Double-edged – cutting both ways with third party funding

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It’s been a turbulent year for third-party funders, from court battles shining a spotlight on risky investments to new entrants and exits. Legal Business scopes the changing landscape for litigation’s bankrollers.

In early autumn, high-flying disputes lawyer Harvey Rands was taking a vacation in upstate New York. While many spend breaks catching up on books and perfecting golf swings, Rands, one of Memery Crystal’s highest billers, held in his possession an embargoed draft of the Excalibur costs judgment, a Commercial Court ruling on one of the most controversial pieces of litigation in recent years. Crucially the ruling, made public on 23 October, found third-party funders liable for indemnity costs in what became a precedent for an industry historically dogged with a controversial reputation.

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Consumed – Can burning ambition from Down Under recast Herbert Smith for the global stage?

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With the fall-out from the merger of Herbert Smith and Freehills subsiding, the emerging global challenger needs to galvanise its business under new leadership. Will the Australian suitor’s ambition provide the jolt needed or has Herbert Smith been absorbed?

‘I couldn’t talk about this over the phone,’ said one senior partner at Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF), with a glance over his shoulder. What could not be recounted electronically was the surprising news that HSF veteran James Palmer – widely regarded as the firm’s top City deal lawyer – had recently missed out on a place on its partnership council, the firm’s main oversight body.

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Back in the game – revival at last for real estate but the players have changed

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As investors place their bets on London’s property market, battered real estate teams are finally seeing a revival after the bleak post-Crunch years. Legal Business talks to the property lawyers who are back at the table.

Any Londoner will tell you that the Capital resembles a mass construction site these days. Around Victoria, for example, the noise of jackhammers perpetually fills the air, the result of a £2bn Land Securities redevelopment project to provide new luxury homes, shops, offices and improved transport facilities. This development has seen City real estate heavyweights Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Nabarro, CMS Cameron McKenna, Hogan Lovells and Eversheds lead on the legal side.

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The Knowledge Management Report – 20 standout teams in the know

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Knowledge in law firms remains crucial but hard to capture. In a special report, we assess the standout KM teams aiming to give their lawyers an edge and clients the intelligence they crave.

Not so long ago, access to the knowledge management (KM) function at a law firm meant running the gauntlet to avoid confrontation with a law librarian or wrestling with a ridiculous microfiche machine. Thankfully, the service has evolved a lot since then. The sophisticated technology, the experienced and professional staff and the sheer volume of instantly available knowhow means that KM is an integral part of a law firm’s arsenal, and one that is increasingly being harnessed directly by the firm’s lawyers and clients.

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The Knowledge Management Report – Knowledge meet client

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Increasingly mobile knowhow in law firms is not only being more flexibly deployed at law firms, it’s being packaged up for clients. We chart the evolution of KM from library to GC’s office.

Lisa Smith, head of knowledge services at DWF, provides a small but telling insight into how far knowledge management (KM) services have come in delivering value through business intelligence to their lawyers. She recalls a recent occasion where a partner had a key client meeting one morning, but there was a major development the night before involving a fire at one of the client’s premises. ‘We were able to alert the partner well in advance so that he was prepared,’ says Smith.

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Leader

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The launch of Legal Business’s debut Disputes Yearbook is just one of many signs of how dramatically the dynamics of the global law game have changed over the last decade. While our lead article, Martial Law, assesses whether the dramatic rise of the contentious lawyer has reached a post-Lehman plateau, there is no sign of litigation returning to the near backwater it was becoming at many City firms in the early 2000s.

It’s possible that a stabilising global economy will have an impact on this counter-cyclical business, but in truth pure crisis-related commercial disputes work has under-shot expectations and manifested with a greater time lag than many expected.

As such, many of the underlying factors strengthening the hand of contentious lawyers such as increasingly proactive regulation and enforcement, the rise of global arbitration in a multi-polar world and the relative patchiness of M&A and securities work show no signs of abating.

Glancing at the headline financials on the litigation teams at major commercial law firms, it’s obvious that it is now common for disputes teams to exceed firm-wide profitability by a good margin, probably in part because litigation teams rarely benefited from the over-investment seen in corporate practices at firms with delusions of M&A grandeur. Continue reading “Leader”

The new boy – can Ryde & co keep Slaughters’ deal team on top?

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The City’s top deal shop has a new corporate head. Legal Business meets Andy Ryde and asks if Slaughters can keep the M&A magic going.

For a state school lad from Nottinghamshire who self-mockingly confesses to still having the tiniest chip on his shoulder, it has been quite a journey. Slaughter and May partner Andy Ryde in March was named as the firm’s new head of corporate, leading what most neutral observers would see as, by some margin, the City’s top deal practice.

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Disputes overview: Martial Law

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The post-banking crisis boom in litigation has put disputes work back at the centre of global law. As the economy recovers, can it last?

Six years on from the financial crash and at least four years since many of the City’s leading litigation departments began giving their transactional counterparts a run for their money, one could be forgiven for wondering if doubts are creeping in over the sustainability of that progress.

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Leadership and innovation – Visionaries, politicians and survivors

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In today’s ultra-competitive legal market, the thin line between success and failure hinges on the quality of a firm’s leadership. LB teamed up with Berwin Leighton Paisner to investigate what separates the truly visionary from the merely ordinary.

There was a time, not that long ago, when running a law firm didn’t require a huge amount of thought. The money came through the front door and the increasing profits went out the back. Clients rarely moved. Partners stayed in one place and, barring a few dishonourable exceptions, law firms rarely failed. Compared to the pressures that their counterparts in other industries faced, law firm leaders had it easy.

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