Guest post: #SAVEUKJUSTICE and whoring justice to Russian chavs – a few observations from a sardonic law blogger

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Legal affairs

The #SAVEUKJUSTICE demonstration outside the Ministry of Justice yesterday (4 June) was well attended. Coverage of the event has been extensive and well dealt with in the law blogs.

A few observations…

The unified stance taken by the Bar and Law Society has been a remarkable feature of the campaign.Leading lights from the legal profession have given time and thought to putting the message across through blogs and on twitter. Many bloggers have written on the subject. Patrick Tornsey has a comprehensive listing of blogs written by lawyers and others from the legal blogging community.

 

Strategic Recruitment: King & Spalding continues City drive with Steptoe hire

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Strategic recruitment King & SpaldingSteptoe & Johnson

King & Spalding has continued its City recruitment drive with the hire of Steptoe & Johnson’s London dispute resolution partner and co-head of the Russia and CIS group, Egishe Dzhazoyan.

Listed by Legal 500 as a leading arbitrator with ‘excellent common sense’, Dzhazoyan is a UK and Russian-qualified lawyer who has represented clients in more than 50 arbitration and litigation proceedings across a host of international jurisdictions. He has a particular focus on the banking, telecoms and energy sectors.

Revolving Doors: Osborne Clarke, Eversheds and Bryan Cave among firms to make key strategic hires

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Strategic recruitment Bryan CaveEversheds SutherlandOsborne Clarke

Europe has been the focus of much lateral partner activity over the past week, as firms including Eversheds and Osborne Clarke make senior hires across the continent.

On 3 June, Osborne Clarke announced it is to open in Brussels with a two-partner, five-lawyer team from former Belgian ally De Wolf & Partners, led by De Wolf’s head of employment Thierry Viérin and commercial partner Stefan Deswert.

Leadership: Linklaters elects four new partners to its most senior board

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Leadership Linklaters

Linklaters has elected four new members to its most senior governance board responsible for strategic and other major decisions at the Magic Circle Firm.

The new members of the international board are London capital markets partner Paul Lewis in place of outgoing City partner Michael Kent, Düsseldorf corporate partner Klaus Hoenig who takes over from Frankfurt partner Eva Reudelhuber, Moscow capital markets partner Dmitry Dobatkin in place of retired former Moscow colleague John Goodwin, and Antwerp corporate partner Jean-Pierre Blumberg in place of Brussels-based litigation head Francoise Lefevre.

Uniting a profession, for what that’s worth – Bar and solicitors come together to oppose controversial legal aid reforms

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Legal affairs

It’s no mean feat to get the various branches of the profession and legal regulators singing from the same hymn sheet but controversial government proposals to slice £220m off the annual criminal legal aid budget have managed just that. As the consultation today (4 June) closes on the Ministry of Justice’s (MoJ’s) ‘Transforming Legal Aid‘ proposals, the Law Society, Bar Council and Bar Standards Board (BSB) have combined to condemn the move.

CC bumps starting pay to £63,500 with bonuses giving junior associates chance to earn over £100,000

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Salaries Clifford Chance

Despite generally gloomy market conditions there were renewed signs of underlying confidence at top London firms with Clifford Chance (CC) joining its peers today (4 June) in announcing rises in associate and trainee pay and bonuses for the year ahead.

The firm is the last of the Magic Circle to announce pay changes across the board, adding an extra £2,000 to newly-qualified (NQ) lawyers’ pay packets, up to £63,500 from last year’s £61,500, a rise of 3%.

Reports season 2013 – Bird & Bird and Olswang post healthy revenue increases

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Financial results 2013 Bird & BirdOlswang

Two international firms with strong European practices and a core media focus, Bird & Bird and Olswang, have posted solid revenue increases for the 2012/13 financial year.

Bird & Bird has announced revenue growth of 6%, from £235m to £249m, marking 25 years of continuous growth. Profit figures are yet to be released although a firm spokesperson said that the expectation is that net profits will have risen again in 2012/13.

The performance was described by the firm as solid and in line with budget ‘in the face of challenging economic conditions in our major markets’.

Comment: In defence of big – the maths are favouring two + two

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Legal mergers

How many times do you hear lawyers roll out the line about mergers having to be two-plus-two-makes-five? True in many regards. Getting bigger doesn’t make you better or necessarily solve structural and strategic issues and mergers are hard to pull off effectively.

But when it comes down to it, this truism has become pretty misleading in Law Firm Land 2013.

Because scale does indeed matter in law, all things being equal. Bigger firms have the economies of scale – and these advantages are only getting more important given the continual shift towards smaller and more process-driven panels.

Global Expansion: Bingham continues recruitment drive with hire of HSF London funds partner

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Strategic recruitment Bingham McCutchenHerbert Smith Freehills

Bingham McCutchen has expanded its transatlantic offering to European fund managers with the hire of Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) rated partner Thiha Tun, only weeks after seven White & Case funds lawyers joined in Tokyo.

Tun, who works with private equity, real estate, infrastructure and hedge funds, will join Bingham’s investment management practice in September, in line with the top 30 Legal Business Global 100’s firm’s stated ambition to bolster its international funds and financial regulatory capabilities.

NHSLA unveils £400m panel as DAC and Hill Dicks win spots

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Adviser reviews DAC BeachcroftHill Dickinson

DAC Beachcroft, Kennedys, Hill Dickinson, Browne Jacobson and Weightmans are among 14 firms to have won places on the NHS Litigation Authority’s (NHSLA) expanded services legal panel, with a total legal spend of around £400m over four years.

The body that deals with claims from patients who have been harmed whilst under the care of the NHS today announced the conclusion of its two-month procurement process across three sub-panels: clinical liability; non-clinical liability; and regulatory, health and disciplinary (RHD).