I’ve always suspected that, like politics, careers in journalism largely end in failure. Here is how mine ends. After 20 years covering the legal industry, it’s time to do something else. Given that length of time, I hope my four regular readers will forgive the introspection of my final Legal Business column. I was an …
Continue reading “Comment: Last orders – The final reflections of a veteran legal pundit”
The back-to-school feel in the City is unmistakable, not least because the actual schools are back, as major law firms attempt to find something like normality in an environment that remains a few standard deviations from the norm. In some ways it was ever thus come the end of August. As one law firm leader …
The upheavals of 2020 have given me more time than normal to reflect on something that I’ve spent a good deal of my career engaging with: leadership in major law firms. But while leadership in law is widely accepted as crucial to the success of major institutions, it is a subject that still attracts much …
Everybody likes to go along with the crowd, in business as much as life. So as the global economy is battered by the coronavirus fallout and many business sectors are on their knees, it’s inevitable that the legal industry has adopted a subdued tone focusing on the existential challenge it too faces. After all, official …
Given the savaging that Covid-19 has done to our collective sense of time, forgive a quick history lesson on the halcyon days of 2019. Pulling together the LB100 report for the 2018/19 period, Legal Business reflected: ‘After a credible performance, the profession now faces a slowing economy at home and abroad amid mounting unease generated …
Roughly 30 seconds into conversation with Boris Feldman it becomes apparent why the charismatic litigator is regarded as a local legend in California’s legal community. Spitting out colourful quotes with the confidence that comes from having acted for pretty much every Bay Area brand name going, the bow-tied Feldman has nonetheless chosen an odd time …
With the coronavirus pandemic still wreaking havoc across many industry sectors, London’s legal elite has continued to buck the dire wider market with the third Magic Circle firm announcing revenue growth. Results announced today (21 July) from Clifford Chance (CC), show the London outfit confirming robust growth in the face of the most challenging trading …
There has been much speculation about the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the profession but the first set of results from a leading law firm has confirmed the gist of months of market chatter: they’re doing fine. Allen & Overy (A&O)’s financial results for the 2019/20 year show that the City giant managed the …
Is the next front on diversity in the profession targets for ethnic minority representation? The industry looks to be slowly moving that way with the news that Clifford Chance (CC) is committing to a host of new targets aimed at boosting diversity. Though the package unveiled today (14 July) is focused on representation on many …
In my line of work you’re supposed to pretend ideas come out of nowhere but this column was triggered by a well-argued piece by my former parish noting the contrast between senior lawyers let off with fines for regulatory breaches while juniors are routinely struck off. The question in a nutshell is why juniors are …
