Shoosmiths, Travers Smith and Coca-Cola Europacific Partners were among the major winners at the 2022 Legal Business Awards, which welcomed more than 800 guests to the Grosvenor House hotel on 27 September.
Before the Awards, in-house guests gathered for a reception to mark the launch of our annual GC Powerlist, with key representatives from FTSE 100 companies such as Adobe, FT and Vodafone in attendance. Continue reading “LB Awards and GC Powerlist UK 2022: A night to remember”
A lack of trust and technical know-how are holding back legal firms from digitising their workflows — but finding the right tools can be half the battle
For most UK law firms, the 2020 pandemic drove home the power of digitalisation. Continue reading “Sponsored briefing: Debunking the myths holding back digitalisation”
Boodle Hatfield is 300 years old this year. Weʼve had a number of events celebrating this milestone, all leading up to a big party for everyone at the firm, which weʼre all looking forward to!
The legacy of the firm is as a trusted adviser to private clients, starting out as a sort of in-house steward to the Grosvenor family, and we want to build on the success of the past 300 years as we are merely the custodians of the Boodle Hatfield name. It may be a cliché, but the firm really is a family of people that are working together, and I hope that we can maintain that and build on it, even in this different working environment that we now find ourselves in. Continue reading “Life During Law: Sara Maccallum”
Despite intense scrutiny of the SFO and a slowdown in new cases, the market for white-collar expertise is as hot as ever, as Georgina Stanley discovers
The last 12 months may not have been as busy as they could have been for the white-collar community, but that has not stopped the practice grabbing more than its fair share of headlines. Continue reading “The Legal 500 View: Why allegations of ‘woeful mismanagement’ and a ‘chronic lack of investment’ at the SFO aren’t stopping the white-collar lateral hiring carousel”
As highlighted in this month’s The Legal 500 view article on page 22, the white-collar and corporate crime market has seen significant volumes of lateral hiring activity year after year. This recruitment activity continues to shift both the L500 corporate crime rankings, which focus on advice to corporates embroiled in investigations, and the white-collar rankings, which focus on those advising the individuals within them.
Taking a ten-year view of both rankings though, it is clear that despite City firms’ efforts, to date, the very top of the white-collar rankings remain largely the preserve of the crime boutiques, while City firms dominate the corporate crime rankings. The same is also true of the leading individual tables by number. Lower down though there is more evidence of the impact recruitment is making on the rankings, with firms including Dechert, Cadwalader and Paul Hastings among those climbing the rankings over time and increasing their leading individual counts. Continue reading “The Legal 500 Data: Ten years of tiers”
Ince owns up to pensions gaffe as cyber attack wreaks £5m havoc
Ince has owned up to paying staff pension contributions into the wrong account, blaming a cyber attack earlier this year that also caused £5m in damages. Continue reading “Stories of the last two months”
Despite the typical summer slowdown of the global lateral recruitment market, there have still been plenty of eye-catching hires. Many of the headline moves have a transatlantic hue as US firms continue to attract top talent in the City, while UK firms have had mixed results in the States.
In London, Latham & Watkins’ banking vice-chair Ross Anderson and fellow partners Mo Nurmohamed, Karan Chopra and Rob Davidson joined Paul Hastings in July. The team brings a breadth of experience in leveraged finance and direct lending deals, having led on recent high-profile transactions; recent examples include acting for the arrangers of the TLB financing to support Blackstone’s acquisition of Huws Gray, and the arrangers of the financing to support Bain’s acquisition of ITP Aero, a carve out from Rolls-Royce. Continue reading “Strategic recruitment: Paul Hastings taps Latham City banking team as Pallas launches in New York”
The annual torrent of financial results has swept the market once more, with all eyes as usual on how the Magic Circle firms fared against City peers.
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Allen & Overy (A&O) both racked up 10% revenue growth, with Clifford Chance (CC)’s turnover growing 8%, and Linklaters’ increasing by 7%. In absolute terms, CC recorded the largest fee income of £1.97bn, narrowly ahead of A&O’s £1.94bn. Linklaters and Freshfields followed with £1.78bn and £1.7bn respectively. Continue reading “Show us the money: 2021/22 financial results show strength in numbers”
Akin Gump has made impressive strides in the City over the past eight years. With James Roome, the driving force behind its fêted City restructuring practice set to retire, can the firm continue its London trajectory?
The 2014 Bingham McCutchen deal that brought James Roome to Akin Gump is described as ‘one of the transformative events’ by the firm’s chair, Kim Koopersmith (pictured). In the first full year after his arrival, City revenue more than doubled, jumping from $35.8m in 2014 to $91m in 2015. And far from being a one off, London revenue has since grown 65% to hit $150.4m for 2021 – significantly outpacing Akin Gump’s global revenue growth of 31% over the same period. Continue reading “No Roome for growth? A new chapter for Akin Gump’s City office”
As a growing number of international firms pivot their focus in Asia to Singapore, King & Spalding’s appointment of banking heavyweight Andrew Brereton as the office’s new managing partner could be viewed as a declaration of redoubled commitment to the city state.
The Atlanta-headquartered firm first brought the Clifford Chance veteran on board at the start of 2019 as part of an effort to build out its finance and restructuring capabilities in the wider region. Continue reading “Onward, Singapore: King & Spalding names new managing partner as Sidley backs laterals in the city state”
