confirmed it was reviewing its roster of US best friend firms.
The corporate powerhouse is reviewing its line-up in the wake of a raft of US firms strengthening their own London offerings.
Continue reading “Travers Smith launches review of US best friends network”
Firms operating in the Leeds market have been in a state of flux recently, with the region’s mid-tier firms taking advantage of the shrinking headcount at the larger players.
Despite troubling economic conditions in the Leeds market, Gateley was not deterred, and opened its Leeds office in January, marking the firm’s eighth office in the UK.
The move saw Gateley hire restructuring partner William Ballmann and finance litigator Rob Payne from Cobbetts to launch the office. Ballmann is set to run Gateley’s Leeds outpost. Continue reading “Leeds market set to change markedly as top tier loses talent”
After two years of speculation in the financial services sector, it has finally happened. Margaret Cole, Financial Services Authority (FSA) managing director and all-round tough lady, is leaving the regulator after seven years.
Dubbed in 2011 by a finance partner as the ‘most hated woman in the City’, Cole’s legacy at the UK watchdog will forever be entrenched in her recent uncompromising stance against the country’s banking industry. The past five years have seen the FSA hand out a number of jaw-dropping fines and crack a series of insider trading rings.
Continue reading “FSA’s Cole holds all the cards in choosing her next move”
Shearman & Sterling’s loss is Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom’s gain after Stephan Hutter, Germany’s pre-eminent capital markets specialist, swapped one US firm for another in February.
Hutter joined Skadden’s Frankfurt office along with fellow partner Katja Kaulamo, gifting the firm the German capital markets capability it has sought for so long.
Pinsent Masons and McGrigors confirmed in early February that partners had voted in favour of the two firms merging. The new firm will operate from 1 May as one unified partnership under the Pinsent Masons brand.
Management says that the combination will likely see the creation of a near £300m, 1,500 lawyer business spanning 15 offices, seven of which are outside of the UK.
Continue reading “Pinsents and McGrigors tie-up gets rubber-stamped”
Neil Kinsella, Russell Jones & Walker (RJW)’s chief executive, is non-committal on the possibility of a UK listing for his firm, should its recently announced acquisition by listed Australian firm Slater & Gordon (S&G) complete.
S&G, the world’s first listed law firm, is set to buy UK personal injury firm RJW for £53.8m later this year. The publicly listed Melbourne-based practice will become the first Australian firm to take over a UK firm.
Continue reading “UK listing for Russell Jones & Walker not immediate priority”
Margaret Cole, managing director and board member of the Financial Services Authority (FSA), tendered her resignation from the top post in February, with fresh speculation that she could return to private practice. Cole has already been linked to a Magic Circle firm and a US firm.
Continue reading “FSA to lose top level enforcer and board member”
DLA Piper has revealed plans to open a second London office this year, concentrating on the burgeoning technology startup community.
Simon Levine, the firm’s IP and technology global co-chair, said plans were to open ‘before the summer’, with the office likely to be located in the Tech City area of East London, near the Old Street roundabout.
Continue reading “DLA Piper plans ‘relationship building’ technology push in London”
After four years of consecutive revenue growth and two transformative mergers in 2011, Weightmans is our National/Regional Firm of the Year. However, there’s no chance of any of it going to the managing partner’s head.
Weightmans’ Patrick Gaul (pictured) is as laid back and straightforward as managing partners come. In an unmistakable scouse accent reminiscent of Ringo Starr, his answers are economical and precise. He doesn’t take himself too seriously and, in a trait quite rare among managing partners, is very low on hyperbole.
Michael Napier CBE QC steps down as chairman of Irwin Mitchell this month after 40 years at the firm.
It’s the end of one long chapter in a career packed with more events than an army of lawyers combined. LB celebrates the career of our 2012 Lawyer of the Year.
Continue reading “Michael Napier CBE QC – Man for all seasons”
Baker & McKenzie, Eversheds and Berwin Leighton Paisner are just a few firms synonymous with adopting the one-client-one-law-firm model, but just who benefits from these deals in the long run?
Robin Saphra’s life got a little easier at the start of the year. The Colt Group’s general counsel (GC), like many of his peers, was juggling a legal spend, that he had to stretch across more than a hundred European law firms.
The firms that appear in Global London are the 50 largest non-UK originated firms in London, ranked by headcount.
Total lawyer numbers include partners, associates, assistants and trainees but not paralegals. Partner and lawyer numbers were all requested as full-time equivalent averages for 2011 and all partner hires are up to and including February 2012.
With a flurry of US firms luring funds partners from UK rivals, LB finds out why lawyers in this area are hot property.
Periodically the City goes through a feeding frenzy of lateral hires. In the past, firms have gobbled up partners in structured finance, restructuring and litigation. The current plat du jour though, is funds.
LB ventures beyond the established elite to highlight five practices blazing a trail in the City.
The need to differentiate in the market is paramount. Some firms have always been good at it, while others have struggled and floundered.
There is a group of US firms in the City that has now established its strengths. Using the benefit of large US platforms, these firms have, over time, built impressive offerings in the City, be it in IP, energy, regulation or litigation.
Oil and gas? Renewables? Nuclear? Whichever energy source you’re selling, there’s no doubt that the appetite for power in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) seems almost insatiable. That demand, coupled with the urgent need for infrastructure, is ensuring that even those CEE economies facing the imminent threat of recession are viewing the fulfilment of their relevant construction programmes as a number one priority.
‘National authorities are seeking to improve capacities in conventional energy sources, increasing energy independence and phasing out or upgrading older polluting generation capacities,’ says Bryan Jardine, partner in the Bucharest office of Austrian-headquartered Wolf Theiss. ‘The CEE is a region that has tremendous need. Growing energy demands, coupled with ageing, inadequate and inefficient energy supply infrastructure (a legacy inherited from 45 years of Soviet-era planning and investment) is driving the need for this increased sector work and investment in the CEE.’ Continue reading “CEE – Generating Growth”
Immigration laws are forcing international law firms to advertise jobs alongside retail and fast food companies.
Despite this, the number of international lawyers in London is falling. Where have all the US-qualified lawyers gone?
In the same way the sports media has speculated long and hard these past couple of years on the ‘demise’ of Tiger Woods, much has also been said about the Magic Circle also losing its aura of invincibility since the global financial crisis.
The Magic Circle’s relentless pursuit of domination has inspired awe over the last two decades but at the same time has drawn brickbats when things have gone awry. It is all too easy to build something up only to knock it down.
Forget the egos, conflicts and pay packets. Here’s our winning formula for creating a dream team outside of the established elite.
In July 2002, we carried a feature bringing together a group of partners that would create a genuine competitor for the Magic Circle, a true fantasy law firm (‘Futures, options and swaps’, LB126, page 36). A decade on, it’s time to have another look at where the true talent outside of the elite group of law firms can be found.
Two oligarchs; $6.5bn; and enough lawyers to form an entirely new firm. This is Berezovsky v Abramovich, the largest litigation in the world
In Hermès on Sloane Street on Friday 5 October 2007 Roman Abramovich, the billionaire owner of Chelsea Football Club, is enjoying a quiet afternoon shopping. Two doors down in Dolce & Gabbana, his former business partner is also indulging in a little retail therapy. In better days the two would visit each other’s superyachts and holiday together. But by 2007 the relationship had soured, and Berezovsky was itching to issue a writ suing his former friend for $6.5bn.
In our fifth annual risk management and professional indemnity survey in association with Marsh, the world’s leading insurance broker and risk adviser, we analyse the latest trends in risk management, reveal the results of our far reaching survey and talk to the leading names in risk management at the City’s largest firms.
Continue reading “Risk Management and Professional Indemnity Survey 2012 – Treading Carefully”
