Revolving doors – Weil, Latham, Freshfields and Dentons among the firms opening 2014 with senior recruits

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Increasing confidence in the transactional market has contributed to a rash of senior partner moves at the start of 2014, with the UK’s leading firms bolstering both their London and international practices.

In the City, upwardly mobile US practices continued to boost their capability with Weil, Gotshal & Manges hiring Hogan Lovells banking and finance partner Chris McLaughlin, who has extensive experience of cross-border private equity buyouts and European real estate acquisitions and restructuring. His hire came a week after Latham & Watkins hired Weil Gotshal funds partner Nick Benson, its fifth City hire within the past 12 months.

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Latest LLP filings show increased borrowing

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BLP bank debt up sharply as 2012/13 annual reports filter through

Growing debt was a recurring theme in the limited liability partnership (LLP) accounts filed in January, led by Legal Business 100 top-20 UK firm Berwin Leighton Paisner, which, after a year of partner departures and a significant drop in profit per equity partner, revealed a 223.7% increase in bank borrowing in the 2012/13 financial year.

The 790-lawyer firm’s borrowing ballooned to £45m from £13.9m in the previous year, on the back of new bank loans totalling £31.1m.

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More in-fighting as Law Society contests SRA attempts to gain greater fining powers

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SRA aims to bring maximum fines for law firms closer to the much higher figures for ABSs

Further tensions in the Law Society’s already strained relationship with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) emerged in January as the representative body prepares to contest its regulatory arm’s attempt to increase its fining powers over law firms.

In a consultation that ends this month, the SRA has invited views on its proposal to increase the current level of fining powers over City and regional firms to as much as £100,000. However, the Law Society said it has ‘concerns over the functioning of the enforcement team within the SRA’.

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High Street gloom as SRA publishes full list of uninsured firms forced to close

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The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) last month confirmed the names of the 136 firms which have been forced to close since 29 December, having not secured professional indemnity insurance (PII).

The list of firms, which the SRA said it published in the interests of protecting consumers and third parties, includes Alastair J Brett, the London-based firm set up by the former legal director of The Times newspaper, who was recently suspended over the Nightjack case.

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RFU rejigs legal team as deputy head joins sports firm

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Bujalski promoted to head of legal as Handford joins Couchmans

The Rugby Football Union (RFU) has reconfigured its in-house legal team, promoting in-house lawyer Angus Bujalski (pictured) to head of legal following the recent departure of Polly Handford to become a partner at sports law firm Couchmans.

Former Slaughter and May lawyer Bujalski will report directly to the organisation’s legal and governance director, Karena Vleck. While Vleck has oversight of legal as well as other sports-related areas such as player discipline, Bujalski will have specific responsibility for the legal function. Continue reading “RFU rejigs legal team as deputy head joins sports firm”

Life During Law – David Childs

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It’s been an amazing career. I’ve been with Clifford Chance (CC) for 40 years. People had just stopped wearing bowler hats when I started, I was relieved to notice. What I remember was being in Royex House at Coward Chance. No air conditioning – we used to bake in the summer. People used to go out for lunches and have a bottle of wine a head and work in the afternoons.

I remember watching then senior partners walking in at ten in the morning. They’d go for a long lunch with clients and go home at three. I thought one day that might be my life. Of course, it never has been my life. The City has changed completely.

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Clifford Chance in line for windfall payment after PwC reaches European Lehman settlement

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As latest payout confirmed to Lehman’s creditors, total US and UK costs soar to $2bn

Clifford Chance is among the creditors of the European operations of Lehman Brothers set to receive a windfall after administrator PwC announced a total payout of $7.8bn, the latest in a series of payments made to creditors of the former US investment bank as it nears the end of its mammoth winding-up process.

According to one partner at the Magic Circle firm, the payment could be as much as £10m and a spokesperson for PwC said creditors are likely to receive payment before the end of the calendar year.

Lehman Brothers filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in September 2008, listing $639bn of assets against $613bn of outstanding debt but within days creditors filed claims of $1.2trn, double its assets.

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Bond Dickinson wins AIG tender for volume contract work

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Merged regional giant beats four rivals for out-of-London mandates

Following a competitive tender process between five of its panel law firms, AIG has awarded its bulk contract work to Bond Dickinson, as the insurance giant’s general counsel for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Chris Newby focuses his team on more strategic, higher level legal work.

AIG concluded its main panel review in September, appointing a 25-strong list of advisers, including Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Berwin Leighton Paisner and DLA Piper.

A secondary tendering process was conducted among five panel firms for the job of updating and modernising hundreds of medium risk, high-volume but low-value contracts with AIG’s providers.

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A&O the first top-tier player to forge contract lawyer service

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Freelance lawyers to cover fixed-term needs.

For all the talk of innovation in the profession, experimentation with new models has so far been more evident at mid-pack players like Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) and Eversheds than elite London or New York advisers.

However, as Legal Business revealed on 25 November, Allen & Overy (A&O) has become the first top-tier outfit to challenge that orthodoxy with the Magic Circle firm launching a high-end contract lawyer service for major clients.
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RPC abolishes flat-rate salary for newly-qualified solicitors

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City firm to move junior lawyers to structure based on merit and market rates.

RPC has taken the final steps to adopting an entirely merit-driven pay model as it last month announced that it will abolish the traditional flat-rate salary for newly-qualified solicitors (NQs) in the UK and move to a system linked to merit and market rates from September 2014.

In a move said to take into account what is happening in other sectors and the pressures that clients are under to achieve value, the firm will operate a variable pay scale where the strongest NQs entering their careers ‘in the most competitive areas of the profession’, will be eligible to earn salaries above those currently offered by major City firms, a firm statement said. Continue reading “RPC abolishes flat-rate salary for newly-qualified solicitors”