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Cities colliding

Several Global London firms were back on the investment trail in 2010 although overall headcount in the top 50 dropped. LB looks at the main movers in the City’s non-UK legal elite.

The UK economy may be suffering under the weight of swingeing cuts and, Germany aside, the prospects on the continent may still look bleak, but London’s large band of overseas law firms have not exactly been retreating into their shells. Many have been spying opportunities in the usual form of lateral partner hires, others such as Squire, Sanders & Dempsey and Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal have pinned their colours to a UK merger.

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Merger values

The latest transatlantic mergers have a few examples to follow. But just what have City mergers delivered for Jones Day, K&L Gates, Mayer Brown and Reed Smith?

It’s easy to forget that the transatlantic merger is not a trend confined to the last two years. The most effective way for US firms to enter the highly competitive London market has long been a matter for debate. Do you buy a greenfield site and take a long view based around organic growth or do you acquire a large, ready-made UK business? Neither is simple and both can be costly.

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A Matter of Time – Simmons & Simmons

After a failed merger, a drop in both revenue and a profits, and a slew of partner departures, Simmons’ new managing partner Jeremy Hoyland certainly has his work cut out. Can his plans for change deliver?

Jeremy Hoyland’s timing has always been a little off. He qualified just before the 1990s’ recession, tried to launch a finance practice in Asia just as the Asian financial crisis hit in the late 1990s and has now taken over Simmons & Simmons at a time when the firm’s financials continue to struggle and it is being over-shadowed by several of its closest rivals. Failed merger talks with Mayer Brown have also hardly helped the firm’s market profile.

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Pulling the Strings – Arbitration

Despite the increasing popularity of arbitration, a significant number of clients have been disappointed by the performance of an arbitrator. LB asks what can be done to improve faith in the system

When something gets a mention in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Budget speech, it is usually important. So when George Osborne spoke of the government’s intention to ‘promote the UK as the global centre of legal arbitration’ in March, the global arbitration community sat up and took note.

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A different focus – Round Table

The fourth Legal Business/Marsh round table brought together a group of risk managers to discuss the changing regulatory landscape and how they manage their risk functions

It is perhaps not surprising that the fourth risk round table hosted by Legal Business and Marsh was dominated by one subject. The Solicitors Regulation Authority’s new Code of Conduct, as a part of the move to outcomes-focused regulation (OFR) due in the Autumn, is weighing heavily on the minds of most risk professionals in the largest firms. The prospect of following indicative behaviours, managing relations with the SRA and appointing a compliance officer for legal practice (COLP) were all raised in the course of the discussion.

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Switzerland – On The Rise

Swiss mountains

While several leading Swiss law firms contemplate their new lives as corporations, LB finds out what a series of high-profile partner exits means for Switzerland’s famously conservative legal market

This year, Zürich-based law firm Pestalozzi celebrates its 100th birthday. Just ten years ago, it joined forces with Geneva practice Lachenal Brechbuhl Cottier & Roguet to become Pestalozzi Lachenal Patry. But in late 2010, the two factions parted company, shutting down the Brussels office along the way.

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Round the Houses – Office Moves

From upwardly mobile US firms to national practices with ambitious City plans, we analyse the winners and losers of law firm property.

It’s early February, ten days before Pinsent Masons moves in and the final touches are being made to the firm’s new London offices. Carpets are being fitted, a problem with the lift fixed and the IT guys are looking confused in front of their fancy new AV equipment.

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Moving Targets – Risk Management Survey: Part 1

2011 was always going to be a turbulent year, but the arrival of several new challenges has put risk teams under greater pressure than ever.

There’s never been a more important – or perhaps a more stressful – time to be a risk manager at a law firm. Previous Legal Business and Marsh risk management and professional indemnity reports have dealt with the need to properly establish a risk culture and gain effective buy-in from the wider firm in anticipation of major changes that were just around the corner.

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Moving the Goalposts – Risk Management Survey Part 4

Discussion over scrapping the single professional indemnity insurance renewal date and consigning the assigned risks pool to history has reignited. LB reassesses the state of play

In our report last year, it seemed that the debate over whether to move away from a single renewal date for law firms’ professional indemnity insurance (PII) had been settled. Insurers, brokers and risk advisers, such as Marsh, felt that it hadn’t been thought through properly. Risk managers at the top-150 law firms surveyed couldn’t see the benefits of staggering renewal dates. Even the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) itself, after taking advice from various corners of the industry, declared the likelihood of scrapping the single renewal date for solicitors’ PII as ‘improbable’.

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Turkey – Bridging the Gap

As its economy booms Turkey has attracted the attention of the world’s legal market. Will Clifford Chance and DLA Piper’s arrival mark a new chapter for the country’s local firm?

Clifford Chance’s move into Istanbul didn’t exactly take the market by surprise. The announcement that the Magic Circle firm is to open an outpost in the Turkish city followed its 2009 hire of Mete Yegin from local heavyweight Pekin & Pekin. Required by local Bar rules to ally with a local firm, CC will now officially launch in conjunction with Yegin’s firm, Yegin Legal Consultancy.

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Kop Kings – Liverpool FC

From the fields of Anfield Road to the offices on Bunhill Row, the takeover of Liverpool Football Club was played out in the full glare of the courts and the press. Legal Business talks to the key legal players

When John William Henry II descended the curving flight of stairs into the cool, inconspicuous client reception at Slaughter and May’s offices on Bunhill Row on the afternoon of 15 October 2010, he was met by an unusual sight. As the threshold of a law firm that has long prided itself on its understated manner, it’s usually exceptionally quiet. But that afternoon there was little evidence of calm: pandemonium had taken hold.

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Litigation round table

Trends in international commercial litigation were to the fore in the second Legal Business round table in conjunction with McCann FitzGerald. From the globalisation of disputes to rising levels of disclosure and tougher regulators there was plenty on the agenda

There has arguably never been a better time to be a litigator. Although the much-anticipated tsunami of litigation has not hit the market, there has been a discernible rise in disputes, which more often than not require a litigator to keep them out of the courts.

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Worlds colliding

The Alternative Investment Fund Managers Directive, dreaded by the offshore world, has now been agreed. LB finds out why the offshore world’s law firms are still smiling

After laboured negotiations and more than 30 drafts, the Alternative Investment Fund Managers (AIFM) Directive was finally approved by the EU parliament in November 2010. As the terms were thrashed out in the preceding 18 months, the funds industry held its breath, stifling funds activity both on and offshore. The offshore world is now resting a little easier.

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Going solo

Equity partners from a number of big Austrian firms have decided to go it alone, setting up boutiques over the past 12 months. Legal Business explores the impact these moves are having on the market.

In the final days of last summer in downtown Vienna, a small law firm opened its doors for the first time. Nothing unusual there, except that this firm, Benn-Ibler Rechtsanwälte, was opened by five well-respected former DLA Piper Weiss-Tessbach partners who quit in January 2010. When the partners left their old firm, they walked out with a fifth of the firm’s revenue and 40% of its equity partners.

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Eine kleine Nachtmusik

With litigation from the banking crisis now starting to filter through in Austria, most commentators believe that disputes work will be a firm feature of the legal market for the next few years. LB explores some of the biggest trends to emerge from the banking crisis

There have been a few late nights at many of Austria’s top law firms in the past year. At the end of 2009, the government was dealing with the emergency nationalisation of the country’s sixth largest lender, Hypo Group Alpe Adria (HGAA), and Austria’s top lawyers had been called in to help clear up the mess.

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Under review

Over the past decade panels have defined the relationship between law firms and the major banks. But as the nature of those relationships shifts, panels are becoming even more important

Mark Harding insists there’s been a shift of power. ‘Previously, with a lot of work, the boot was always on the law firm foot,’ Barclays’ general counsel asserts. ‘Now the boot is on the other foot.’ Coming from one of the most senior GCs in the City, head of a 900-strong in-house team with a legal spend of £100m, it’s something to take note of. Continue reading “Under review”