Global 100: Word from the world

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‘The UK has embraced technology and alternative legal services faster than the US with some innovative and imaginative thinking.’

Kim Koopersmith, Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld

From downturn fears to investing for the future, law firm leaders give their perspective on the challenges facing elite global firms.

Big issue

‘How the global market evolves is the million-dollar question because we have got some key things lurking in the background and also in the foreground at the minute which would change things dramatically. There is very little organic growth, so you have this continuous battle for both clients and a share of the purse with clients.’
Bryan Hughes, chief executive, Eversheds

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Global 100: The stories of the year

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Merger talks, management reshuffles and structural changes – here is our recap of the stories that defined the global legal market during the past 12 months.

2015

August

  • Global 100 firms continued to pile into South Korea as White & Case launched in Seoul in August, a move quickly followed by Allen & Overy a month later. In January 2016 Ashurst said its plans to launch had been put on ice following the departure of Tokyo head John McClenahan to King & Spalding. In February, Latham & Watkins revealed it had signed a lease on a property in Seoul and submitted an application for a foreign legal consultant office.

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Global 100: Kick for the finish in Asia

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Despite slowdown in China’s economy, Global 100 firms’ interest in Asia shows no sign of winding down with significant moves following another active year.

China’s slowdown has been a focal point of international headlines across the past 12 months as its tumultuous 2015 spilled into 2016. For Dentons, which took on 4,000 China lawyers at the start of 2015 through its landmark combination with Dacheng Law Offices, China’s faltering couldn’t have been more ill-timed. However, Dentons’ exposure in Asia is shared by many Global 100 firms and the attitude is certainly that it is a marathon not a sprint – growth for many firms in the world’s second-largest economy and across Asia shows no signs of abating. Anyway, a slowdown in China is a relative term, with many law firms still expanding.

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Welcome to the John Joyce show: Addleshaws’ head aims to push national firm centre stage

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Victoria Young and Kathryn McCann talk mergers, leaks and pay with Addleshaws’ no-nonsense head

For a firm until recently associated with dithering, drift and under-performance, Addleshaw Goddard has been in decisive mode of late. Over the last two years the national player has assumed a more assertive style under the leadership of managing partner John Joyce (pictured). Joyce, who took over after an unhappy period under predecessor Paul Devitt, quickly overhauled the firm’s strategy. But in truth, strategy changed little from that of Devitt and then senior partner Monica Burch. Transformed instead was the leadership style and managerial mood music from Joyce, a man who at times appears to be doing a parody of the bluff northerner but who pulls it off thanks to results and a good dose of humour and charisma. Not since Mark Jones at the height of his powers a decade ago has Addleshaws had such an unyielding operational grip on the tiller.

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Trusts and estates disputes – Back on board

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With high-profile trust and estates disputes providing a rich diet to private client specialists for some time, City firms have recently made the push to get in on the act.

If the mass retreat of City firms from private client work in the 1980s and 1990s looked like folly when Mishcon de Reya, Forsters and others began to leverage their practices with commercial success during the recession, it looks like even more of a mistake today. With trusts and estates at the heart of some of the biggest global disputes currently, firms with significant commercial litigation practices have taken note.

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Better together? – Those Anglo-Scots unions in focus

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Legal Business looks under the bonnet to assess how the Scottish arms of Pinsent Masons and CMS have fared post-merger.

The ‘Better Together’ campaign, in favour of preserving Scotland’s union with the UK in 2014, maintained that Scotland was stronger as part of Great Britain, winning that particular argument by a margin of around 11%. But while the battle may have been won for now, a number of Scottish law firms are still wrestling with the decision of whether to tie-up with an English suitor – a fact most recently indicated by Maclay Murray & Spens’ aborted merger talks with Addleshaw Goddard in February.

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The Euro Elite 2016

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The inaugural Legal Business report on Europe’s top 100 independent law firms.

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Market Reports

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The Euro Elite top 25 – Wars of Independence

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While the advance of global law firms has stalled in recent years, high-quality independents have regained their purpose. Welcome to the Euro Elite, our first study of the advisers redefining the Continent’s legal market.

‘There’s economic value in the culture of a firm,’ says João Vieira de Almeida, managing partner of Portuguese firm Vieira de Almeida & Associados (VdA). If that culture is driven by independence, his sentiments are echoed by managing partners from Paris to Prague.

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