Global London rises – Sullivan & Cromwell signs up Linklaters partner for finance push

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US LinklatersSullivan & Cromwell

After years of conservative City growth, further signs emerge this week of Wall Street’s finest pushing into mainstream UK work with Sullivan & Cromwell recruiting Linklaters banking and restructuring partner Chris Howard.

The high-profile hire will be seen as a significant boost to Sullivan’s English practice in restructuring, distressed M&A and finance. Howard will advise international corporations, banks and financial sponsors on corporate restructurings and financings throughout Europe, the Middle East and the US.

Can you be sure of Shell? Coveted oil giant unveils new panel

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Adviser reviews Shell

Eleven firms, including Allen & Overy (A&O) and Baker & McKenzie, have been successful in winning a place on Shell’s new global legal panel, which was unveiled yesterday (22 May).

The tender, which kicked off in March, went out to 357 firms in 20 jurisdictions. The aim, according to legal director Peter Rees QC, was to find between two and five suitable firms for each practice area in each jurisdiction who would then be ‘pre-qualified’ for Shell legal work and who would compete with each other for significant mandates.

Redundancy watch: Trowers the latest top 50 firm to announce fee-earner job losses

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Job cuts Trowers & Hamlins

Trowers & Hamlins has made four fee-earners and three secretarial staff redundant in the last three months, the firm confirmed today (22 May).

‘In light of continuing pressures on the UK legal market, we have streamlined a few of our practice areas so that they better reflect our business needs,’ the firm said in a statement.

Italy: Hogan Lovells trio departs to Ernst & Young while Bonelli changes management

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Europe BonelliEredeHogan Lovells

Hogan Lovells’ Rome office has lost partners Gianroberto de Giovanni, Massimiliano Marinozzi and Paolo Ricci to Ernst & Young.

The trio will join as partners of the Italian legal offering of the global audit firm in its Rome and Milan offices. Ricci will take over the leadership team in Italy, while de Giovanni and Marinozzi will head the corporate and dispute teams respectively.

Closed shop: Law Society report shows sharp fall in training contracts

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Strategic recruitment

Entering the legal profession has become harder than ever, with the latest Law Society data revealing that the number of training contracts offered by law firms in England & Wales is at its lowest level since 1999.

The Law Society’s Annual Statistical Report reveals that the number of training contracts registered to July 2012 stood at 4,869; a 10.5% drop compared to the 5,441 registrations in 2011. The report also reveals that new solicitor admissions have seen nearly a 25% drop from 8,402 in 2011 to 6,330 in 2012.

Headline Deals: Ashurst takes lead for Commerzbank and Morrisons

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Corporate Ashurst

Ashurst is leading on two headline deals announced this week as Germany’s Commerzbank enters talks to sell a £4bn UK loan portfolio and Wm Morrisons signed a potentially market changing agreement with online grocer Ocado.

The top 15 UK firm is advising longstanding client Commerzbank on the proposed sale of its Eurohypo UK operation to US bank Wells Fargo and private equity group Lone Star. If the deal goes ahead it is reported to be one of the largest disposals of real estate debt by a European bank since the start of the financial crisis.

Guest post: Forget Dewey – what you need to be assessing on strategy and partner pay

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Guest blogs

Law firm managers who are planning large-scale, hubristic expansion-by-acquisition should study the Dewey & LeBoeuf morality play very closely. The rest of us should not. It’s a distraction that diverts attention from what matters closer to home.

Permit me to analogise: those of us who are dealing with the daily stresses and strains of keeping a marriage healthy could, I suppose, closely study the example of Tiger Woods as a way of understanding how marriages fail in a spectacular explosion of adultery.

Cadwalader focuses on Europe with London restructuring hires

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Restructuring Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft

US firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft is focusing its restructuring practice on Europe with the hire of partners Holly Neavill and Louisa Watt, who have joined the firm’s London office.

Neavill was previously a partner at Latham & Watkins London office, although she began her career in the US. She has worked on some high profile restructurings and distressed M&A deals, including advising the committee of bondholders in the restructuring of the publicly-listed Italian directories business SEAT Pagine Gialle last year.

A&O falls behind on associate pay table as it announces a freeze

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Associates Allen & Overy

Allen & Overy (A&O) has become the latest of the Magic Circle to reveal that it is holding its associate salaries at last year’s levels, meaning its associates will rank as the lowest paid of its rivals so far.

The firm will continue paying newly-qualified (NQ) lawyers £61,500; £1,500 less than Slaughter and May, £2,500 less than Linklaters and £3,500 less than Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

Travers Smith in surprise discrimination defeat

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Litigation Travers Smith

Top 50 City firm Travers Smith has suffered the rare public humiliation of losing a high profile discrimination case after a tribunal found the firm denied a former trainee a place in the firm because she had fallen pregnant.

The Central London Employment Tribunal found that Travers ‘contrived to prevent Katie Tantum from being offered a post as a newly qualified solicitor because of her pregnancy’, according to a statement by Tantum’s solicitors, Leigh Day & Co.