‘A client said to me during the first Covid wave: “I stand in awe of the superior business model of law firms — because you will normally need a lawyer, whether you want one or not”.’ Penny Angell, Hogan Lovells
From innovation to economic headwinds to premature reports of the demise of the Magic Circle, leaders at Legal Business 100 firms give us their views on the past financial year and look ahead to the next
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 a surprise to many law firm leaders. They have been grappling with the thorny issue of how best to give staff the flexibility on offer pretty much everywhere else in the market while simultaneously avoiding ennui prompted by looking around at an empty office each day. 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 to pensions gaffe as cyber attack wreaks £5m havoc‘), the message coming through from the UK’s top 100 law firms by revenue is positive. In fact, it is very bullish indeed. Continue reading “A sneak preview of the LB100 – the lawyers are always fine, aren’t they?”
‘No firm should ever take anything for granted. Dewey & LeBoeuf was a top-end, white-shoe firm and it over-guaranteed and mismanaged.’ Natasha Harrison, Pallas Partners
A decade on from Dewey & LeBoeuf filing for bankruptcy, global law firm leaders give their reflections and views on the lessons learned from the firm’s demise. Could history repeat itself?
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 wanted their ESG image to be. In many ways, 2021 felt like a less cynical time. The industry at large was emerging from a health crisis, and we were conditioned to be kind, good corporate citizens because, let’s face it, who knew what personal and professional hell Covid might have wrought on the people we were dealing with?
Last year – the tricky task of getting firms to name mandates they’d rejected on ESG grounds notwithstanding – most firms we canvassed with our ESG questionnaire were tripping over themselves to show off their credentials. In 2021, 77% of firms questioned responded to our survey. With such an encouraging response, this year we went out to more firms, again approaching the top 25 Legal Business 100 firms, but also the top 25 Global London firms, not just the top ten. Only 52% responded. 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, they think they have the gender diversity issue fixed. They tick it off the list and move onto the next thing.’
While acknowledging the manifold nuances and difficulties in diversity and inclusion of all kinds, it is disappointing to see how predictable this faddy approach to social progress continues to be. Continue reading “The profession must not let yesterday’s ESG news turn into today’s chip paper”
‘As custodians of the rule of law, we have to question whether we are undermining it in anyway? It’s in the mix for sure. I would expect that it plays on everyone’s minds.’ Sophia Adams Bhatti, Simmons & Simmons
On the back of our second annual ESG report, key decision makers share their views on how well law firms are stepping up to the mark
Nathan Peart, managing director of the Associate Practice Group at Major, Lindsey & Africa, analyses associate retention
The race to recruit and fill multiple vacancies in 2021 was a surprise to all after the first year of the pandemic. Law firms were busy across several practice areas and keen to attract the brightest and best lawyers into firms. However, after the rush of hiring, increase in salaries and sign-on bonuses paid out with guarantee periods long expired, how are firms keeping their new and existing lawyers, while balancing the tightrope between transparency and remaining competitive in the market? Continue reading “Guest comment: How are law firms retaining the top talent?”
When Legal Business rounded off our inaugural ESG report last summer, we concluded that the coronavirus pandemic had given law firm leaders the opportunity to crystallise their stance on environmental, social and governance (ESG) imperatives.
For one thing, partners were not jetting around the world, flying in the face (quite literally) of their carbon footprint reduction targets, yet they still managed to be exceptionally successful. Looking back, it was a time when it was easy to be virtuous. Continue reading “ESG – What is it good for?”
That one of the chief concerns among law firm leaders in Legal Business’ annual Global London report is the retention of talent and the salaries required to do that in an ultra-competitive recruitment market is of course not ground-breaking news. Pundits have for years bandied around the term ‘the war for talent’, and with ever-more frequency in connection with demand for deal lawyers as the seemingly unstoppable private equity boom continues apace.
But when these phrases take hold they tend to stick and get churned out at every available opportunity when senior lawyers talk about the manifold challenges facing their businesses. Critical as the pipeline of talent unquestionably is, now that there is a real war on, the term seems hyperbolic. Continue reading “Time for a reality check on salaries”
