It is always educational and entertaining to view how the industry has evolved through the eyes of those veterans who lived it, and this – the 30th anniversary of the LB100 – presented the perfect opportunity to do that. Some of the recollections from pundits on the 1990s speak of a time that appears far …
Continue reading “30 years of LB100 – So much has changed but also shades of déjà vu”
‘I don’t think you will get any of the City firms to talk about this sort of thing… You have? Well. I am astonished. It is one thing for the Americans and accountants to get into this sort of thing, but not the lawyers.’ ‘Anyone who gives you that information will be booted out of …
Continue reading “Still vulgar to talk about money? Three decades have made the industry less coy”
Allen & Overy, Latham & Watkins and Reed Smith are among the firms competing to be named Law Firm of the Year at this year’s Legal Business Awards. Also shortlisted in the flagship category for the awards, which will take place at Grosvenor House Hotel on 27 September, are Bird & Bird, gunnercooke, RPC and …
The news that Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has directed partners, associates and trainees in London and Manchester to come into the office at least three days a week will have piqued interest around the market recently. The move to increase office time from the 50% requirement the firm set out last year won’t have come as …
Continue reading “Work in progress – Big Law’s existential office conundrum still needs fixing”
‘In the event of a recession, the lawyers will be fine. They always are. Unless you work at Ince.’ So quips one senior market commentator when discussing early indications from our Legal Business 100 research this year. Indeed and notwithstanding the unfortunate Ince (if you’ve missed it, more of its embattlement in ‘Ince owns up …
Continue reading “A sneak preview of the LB100 – the lawyers are always fine, aren’t they?”
Big Law came late to the ESG party compared to regulated financial services industries, with many law firms only getting the memo as recently as the pandemic. At the forefront of this movement for approaching 20 years are professor Paul Watchman, senior UN legal adviser and former Freshfields partner, and Paul Clements-Hunt, founder of The …
ESG imperatives have never been more at the fore for partners, general counsel (GCs), or indeed any professional with exposure to related reputational risk. A webinar, hosted by Legal Business and sponsored by Travers Smith brought together partners, experts from in-house, the Bar and a crisis-management guru for a diverse and challenging debate on the …
Continue reading “The ESG report – Event: Advising and acting for clients on ESG-related risks”
A lot can happen in a year, and never more so it appears than in the constantly evolving world of the ESG lawyer. Pretty much a year ago to the day, we launched our inaugural ESG report, firms and lawyers having had the bandwidth afforded by the pandemic to get their heads around what they …
Continue reading “Target on your back – the rise and fall of the ESG lawyer?”
As we publish Legal Business’ second ESG report, the words years ago of a male partner at a Magic Circle firm suddenly returned in a flash. To paraphrase: ‘The problem with City law firms is that they do a big push to keep women, they have a couple of female partners rising through the ranks, …
Continue reading “The profession must not let yesterday’s ESG news turn into today’s chip paper”
Asking around the market for tributes to Scott Simpson, Skadden’s eminent M&A partner who died suddenly at the age of 65 on 29 May, soon confirmed what was long suspected. Scott was the kind of man who got everyone up dancing to rock music, the sort of man who put the shirt-related fear of God …
