Our cover feature this month largely speaks for itself in assessing the changing face of partnership as Millennials begin colonising the senior ranks of City law firms. Within five years, this group will be the driving force of elite commercial advisers. Yet this column is not about the changing attitudes of youngish lawyers, more an …
Continue reading “Yet unremarked, generational conflict cripples City law”
It would take a generous observer of Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) to claim the once sure-footed outfit had managed anything better than an indifferent run in the years preceding its union with Bryan Cave. Having dazzled through the 2000s – a period in which the firm seemed to have single-handedly revived the unfashionable notion of …
Continue reading “BCLP: A slightly better sales pitch than expected”
‘It is an odd couple. I wouldn’t have put them together,’ is one take from a London peer to the news that Allen & Overy (A&O) has sought a $2.8bn union with O’Melveny & Myers. It is certainly a representative view. Since news of the talks broke in early April, One Bishops Square has gone …
Continue reading “Comment: A&O merger bid risky but US question can’t be delayed forever”
Within the same week, two Magic Circle firms stressed to Legal Business the same mantra after departures of big-name lawyers: it is not about stars, the focus is the platform and that is what top clients are buying. In a mobile market where even the once-untouchable elite City law firms lose marquee names to high-paying …
Alex Novarese, Legal Business: Will the UK legal system be more or less trusted post Brexit? Abhijit Mukhopadhyay, Hinduja Group: As a business, we trust English law and the English courts. Whenever we do business in any part of the world, unless it is in the US, we always go for English law. So long …
Continue reading “The future of disputes debate: The justice brand”
‘It is an odd couple. I wouldn’t have put them together,’ is one take from a London peer to the news that Allen & Overy (A&O) has sought a $2.8bn union with O’Melveny & Myers. It is certainly a representative view. Since news of the talks broke in early April, One Bishops Square has gone …
Continue reading “A&O merger bid risky but US question can’t be delayed forever”
Within the same week, two Magic Circle firms stressed to Legal Business the same mantra after departures of big-name lawyers: it is not about stars, the focus is the platform and that is what top clients are buying. In a mobile market where even the once-untouchable elite City law firms lose marquee names to high-paying …
Continue reading “Star power is core to your pitch – accept it”
Recently a surprisingly popular column in Legal Business took a jaded view of the state of leadership in major law firms. The nub of our argument was that the law firm c-suite had descended into technocratic managerialism over genuine leadership, leaving once bold institutions to put off crucial decisions. That piece drew on years of …
Continue reading “16 easy steps to making you a great managing partner”
Striking numbers abound in this year’s Global London table, if you are into that kind of thing. The three pace-setting US brands in London – Latham & Watkins, Kirkland & Ellis and White & Case – are all generating in the $300m region in the Square Mile, last year saw the first $10m lateral and …
Continue reading “Global London comment: Brexit looms but the $20m partner is coming”
The #MeToo campaign has had a number of brushes with the legal industry but nothing like the shock news today (20 March): the head of the world’s highest-billing law firm Latham & Watkins has stepped down after a series of ‘voluntary disclosures… relating to personal conduct’. Latham today issued a statement confirming that Bill Voge …
