While Ireland’s competitive legal market has enjoyed a buoyant period post-Covid, fresh challenges have emerged to challenge this optimism. Ireland has not been insulated from the overheated recruitment market and is as alive as global peers to reversals wrought by the cost-of-living crisis, the war in Ukraine and a slowing of deals as concerns over …
This comment piece has been updated to reflect an announcement late on Thursday (2 March) that merger talks between Shearman & Sterling and Hogan Lovells have been called off. In a joint statement, the firms said: ‘As has been widely reported, our firms have been in preliminary and exploratory conversations regarding a possible combination. After …
Continue reading “Shearman and Hogan Lovells – better the devil you don’t”
Looking at the recent wave of departures from Travers Smith brings to mind fears expressed by peers when we last did a major analysis of the firm back in 2019. Four years ago, harbingers of doom were quick to jump on the perceived threat to such a UK-centric firm amid Britain’s exit from the European …
Continue reading “Stopping the bleeding at Travers will require hard-won loyalty and a pay overhaul”
Pallas Partners has taken advantage of its alternative business structure (ABS) to appoint its first non-lawyer, chief administrative officer Linda Penfold, to the partnership. Penfold has more than 20 years of leadership experience in global law firms, managing operations across multiple jurisdictions and, at Pallas, has a mandate to lead the business services functions, office …
While Legal Business is not the type of publication to force a tenuous link in order to make a feature topical, isn’t it timely that our Global 100 analysis on law firms structured as Swiss Vereins – ‘Capture the flag’ – coincides with the football World Cup of FIFA (also a Verein)?
It is a treacherous business, making market predictions for the year ahead. Too conservative and the pundit is guilty of clinging to the ‘cautiously optimistic’ soundbite, which is the ultimate in fence-sitting and has become one of the most banal phrases in legal industry history. Too adventurous and you run the risk of being over-zealous …
Continue reading “A bonanza year for the Global 100 – is the table about to turn?”
Often the most daunting thing about venturing into the unknown is also what makes it the most exciting – you don’t really know how it is going to turn out. The prospect of launching LB’s inaugural TMT Yearbook in 2022 was perhaps no exception, but any niggling fears over the relevance of this new title …
Continue reading “(Almost) Everything you always wanted to know about TMT*”
‘Quite unexpectedly, the skills and experiences you’ve had in your previous career make you a better lawyer and more successful. Having a completely different dimension to your personality makes you more interesting to the clients. It turns you into an asset.’ So observes James Anderson, almost-famous musician, and now head of Skadden’s European tax practice. …
To a London hack hitting the streets and the meeting rooms of Dublin for the first time since coronavirus struck, Ireland’s capital is abuzz, perhaps more so than usual. Somewhat inexplicably, there are excited hordes of Americans wherever you turn, many of whom look as if they’ve just stepped off the set of a spaghetti …
Nathalie Tidman, Legal Business: What sector-specific challenges are you facing when it comes to strategic decision-making in-house? Sally Anne Sherry (pictured), Bartra Group: There are a couple of challenges that are specific to real estate, and those are often related to legislative changes that happen quite quickly. For example, when co-living was introduced in Ireland …
