Bird & Bird has put plans in place to gain entry to a pilot scheme in China that will allow international firms to practise Chinese law for the first time.
Continue reading “The early Bird & Bird catches the worm – firm prepares to practise Chinese law”
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has hired division heads for its M&A and leveraged finance practices in a drive to increase the firm’s US footprint and increase market share in cross-border deals.
Continue reading “Freshfields hires US M&A and leveraged finance heads in New York expansion”
Magic Circle firm Clifford Chance has made a private equity push in continental Europe with the hire of Willkie Farr & Gallagher partner Fabrice Cohen in Paris, who moves as part of a three-lawyer team.
Bingham McCutchen is set to suffer the departure of a team of City partners from the firm’s trophy financial restructuring group to US rival Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld‘s London office.
Continue reading “Bingham’s City arm faces restructuring team exodus to Akin Gump”
US litigation powerhouse Boies Schiller & Flexner has hired long-serving arbitration partner Wendy Miles from Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr to kick start a London arbitration practice.
Continue reading “Boies Schiller hires WilmerHale’s Miles to boost London arbitration”
It’s an unforgiving environment, but 2014 once again shows the well-captained mid-tier outfits sailing free.
‘I’m a great believer that you can always do better and however good a particular year was, you have to exceed that. And we are far from perfect.’ So says Simon Beswick, managing partner at Osborne Clarke (OC), one of the strongest performers in the Legal Business 100 (LB100) this year.
The Bristol-based firm saw turnover rise 26% in 2013/14 – the largest single increase in the LB100 – and has seen revenue rise by 69% since 2009.
Continue reading “LB100: The Second Quartile – Close Hauled”
The LB100’s regional players have seen starkly divided fortunes with the South West players sailing ahead while northern firms face choppy waters
Collectively, the 29 regional firms in the second half of the Legal Business 100 (LB100) trail in the wake of other peer groups. While average revenue is £38.4m, a little below the £39m of the second 50 as a whole, revenue per lawyer (RPL) is 9% lower than the average for firms ranked 51-100. In terms of profits, average profit per lawyer (PPL) is £45,000, some 10% lower than the bottom 50 average, while profit per equity partner (PEP) is £309,000. Continue reading “The Second 50 – Batten Down”
While the headline Legal Business 100 (LB100) results are once again inflated by significant merger activity at every level, there is evidence that many of the top 100 grossing firms in the UK are enjoying organic growth again.
Total revenue for the LB100 for 2013/14 is £20.82bn, an increase of 9%, while lawyer headcount swelled 6% to 65,111. With revenue growth slightly faster than 2012/13 but headcount growth slower, average revenue per lawyer (RPL), profit per lawyer (PPL) and profit per equity partner (PEP) were all up by 3% to £320,000, £98,000 and £640,000 respectively.
Continue reading “Reviving deal market lifts LB100 as top UK firms edge up profits and fees”
Weil, Gotshal & Manges has paid over £3m to settle a professional negligence claim made against it in late 2013 by private equity house Bancroft.
The case was set to be heard before the commercial court in July but the US law firm agreed a confidential settlement that Legal Business understands to be between £3m and £5m.
Consolidating firms are jostling for position in the race to dominate international and UK markets. But even amid fairer conditions, the course to victory is uncertain.
‘To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail, not tie at anchor
Sail, not drift.’
Franklin D Roosevelt, 1938
‘One feels from the body language out there that firms which have come through the recession successfully are beginning to unwind, beginning to stretch a bit, beginning to feel as though more business is coming back – particularly in the corporate market. The corporate partners who had to lay low for some years are starting to unfurl their wings a little bit and ruffle their feathers.’
Having endured a difficult time in recent months with an exodus of partners from its London office, US law firm Edwards Wildman Palmer published its UK limited liability partnership (LLP) accounts in August, which recorded a 10% drop in UK turnover, alongside a 21% drop in profit.
The LLP accounts, dated to 31 December 2013, show revenue fell to £25.1m from £27.8m, operating profit decreased to £8m from £10.1m and net debt rose to £323,827 from £54,952.
US advisers take the lead on £5.6bn takeover of UK institution
The Walgreen Company has instructed New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Allen & Overy (A&O) to handle its acquisition of the remaining 55% of Nottingham-based chemist Alliance Boots in a £5.6bn deal.
The pharmacy giant already has a 45% stake in the group, which owns UK high-street favourite Boots, which it acquired in August 2012. This new deal will create the combined entity of Walgreens Boots Alliance, with more than 11,000 stores in ten countries and a portfolio of retail and business brands.
Continue reading “A&O joins US firms on Walgreens’ acquisition of Alliance Boots”
Dechert and PwC step into Singapore as global players sustain push into key Asian hub
This summer saw continued interest by advisers in the Asian legal market, as top-50 US firm Dechert finally received the green light to open an office in Singapore eight months after applying for a Foreign Legal Practice licence. Meanwhile, Big Four accountancy giant PwC made a move to enhance its legal offering in the Asia-Pacific region, having entered into a tie-up in Singapore with local firm Camford Law.
Political tension and economic turbulence have seen more law firms retrench in the wider European region, with Chadbourne & Parke and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer both confirming office closures. US firm Chadbourne last month confirmed that it was closing its Kiev office, a move which saw Dentons benefit as it snapped up Kiev-based corporate partner Adam Mycyk. Meanwhile, a pair of Freshfields lawyers have established an IP/IT specialist boutique following the closure of the Magic Circle firm’s Barcelona office in April this year.
Mycyk, who is also the former managing partner for CMS Cameron McKenna’s Kiev office, will join Dentons as a partner in its corporate practice just 18 months after moving to Chadbourne.
Continue reading “Chadbourne closes Kiev arm as Freshfields duo set up in Barcelona”
Michael West assesses the prospects for the agency after settlement of the Tchenguiz claims
He was always going to have a painfully full in-tray on taking over as head of the troubled Serious Fraud Office (SFO) a little over two years ago, but even against that context, the previous 12 months must have looked something like an annus horribilis to David Green QC. Lows during this period saw the Public Accounts Committee issue trenchant criticism of the body, important investigation documents misplaced and the chaotic collapse of the trial against Victor Dahdaleh.
Faced with dire rates of female retention, law firms have abandoned previous resistance to public gender targets for their partnerships. Will it work?
It had been a fairly dry debate at the 2013 Georgetown Law panel discussion in London, covering a number of worthy issues facing the profession. Dry at least until near the end, when a Legal Business journalist on the panel told the sizeable audience of lawyers that law firms were perfectly able to function commercially while haemorrhaging female lawyers, the caveat being that if the profession was waiting for economic drivers to solve the gender diversity dilemma, it would be a long wait. The journalist then mentioned that the profession may want to consider more drastic measures.
Continue reading “The Target – will tougher measures finally boost gender diversity in the City?”
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 2013/14 – usually 1 May 2013 to 30 April 2014. We call these the 2014 results. Where firms have identical fee incomes, the firms are ranked according to the highest profit per equity partner (PEP).
Core Stats from the LB100 2014.
Includes; Ten fastest growing firms by revenue, Ten fastest shrinking firms by revenue, LB100 Averages (RPL, PPL, PPE), Ten fastest growing firms by PPE and Ten fastest shrinking firms by PPE.
Which firms are the most profitable?
In this table we blend together all of our profitability measures, including PEP, profit per lawyer and profit margin to discover which of the top 100 firms are the most profitable. The 100 firms have been ranked according to their mean rank across all three measurements. Continue reading “LB100 2014: Behind the Numbers – Profitability Revealed”
Eight years after founding Sidley Austin’s office in Frankfurt, Jens Rinze, the firm’s last remaining partner in the country after a spate of exits, has departed for Squire Patton Boggs.
