Month: June 2011

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Middle East – New ball game

stadium in Doha port

On 2 December 2010 FIFA, the international governing body of football, officially announced that a desert state would be hosting the 2022 World Cup. Qatar, a country with a population of only 1.6 million people, endures average daytime temperatures in excess of 40°C in June and July. How will the players cope?

The bid chairman, and sixth son of the current Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani was unruffled: ‘We will have to take the help of technology to counter the harsh weather. We have already set in motion the process.’

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Redrawing the map

The latest boom in transactional work from emerging economies is a welcome antidote to difficult home markets for international firms. LB looks at the differing approaches to growth and who the clients of the future might be

It is easy to understand how law firms get carried away by the opportunities that new, emerging markets present. In the past five years there has been a rush to set up offices in places that a generation ago would have held little attraction. The shift of transactional power has now fundamentally moved to emerging economies led by Brazil, Russia, India and China (the BRIC countries). Continue reading “Redrawing the map”

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Street smart – QualitySolicitors

QualitySolicitors represents a new generation of firms changing the way that law is done on the high street. With the advent of alternative business structures later this year, LB investigates what impact these new players will have on the industry.

It’s just after the May Bank holiday and the co-founder of QualitySolicitors, Saleem Arif, is on his mobile in a windy motorway service station explaining the thinking behind his business. Continue reading “Street smart – QualitySolicitors”

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Tip Top

Intellectual property is the trophy practice for many firms in 2011. LB examines the current popularity of IP at law firms and the story behind a spate of lateral hires in the past year

Whisper it, but for the global legal community the demise of Howrey brought two pieces of good news. First, its collapse meant a credible competitor had fallen away in the areas of intellectual property (IP), litigation and antitrust. The other bonus was that a number of excellent IP specialists were suddenly on the market. While Howrey’s decline has been well documented, the speed with which other firms scooped up many of the survivors is worth noting.

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Portugal – Out of the ruins

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”

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Portugal – Shifting sands

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”

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Middle East – Still standing

As the Arab Spring spreads across the Middle East, investors are flocking to safe ground. LB discovers which states will prosper and which have the most to lose.

It is late April and tanks are being deployed by security forces in Syria following the government’s inability to quell civil resistance protests. Of the long list of countries affected by political unrest recently, those that have hit the headlines most emphatically include Libya, Egypt, Tunisia and Yemen. But does this turmoil have the lawyers in the region’s main financial centres worried?

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