HFW has announced that global aviation head Giles Kavanagh has been elected as its new senior partner, ending stalwart Richard Crump’s 15-year tenure.
Kavanagh (pictured), who already has significant experience from being a member of HFW’s management board, will officially take over on 1 April 2022. It will mark the end of Crump’s fifth consecutive term as senior partner. Continue reading “HFW ushers in new era as Crump ends 15-year senior partner reign”
Natasha Harrison has left Boies Schiller to set up a rival firm in the City, with five other partners also departing the firm.
The move will be a massive blow for the US litigation giant’s City ambitions, given Harrison’s reputation as one of the most influential and outspoken law firm leaders as well as a respected litigator. Continue reading “Harrison leads Boies Schiller team exodus to set up rival firm”
Keystone Law has continued to attract senior lawyers to its non-traditional model, adding 12 partner-level hires across multiple practice areas.
Banking and finance partner Greg Kahn arrives from Dentons; employment of counsel Audrey Williams joins from Simmons & Simmons; construction and projects partner Claudia Otto switches from Armstrong Teasdale; restructuring and insolvency specialist Cory Bebb jumps over from JMW; while the former head of immigration at Edwin Coe, Dhruti Thakrar, also makes the switch. Continue reading “Revolving doors: Keystone makes a dozen senior hires as UK partner recruitment ramps up”
Continuing the frenetic pace set during last week’s round of lateral partner recruitment, CMS has hired a patent litigation specialist from Allen & Overy (A&O) in London.
Toby Sears, previously a senior associate at A&O, has broad experience advising on a wide range of contentious and non-contentious intellectual property matters in the technology and life sciences sectors. Continue reading “Revolving doors: CMS continues recruitment drive with IP hire as Eversheds lures banking counsel from Linklaters”
In an extraordinarily busy week for partner recruitment, CMS has made an eye-catching corporate play in London with two Magic Circle hires.
Financial services M&A partner Emma Clark arrives from Linklaters, while private equity specialist Edward Holmes joins from Clifford Chance, where he was a senior associate. The double addition will bring the number of partners in the CMS corporate practice to 79 in the UK. Continue reading “Revolving doors: CMS makes double corporate play in London as New Year hiring spree gathers momentum”
Listed firm Knights has returned to form with a 9% organic growth in revenue to £59.7m in its half-year results.
This marks a significant reverse from its H1 results last year, when the firm conceded that a slew of acquisitions masked a 15% fall in turnover in real terms.
Knight’s buyouts of smaller firms continued apace this year though, with it strengthening in Yorkshire through the £11.5m purchase of Keebles, as well as expanding in the south east with the £5.3m acquisition of Mundays. The firm also entered the north east with the £5.2m takeover of Teeside-based Archers, completed in November. When including this raft of add-ons, revenue jumped by 29% for the period.
Knights attributed the organic upturn to improved client demand, as well as an expansion of its services. Chief executive David Beech (pictured) told Legal Business: ‘M&A was a big success for us in the past year – it’s been a boom period in that regard for most firms. But our entrance into Teeside we feel gives us a unique platform to take advantage of its new Freeport. The practice is modest in size, but big in opportunity.’
The firm saw its underlying profit before tax rise an impressive 26% to £7.6m and also boasted of ‘exceptionally strong cash conversion’ of 105%, up on the 103% reported this time last year.
According to Beech, Knights made 20 ‘senior level hires’ this year (including lawyers but also other professionals such as bankers), bringing with them significant client relationships which likewise boosted organic growth. This remains broadly consistent with the 18 such additions reported last year.
Beech said: ‘If you compare ourselves with previous years, we have recruited really well. Especially as we are in a very competitive period for partner-level recruitment. There’s a push away from the old partnership model, particularly from the next generation of lawyers. This has coincided with us being much surer of who we are as a brand – people read about us and appreciate our unique structure.’
As regards upcoming acquisitions, Beech said: ‘watch this space’. On that front, the firm has recently agreed a £60m revolving credit facility to create ‘significant headroom’, and ‘to continue to scale our business across the UK organically and through selected acquisitions.’
Well over half of female applicants were successful in this year’s Queen’s Counsel (QC) appointments, spearheading a cohort that also saw solid solicitor representation.
The five successful solicitors represented a cross-section of elite disputes firms: Ruth Byrne, dual commercial litigation and arbitration partner at King & Spalding; Allen & Overy arbitration partner Kate Davies McGill; Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s London arbitration head Sylvia Maria Noury; international arbitration partner at Herbert Smith Freehills Chris Parker; and Gaëtan Verhoosel, founding partner at arbitration specialist Three Crowns. Continue reading “Silk and steel: Women lead the way in latest QC round as five solicitors make the cut”
Continuing the frenetic pace of recruitment displayed throughout 2021, 2022 has begun with Allen & Overy (A&O) adding an established antitrust partner from Sidley.
Kristina Nordlander was previously global co-head of antitrust at Sidley, and she has more than 23 years’ experience advising clients on both sides of the Atlantic. Her practice has a broad EU antitrust and EU litigation focus, with a particular strength in the tech and life sciences sectors. Continue reading “Revolving doors: Global 100 firms kick off new year with heavyweight hires”
In an unflattering revelation ahead of its planned IPO, Mishcon de Reya yesterday (5 January) received the highest-ever financial penalty issued by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) of £232,500 for a string of failures related to money laundering rules.
The firm, which has also been issued with a £50,000 costs order, admitted to failing to provide adequate due diligence on four client matters. It also accepted it had misplaced the hard copy evidence of the due diligence it carried out on those matters. Continue reading “Mishcon hit with record £232,500 SRA penalty over money laundering mishaps”
