London’s Midsizer legal landscape looks a little different this year. Field Fisher Waterhouse and Withers move into the Major City ranks, each with revenue surpassing £90m, establishing them as major forces in the City.
More impressive, however, is the entrance of litigation boutique Stewarts Law into the LB100 this year. And what an entrance it is. One of the standout performers across the whole table, the firm has had a bumper year.
This year was all about the urge to merge and this time next year the Insurance group will look very different, with two firms missing after a period of consolidation among the Insurance group.
Davies Arnold Cooper will be transformed after its November merger with rival Beachcroft goes live to create DAC Beachcroft. Meanwhile Clyde & Co and Barlow Lyde & Gilbert are set to combine to create the largest firm in this peer group. When the two merge later this year, they’ll become a £307m behemoth, nearly treble the size of nearest competitor Holman Fenwick Willan.
The flurry of tie-ups is partly due to major shifts in the insurance market over the past few years, with a number of large insurers squeezed after a spate of man-made and natural disasters.
In tearing up the rulebook in this year’s Legal Business 100, this peer group has changed radically to reflect the global transformation of some firms and the increased national profile of others.
To our new Major International peer group (see page 84) moves global giant DLA Piper – whose presence in the Major UK group, contrasting with firms such as Burges Salmon, was always incongruous – and Squire Sanders Hammonds which, following a major transatlantic merger, can no longer be considered just a national UK firm.
The wind blowing up from the south region has the familiar whiff of stagnant revenues again this year. As was the case in 2010, more than half the firms in this peer group have posted negative or flat turnover growth, a sure sign that market conditions are taking their toll in this fiercely competitive market. These firms are perhaps suffering more than most, largely because competitive pricing pressure on London-based firms means that those south of the capital can no longer merely compete on price – they have to match London rivals for quality as well.
The averages for this peer group remain among the lowest of any peer group in the LB100. However, these figures look less concerning now that some of the larger grossing law firms in other peer groups have moved out to the Major UK group. That said, not one of the South firms has revenues anywhere close to £60m, which is what the top regional firms have traditionally been pulling in.
The absence of this peer group’s two leading performers, Mills & Reeve and Gateley, has seen averages for the Central region take on a distinctly ‘average’ hue. The region is now officially the worst performing peer group in the LB100 in revenue terms, a wooden spoon that it inherited last year from the South group and has secured once more in 2011.
The simple fact is that the majority of the firms that have Major UK status dominate this region of the market. Strip them away and what’s left behind are firms that are surviving on scraps.
The struggle continues. While the North peer group maintains its position and outperforms other regions, average revenue has grown marginally with the departure of DWF and Hill Dickinson, which have joined the Major UK firms group (see page 94). In last year’s review, these firms were £15m and £21m respectively ahead of the rest of the pack, and this year sees the gulf between the haves and the have-nots widen even further.
Weightmans is now the largest firm in the North group by revenue, and this lead will increase in 2012 when its recent acquisitive spree is taken into account. This year the firm added 200 staff through the acquisition of Vizards Wyeth’s London insurance team and its 1 May merger with Liverpool firm Mace & Jones.
This year we’ve broken the Scottish Big Four up. Most likely to the chagrin of Maclay Murray & Spens and Shepherd and Wedderburn, rival firms McGrigors and Dundas & Wilson have joined the Major UK group by virtue of national coverage, reputation and having revenues of over £60m.
While in terms of market share and quality, the Big Four are still regarded as one competitive unit, and all firms have significant businesses operating throughout the UK, Maclays’ turnover of £48.6m is some way behind that of D&W’s £62m.
Scan the figures from this year’s Legal Business 100 survey and it seems that little has changed when it comes to gender diversity in the non-equity and equity partner ranks. Of the 7,376 equity partners across the UK’s 100 largest law firms by revenue, in 2010/11 just 17% of all equity partners are female. Similarly, just 23% of the 13,317 total partners are female.
This statistic has hardly altered in the last six years. In 2005, information gathered for the LB100 showed that just 15% of equity partners were women. After the numbers were crunched, it meant on average nine out of 66 equity partners were female.
But go back another 20 years, and this number is a significant improvement from the days when only 20 women made it into the equity at the ten largest City firms combined.
LB100 LAW FIRMS
The firms that appear in the LB100 are the top 100 firms in the UK, ranked by gross fee income generated over the financial year 2010/11. (Usually 1 May 2010 to 30 April 2011.) We call these the 2011 results.
Perhaps the most surprising thing about waking up on a Sunday morning in May to be faced with a Sunday paper featuring a close-up photograph of a well-known footballer’s face was that its publication seemed to take everyone by surprise. Continue reading “Don’t know much about geography: interdicts across the border”
In the near future some significant changes will be made to Dutch corporate law, with the chief aim of achieving greater simplicity and reducing the burden for businesses.
This article will discuss several expected changes that will specifically affect private companies with limited liability (BVs) and public companies with limited liability (NVs). Some of these changes will take effect in the near future. Continue reading “Simplification and reduction of burdens for Dutch companies with share capital”
Three litigation partners left Addleshaw Goddard last year to set up a conflicts-free, disputes-only boutique. LB finds out how well the model is working.
For many, it’s a depressingly familiar scenario. You’re an experienced litigation partner handling financial services and contentious civil fraud disputes, advising corporates, entrepreneurs and high-net-worth individuals. A senior in-house lawyer from a bank asks you to represent them against another major financial institution after being given your name by a partner from a rival firm. A conflict check then reveals a banking partner at your firm had dinner with the other side and anticipates some corporate work in the pipeline. You have no choice but to decline the instruction.
The financial crisis has done more than stall investment in Central and Eastern Europe. It has caused a remarkable sea change in the respective legal markets, where the international elite have their work cut out
The crystal balls of Romania’s gypsies would be a valuable tool for many a law firm partner operating in Central and Eastern Europe. Almost precisely to the day of Lehman Brothers’ collapse, the investment appeal of these emerging markets all but extinguished. Continue reading “Eastern Rivals”
Poland is rapidly emerging as the shining star of the East, but a stiflingly competitive legal market means that progress doesn’t easily equate to profits
At the height of the global economic downturn, senior business executives in Warsaw had time for coffee at any point in the day. ‘It was really disturbing,’ shudders one local lawyer. Continue reading “Pole Position”
The Global legal market is stratifying at a pace never seen before. From the rocketing profits on Wall Street to the rapidly expanding global giants, which model paid off in this year’s Global 100?
Whether your strategy is to devour the world whole, or take it piece by piece, financial centre by financial centre, global competition has never been fiercer. Bounding straight into the top ten of the Global 100 this year is the newly merged Hogan Lovells, while a dose of revenues from down under has seen Norton Rose rocket into the top 40. Continue reading “Global 100 – Slice by slice”
In the rush to conquer new markets, the leading British and American firms are changing the landscape of the global legal sector. Time to check your international strategy
Costs cut. Headcount down. Profits preserved. Now is the time to grow. Continue reading “Global 100 – To the ends of the Earth”
A strong economic downturn means that the stars of global law are shining ever brighter. Time to reassess just who makes the grade
The world has changed and the Global Elite needs to reflect that. To butcher a phrase: the gap between the haves and the have-a-bits is widening. By almost every measure this elite group of firms is moving ahead. The average net income at a Global Elite firm is $545.5m compared to $291.6m for the whole Global 100 – the gap in profit per equity partner (PEP) is no less marked, with the Global 100 average PEP sitting at $1.4m compared to $2.3m for the Elite firms.
Government initiatives and a resurgent economy have made Singapore and South-East Asia a key focus of the international legal profession once again
In 2006 Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s then Asia managing partner Perry Noble explained to LB why the firm had pushed through a major rationalisation of its partnership in the Far East. In the hope that its Asia business would begin to make the profits that the London HQ demanded, the firm radically reduced the size of its partnership in Asia and closed its Singapore office.
As Portugal considers the implications of its recent €78bn bailout, LB assesses the impact it will have on the legal market and how Portuguese law firms can survive in an economy stuck in limbo
By the time that this issue of Legal Business hits desks, Portugal will be on the brink of electing its new government. What form that government takes remains to be seen, although a majority coalition involving one of the two largest parties (the Socialist Party and the Social Democratic Party) looks almost certain. Continue reading “Portugal – Out of the ruins”
With Portugal’s recession expected to continue for at least another two years, the country’s law firms have no option but to go abroad. LB assesses whether their international strategies are paying dividends
As any schoolboy will tell you, Portugal has a proud tradition as one of Europe’s foremost explorers. The era of Henry the Navigator and Vasco da Gama was a golden age of European discovery, in which a tiny nation spread its tentacles throughout the world and, for a period, became one of its greatest powers. Continue reading “Portugal – Shifting sands”
