Firm increases bonus pool and launches three-year lockstep for new partners
DLA Piper International partners have approved an overhaul of its pay structure, introducing a points-based remuneration system and a larger bonus pot as it targets greater profitability, while bringing in a separate lockstep for new partners while they grow their practices.
Continue reading “DLA Piper partnership votes to overhaul remuneration system”
Corporate veteran vows to maintain City focus when he succeeds Saul in May
The new senior partner at Slaughter and May, Stephen Cooke, has pledged to retain the firm’s City focus when he takes up his five-year term at the helm of the UK’s most profitable law firm in May.
2015 Legal Business Law Firm of the Year Osborne Clarke has continued its sound financial performance of the last few years, reporting impressive first-half results for 2015/16. The firm has outpaced its peers by a stretch, reporting a 25% rise in first-half turnover.
While not all firms disclose their revenues at the halfway point, Deloitte has found UK law firm revenues were up by an average of 4.5% for the first half of the financial year 2015/16.
Continue reading “Osborne Clarke still going strong as LB100 firms report first-half results”
One Crown Office Row (1COR) saw six of its barristers take silk in this year’s round of Queen’s Counsel (QC) appointments, as those selecting new QCs remain concerned at the low level of female applicants.
With this year’s 107 appointments marking a rise on last year’s round of 93, notable appointees included 1COR junior Marina Wheeler, the wife of Boris Johnson; Wilberforce Chambers barrister Tim Penny, a former member of the dissolved set 11 Stone Buildings; and 39 Essex Chambers’ Justine Thornton, the wife of former Labour leader Ed Miliband.
Continue reading “1COR tops QC appointments table as female applicants remain ‘stubbornly low’”
Continental Europe the next priority as firm chases larger international revenues
Kennedys formed another international association last month, this time with Buenos Aires firm Estudio Bunge – Bunge, Smith & Luchía Puig.
Continue reading “Kennedys global push continues apace as it follows insurance clients to Argentina”
Linklaters has selected Shanghai Capital Law & Partners and Shanghai Kai-Rong Law Firm as targets as management works to establish a Chinese law offering. The plans come as the firm’s Asia practice has been rocked by a series of senior exits.
Linklaters wants to become the first Magic Circle firm to practise Chinese law through new Shanghai free-trade zone rules after decades of protectionism in the communist country.
Continue reading “Linklaters picks merger targets in Shanghai as Asia exits stack up”
Skadden heads US M&A tables while Freshfields leads in Europe
Deal lawyers are unsurprisingly predicting another busy year in M&A as Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer emerged as the top corporate deal shops in the US and Europe respectively in 2015, according to Dealogic.
Victoria Young canvasses veteran lawyers on the outlook for bespoke financing in 2016.
It’s been flavour of the month for a lot of months now, but among leveraged finance advisers the conviction remains that 2016 will be another breakthrough year for alternative credit funds. Partners speaking to Legal Business say market conditions are ripe for such lenders, even as turbulence affects some larger sources of capital.
Linklaters has got the year off to a flying start for equity capital markets work, leading on the announced initial public offerings (IPOs) of CMC Markets and Countryside Properties, while also advising the underwriters as Clydesdale Bank plans to float.
The Magic Circle firm is providing English and US legal advice to online spread-betting company CMC Markets on its planned flotation on the London Stock Exchange in what will be the year’s first IPO.
FRESHFIELDS AND STEPHENSON HARWOOD CHECK IN FOR PRIORY SALE
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Stephenson Harwood led on the sale of the Priory rehab clinic. Freshfields advised US private equity group Advent International on the sale of the Priory Group, which operates more than 300 facilities, to Acadia Healthcare for £1.3bn in January. Acadia was advised by Stephenson Harwood.
Continue reading “Deal watch: Corporate activity in December/January 2015/16”
Victoria Young talks to Chris Lowe and Lothar Wegener about their ambitions for the firm
‘It’s not about: “Here’s an opportunistic piece – let’s grab that.” It’s about a continuous cycle of investment, not something which just happens.’
Chris Lowe, Watson Farley & Williams
My parents were immigrants from Eastern Europe. My father came after being conscripted against his will in the Tsarist army and took a tortuous route via Germany and Paris. My mother came from Russian-occupied Poland. We lived in Stepney and my father waited for people to die and sold their clothes in Petticoat Lane market.
Before pop stars all we had were film stars. But there were glamorous lawyers like Hartley Shawcross, whose face was always in the newspapers as he was a prosecutor in the Nuremberg war trials. I’d never met a lawyer. It was a fantasy.
In-house has long made much of offering a better work-life balance than private practice. But as expectations and responsibilities rise for GCs, can in-house keep delivering on flexible working?
In June 2014 the government extended flexible working rights to more than 20 million employees across the UK in a policy shift that recognised the traditional nine-to-five routine no longer dominates British workplaces. But if such attitudes are relatively new to much of the economy, lawyers in in-house roles – traditionally a more progressive environment than private practice – have long put a premium on agile working.
Flexible working, defined as any pattern other than going into an office for five full days a week, can encompass part-time hours, job shares, nine-day fortnights or working from home. According to data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS), as of August 2015, eight million people work part-time in the UK out of just over 31 million in the UK workforce, while four million are estimated to primarily work from home. The biggest driver for flexible working requests remain parental responsibilities, but such arrangements have become more accepted for a wider range of reasons, including carer responsibilities, chronic illness, charity work or even the desire to pursue outside interests.
Following our report last year on anti-corruption investigations in Asia, we teamed up with Simmons & Simmons to host a round table discussion and dinner for in-house lawyers to debate the subject in Hong Kong.
In common with in-house lawyers everywhere, our guests have found anti-corruption, bribery and investigations to be an increasing and more compelling part of their workload, notwithstanding the fact that the burden is often shared by compliance and risk departments.
Continue reading “Asia insight: Anti-corruption – Hunting dragons”
The offshore transactional market continues to go from strength to strength. Our annual focus on the ten largest offshore firms again reveals impressive activity levels during the last year. According to Appleby’s recent private equity report, during the third quarter of 2015 deal activity was even more robust than usual: there were 660 offshore deals during the quarter, worth a total of $60.7bn. Of those, 26 involved private equity firms either acquiring or disposing of their investments. With a combined worth of $16.1bn, private equity deals therefore represented over a quarter of total offshore activity by value in Q3 2015.
Material growth in private equity-backed M&A is a trend that looks set to continue, according to Ogier global managing partner Nick Kershaw. ‘The asset classes are diverse, from real estate to trust companies, but there is consistent acquisitive appetite,’ he says. Ogier acted on several high-profile deals in 2015, such as providing Jersey law advice to Palamon Capital Partners on the £200m joint acquisition with Corsair Capital of Currencies Direct.
Continue reading “Standing tall – 2015 in review for the offshore elite”
With even Freshfields unveiling plans to put hundreds of staff in Manchester, we teamed up with Scottish Development International to assess the rush to nearshore. Is it driven by costs or a deeper rethinking of the legal industry?
To say Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s launch of a support and legal services centre in Manchester was one of the biggest stories of 2015 would be an understatement. While back-office outsourcing and legal process outsourcing had legal process outsourcing had been the subject of much debate within the profession for years and the modern era of northshoring by global law firms was pioneered by Allen & Overy (A&O) and Herbert Smith in 2011, news that the 270-year-old Freshfields is to house up to 300 support and legal staff in Manchester by next year sent reverberations around the City. A&O had done that already in Belfast – and delivered significant cost savings to boot – but this was Freshfields, the most conservative of London’s Big Four.
Continue reading “Faraway, so close – two visions of nearshoring”
Business is struggling to find a response as the Brexit vote looms. We team up with Herbert Smith Freehills to explore the impact… and GCs’ options.
‘One day Alice came to a fork in the road and saw a Cheshire cat in a tree. “Which road do I take?” she asked. “Where do you want to go?” was his response. “I don’t know,” Alice answered. “Then,” said the cat, “it doesn’t matter.”’
Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
Continue reading “Up in the air – As Brexit looms, GCs face leap into the unknown”
Dear partner,
We know there is a lot of talk about the new generation of associates, how entitled and short term they are, and that either you or a colleague has been talking about what to do about the kids.
Continue reading “Comment: An open letter to Gen X partners and Millennial associates…”
King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has won a key argument over document disclosure in an ongoing £2m professional negligence claim against it taken by Commodities Research Unit International (CRUI) at London’s High Court.
Continue reading “KWM wins disclosure argument in £2m professional negligence battle”
Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has posted a 17.5% dip in pay to its management committee as the firm’s turnover dipped for the 2014-15 financial year.
Continue reading “HSF management committee pay down 17.5% as revenues drop”
