Month: December 2017

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Tough times, new entrants and mobile talent – A Legal Business year in review

pop art woman with the word Brexit reflected in her sunglasses lens

It’s been another eventful year on the front lines of the City and global legal profession marked by mergers, expensive transfers of big-name partners and sharply-dividing fortunes of individual law firms. Underpinning this are ominous structural shifts in the industry thanks to changing buying behaviour and technology. A consultant friend of mine asked last week if I thought the profession was being complacent because dramatic change has yet to happen. My view is that the problem is not that change has yet to be felt, it is that it is clearly happening already but many prestigious law firms remain in denial.

Anyway, to chart a turbulent 2017, we took a quick look back through our coverage this year to pick out a few pieces that highlighted the key issues impacting the profession. We have divided the list below into a section on some of our set-piece features for subscribers and a second set of recommendations of shorter comment pieces that we have also made available in open access form online. Continue reading “Tough times, new entrants and mobile talent – A Legal Business year in review”

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Deal watch: Linklaters and Simpson line up on £6bn KKR deal as Ashurst leads on £575m float

Capping off another busy year for European buyouts, Linklaters lined up opposite Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Dentons as Unilever agreed to sell its spreads business to private equity giant KKR for €6.8bn (£6bn).

Corporate partner Matthew Bland (pictured) led the Magic Circle law firm’s team for the consumer goods group, which announced on Friday (15 December) that it had received a binding offer to sell brands including Becel, Flora, Country Crock, Blue Band, I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter, Rama and ProActiv. Linklaters partner John Crozier also worked on the deal. Continue reading “Deal watch: Linklaters and Simpson line up on £6bn KKR deal as Ashurst leads on £575m float”

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Buyout star David Higgins quits Freshfields for Kirkland in landmark $10m transfer

Despite a recent overhaul of its partnership to reward top performers, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has lost private equity heavyweight David Higgins to Kirkland & Ellis in one of the most expensive lateral hires ever in the City.

Higgins is set to join the US law firm as London co-managing partner in a deal worth around $10m a year, in one of the most significant UK departures ever from an elite London law firm. He will sit alongside finance playmaker Stephen Lucas on Kirkland’s core executive committee as its second London-based member. Continue reading “Buyout star David Higgins quits Freshfields for Kirkland in landmark $10m transfer”

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‘Established where we need it’: Singapore tie-up sees Watson Farley & Williams round off standout year  

Watson Farley & Williams has capped off an impressive year of financial growth with international expansion, securing a formal law alliance (FLA) with Singaporean firm Wong Tan & Molly Lim (WTL).

The tie-up, which will be known as WFW & WTL, will allow WFW integrated marketing, billing, client and legal services thanks to the FLA. The FLA structure was introduced by the Singapore government to allow greater flexibility between local firms and their international colleagues. Continue reading “‘Established where we need it’: Singapore tie-up sees Watson Farley & Williams round off standout year  “

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Better Call Saul: Osborne Clarke re-elects veteran senior partner

andrew saul

Osborne Clarke (OC), one of only three firms in the current UK top 100 to have more than doubled its revenue organically since 2012, has seen Andrew Saul re-elected as senior partner for a second four-year term.

Saul (pictured), a corporate partner at the firm for more than 21 years and head of that team for seven years, was voted in unopposed to the position he first took on at the start of 2014. He will remain a member of OC’s international council with his re-election. Continue reading “Better Call Saul: Osborne Clarke re-elects veteran senior partner”

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Comment: Super growth or decline? Which firm are you?

data variation

Everyone knows the legal industry has been a different place since the banking crisis but it is only when you take the long view that you realise how dramatic these changes have been.

For this month’s cover feature, we looked at three mid-tier law firms that have sustained above-trend growth for ten years. To identify our trio we looked long term at the performance in the LB100, focused on organic growth. Our working assumption was that, while top firms dominated until the credit boom, in relative terms smaller practices excelled over the last ten years. It turned out we had underestimated just how wrenching that post-Lehman shift has been. Continue reading “Comment: Super growth or decline? Which firm are you?”

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Dentons re-elects Cohen as UKME chief as UK managing partner steps down

Dentons

Jeremy Cohen will lead Dentons’ UK and Middle East operations until 2021 after the partnership approved him for a second term following an election in which he stood unopposed.

Meanwhile, the firm also announced today (14 December) that UK managing partner Brandon Ransley has decided to step down from his role in April 2018 and retire from the partnership. Continue reading “Dentons re-elects Cohen as UKME chief as UK managing partner steps down”

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Mouse grabs a Fox: Global 100 firms take centre stage as Murdoch sells empire to Disney for $52.4bn

Star Wars film premiere 2017

A raft of transatlantic firms have won roles advising on The Walt Disney Company’s $52.4bn acquisition of 21st Century Fox, including Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Allen & Overy and Hogan Lovells.

The deal includes the Twentieth Century Fox Film and Television studios, as well as the company’s cable and international TV businesses, in addition to its 39% stake in satellite broadcaster Sky. Disney will also add 21st Century Fox’s entertainment properties such as X-Men, Avatar and The Simpsons to its portfolio. Continue reading “Mouse grabs a Fox: Global 100 firms take centre stage as Murdoch sells empire to Disney for $52.4bn”

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Comment: Ditching lockstep – better too late than never?

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

‘Lockstep in its current form has to go. It’s just not working.’
Legal Business, June 2015

‘The current incarnation of lockstep is an overly restrictive model that was a child of its time…. The failure to substantively adapt the model… has increasingly threatened to shatter a system that still delivers considerable benefits.’
Legal Business, October 2013

*** Continue reading “Comment: Ditching lockstep – better too late than never?”

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Slaughters unveils five-figure bonus awards as junior lawyers’ pay edges higher

Slaughter and May office

In the latest sign of pressure to secure the best young talent, Slaughter and May has confirmed it is to pay five-figure bonuses to many associates amid modest salary rises for junior lawyers.

Slaughters today (13 December) announced that associates achieving ‘a good or exceptional level of performance’ will receive a bonus ranging between 9% and 16% of salary, broadly matching the rates the City leader paid out last year. Continue reading “Slaughters unveils five-figure bonus awards as junior lawyers’ pay edges higher”

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AG Integrate in action

Innovation in legal services remains the buzzword of the moment, yet what clients require from their law firms remains the same – a true understanding of both their legal and business needs. Firms continue to explore the cost and time-saving benefits that AI and legal technology bring, as well as employing flexible resourcing models as a way to offer greater choice and control, yet what clients demand more increasingly is a collaborative, integrated approach to legal service delivery.

Continue reading “AG Integrate in action”

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Internal affairs

The final session of the 2017 Commercial Litigation Summit sought the views of senior in-house counsel on managing disputes. Chairing the panel, Stephen Moriarty QC of Fountain Court Chambers kicked off the debate by tackling the perception of an in-house department as a cost centre – effectively, a necessary evil – citing the CV of Hausfeld’s Laurent Geelhand as an anecdote. Prior to joining the law firm, Geelhand was the European general counsel (GC) of Michelin, credited with turning ‘Michelin’s European legal department into a profit centre by systematically pursuing actions against third parties’. Moriarty asked the panel whether that is a realistic approach to running an in-house team. Continue reading “Internal affairs”

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Internal affairs

The final session of the 2017 Commercial Litigation Summit sought the views of senior in-house counsel on managing disputes. Chairing the panel, Stephen Moriarty QC of Fountain Court Chambers kicked off the debate by tackling the perception of an in-house department as a cost centre – effectively, a necessary evil – citing the CV of Hausfeld’s Laurent Geelhand as an anecdote. Prior to joining the law firm, Geelhand was the European general counsel (GC) of Michelin, credited with turning ‘Michelin’s European legal department into a profit centre by systematically pursuing actions against third parties’. Moriarty asked the panel whether that is a realistic approach to running an in-house team. Continue reading “Internal affairs”