Month: March 2010

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Cards on the table

Wragge & Co’s decision to launch in Paris sees its notoriously prudent partnership taking a rare gamble. Legal Business reveals the ambitious new strategy now underpinning Birmingham’s largest legal powerhouse

If you’re wearing a suit when you meet Quentin Poole you’ll feel overdressed. He looks more like a teacher than a lawyer: no jacket, top button undone, no tie. The softly-spoken senior partner of Birmingham’s biggest firm perfectly personifies the self-styled benevolent culture of Wragge & Co, a culture that ensures it is a permanent feature on the Financial Times’ best places to work list. But, like the firm, Poole’s unassuming demeanour masks a resolute efficiency that it is a mistake to underestimate. Wragges’ business ambitions are far from modest.

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Renaissance man

From challenged leader to merger architect and LB Management Partner of the Year – it’s been quite a turnaround for Lovells’ David Harris

When David Harris collected his Management Partner of the Year award from Legal Business at Grosvenor House in mid-February, it wasn’t just the David Bowie soundtrack that brought a smile to his face. Though Bowie is a hero of this polo-playing guitarist, that smile was prompted by the day job, and the apparent vindication of his ambitious plan to transform Lovells from a mid-tier everyfirm into a global player.

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Burning platforms

While firms have been talking tough on developing effective risk management teams, the preparation ends now. With fundamental changes to the profession around the corner, risk teams need to be primed for action

While the first Legal Business and Marsh risk management survey two years ago examined the need for a risk management function, and last year’s report looked at the very specific challenges facing firms in the teeth of a global recession, this year finds firms very much needing to get in shape. Talk is cheap, and the emphasis now is on getting risk management and compliance teams ready to tackle the fresh structures and regulatory pressures in a new decade.

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Putting out new fires

This section looks at the key risks identified by the top 150 firms in the UK in our third risk management survey. While last year client bankruptcy, credit problems and other recession-related fears dominated risk managers’ agendas, this year some of those fears may have abated.

Of the potential risks identified by risk managers, the threat of clients being acquired or declared bankrupt has fallen sharply, scoring on average 2.6 out of five, compared to 3.6 last year (see ‘Legal risk profile’ table, opposite).

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Finding a voice

The reality for a number of firms is that up until now their risk teams have been wading through treacle to get their firms in shape. Now that the concept of effective risk management is universally recognised, the hard work begins for some: getting the appropriate level of support internally. To our survey question ‘What are the main barriers to implementing a risk management culture at your firm?’, the response ‘getting proper “buy-in” from fee-earners’ came up time and again. Continue reading “Finding a voice”

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Staggering about

There’s no doubt that there was a hardening of the professional indemnity (PI) insurance market in the past year for firms outside the LB100. The advantages of the soft market have truly come to an end. Many smaller firms have been hit hard by the hikes in premiums, due primarily to the rising number of claims within conveyancing, coupled with an increased chance of the firms failing, and the impact of fraudulent activity in the market.

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Leading ladies

Positive discrimination for men? Only in Turkey. Legal Business analyses a legal market where female commercial lawyers almost always top the class

The UK’s legal market has never been an easy place for female lawyers. This became abundantly clear in the 2009 LB100, which charts the UK’s top 100 law firms by revenue. Among these firms only 22% of the partners and 17% of the equity partners are female. Given that the overall percentage of female lawyers is 47%, it is hardly encouraging to see that only 37% of those promoted to partner in 2008/09 were women. These statistics do not make good reading for young British female associates, particularly if they are working at one of the Major City or Global Elite firms, where the percentage of female partners is 18% and 16% respectively. Continue reading “Leading ladies”

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Time for change

With some of the cornerstones of Swiss identity – banking and secrecy – under threat, the country’s law firms are caught up in the maelstrom. LB uncovers how Switzerland’s conservative legal community has been responding to the upheaval.

Switzerland recently encountered its most significant period of economic turmoil, and its lawyers are right on the front line. Although the consequences of the financial backlash were largely kept at bay through government intervention, hitherto unknown banking and investor losses were recorded. Continue reading “Time for change”