Bluechips continue to grow legal teams as buyside lawyers shift from external counsel
In-house departments are expanding rapidly and overshadowing private practice growth as corporates plan to further bolster their internal legal capability.
Both recent statistics and developments on the ground indicate that corporates are increasingly addressing issues such as regulatory and compliance pressures, as well as budgetary restraints, by expanding their internal capabilities.
Legal Business meets Aviva’s senior lawyers as they discuss the effects of a major restructuring.
For those lawyers comfortable with the status quo within Aviva’s legal team, it has been a turbulent 18 months.
The FTSE 100 insurance giant has been plagued since the start of the financial crisis by poor financial performance, disparate businesses across the globe, and lower capital reserves than its competitors. Shareholders had lost confidence in former chief executive Andrew Moss, which is why Aviva is now run by the man credited with turning round the fortunes of Australia and New Zealand Banking Group.
Continue reading “PROFILE: Kirsty Cooper and Monica Risam – Aviva”
With non-legal procurement teams becoming more and more part of the bluechip panel process, are firms delivering the best value for money?
`The client is the enemy,’ says one veteran corporate partner at a Magic Circle firm, privately expressing a common frustration over how the traditional relationship between external counsel and in-house legal teams has been battered by the latter’s post-downturn quest for value.
Continue reading “Feeling the squeeze – the pressure is on as procurement hits law”
The formal establishment of the UK Green Investment Bank (GIB) has had a domino effect on senior counsel moves as the government funded initiative’s hunt for a general counsel (GC) comes to a successful close with the hire of rated Pinsents Masons energy partner Euan McVicar.
McVicar, who specialises in the financing and development of energy projects, will join the sustainable project investment bank in late summer 2013, although no specific date has yet been given.
Continue reading “UK Green Investment Bank welcomes Pinsents McVicar as MacRitchie moves on”
While the trend of in-house departments bolstering their internal capability and cutting reliance on external counsel is well established, Royal Dutch Shell’s legal head Peter Rees QC has taken the logic to the extreme.
Since replacing Beat Hess as the global energy group’s legal director in January 2011 Rees has pushed through major changes, restructuring Shell’s around 750-lawyer department and kicking off a far-reaching global panel review. Continue reading “All change at Shell – legal head pushes through shake-up and puts final touches to global panel review”
Glencore Xstrata has promoted former Glencore general counsel (GC) Richard Marshall as its overall head of legal in the wake of its $66bn merger.
Marshall joined Glencore in 2005, having worked at Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft. He moved to the firm’s London office from the Sydney office of Mallesons Stephen Jacques where he had been a partner since 1984.
Continue reading “In-house moves: Glencore and RSA announce senior appointments”
Allen & Overy (A&O) has won a place on Aviva’s top corporate panel after a lengthy review that saw Clifford Chance (CC) lose its spot as plc adviser.
The move comes as Aviva also kick-started its UK and Europe panel selection process in mid-April, following an overhaul of its 280-staff global legal team.
The review of the plc panel was led by general counsel (GC) and company secretary Kirsty Cooper and Aviva Group GC Monica Risam (pictured).
As infrastructure giant Balfour Beatty signs up Pinsent Masons as its sole legal adviser for general matters, Legal Business asks why the trend for single-supplier deals hasn’t really taken off yet.
The single-supplier legal advisory model pioneered by Tyco International has resurfaced yet again. In April, infrastructure giant Balfour Beatty announced a radical overhaul of its panel arrangements, selecting Pinsent Masons as its sole adviser for all its ‘business as usual’ legal work. The three-year contract with Pinsents, which was agreed for an undisclosed amount, will cover all repetitive and predictable legal work that the firm faces on a daily basis.
Continue reading “Three steps forward… will Tyco-style deals ever sweep the market?”
BHP Billiton senior executive David Williamson is set to rejoin Ashurst in Australia, where he was a lawyer at legacy firm Blake Dawson for 28 years. It is understood that he will return in June as a partner after spending three years at the mining giant.
Williamson joined the company as head of group legal in 2010 and for almost the last two years also served as chief compliance officer.
Continue reading “BHP Billiton swaps Ashurst for Herbert Smith Freehills with new legal chief”
With Barclays’ GC Mark Harding recently announcing his retirement, the search is on to replace one of the biggest jobs in City law. Legal Business assesses the much-changed role of bank legal heads in the post-Lehman world
When news broke in February that Mark Harding, general counsel (GC) for Barclays, was resigning after ten years in the top post, it sent ripples through the City profession. In replacing arguably the most high-profile GC in the country, the market is divided over whether Barclays should recruit internally or from private practice. The professional world that Harding has dominated for so long has changed almost beyond recognition. In filling those shoes, Barclays will be looking for much more than a leading corporate lawyer.
