Dealing with no deal – Can top law firms cope with a chaotic Brexit?

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Dealing with no deal – Can top law firms cope with a chaotic Brexit?

Simon Davis has had quite a start to his one-year term as the 175th president of the Law Society of England and Wales. Taking office just a few weeks before Boris Johnson was appointed Prime Minister in July, the Clifford Chance (CC) litigation partner faced the reality of a nation that was heading for a cliff-edge exit from the EU, with major potential disruption for its legal industry.

With the new Conservative government promising to deliver Brexit on 31 October – ‘do or die’ – and the path to a withdrawal agreement with the bloc getting narrower by the day, the prospect of a disorderly exit has rapidly become a realistic possibility. Continue reading “Dealing with no deal – Can top law firms cope with a chaotic Brexit?”

Life during law: Ian Bagshaw

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Life during law: Ian Bagshaw

I’m less Marmite than I was. Never been deferential. Having a Mancunian directness, I was brought up by people who called a spade a spade. Helps me with clients massively. Sometimes it’s not what other lawyers want. I could be more political and in the past, I’ve tried. You can only be yourself.

I was the first person in my family to go to university. I didn’t grow up dreaming of being a solicitor. I still think football coaching was my true calling. Continue reading “Life during law: Ian Bagshaw”

Enhance your contract negotiation process with a data and process-driven approach

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Enhance your contract negotiation process with a data and process-driven approach

At most organisations, the contract negotiation process is highly manual, inconsistent and reliant on the institutional knowledge of the attorneys involved. Companies lack well-documented clause-level risk standards to advise on contract issues, and have no clear and consistent process for entering into agreements. The implications are unnecessary risk, inefficiency, cost and delays.

Taking a data and process-driven approach to enhancing the contract negotiation process can unlock hidden value that leads to a simplified contracting process, less risk, improved insights, higher productivity and a better bottom line. Continue reading “Enhance your contract negotiation process with a data and process-driven approach”

Linklaters leads Magic Circle pack amid solid 2018/19 trading but uncertainty looms over the City elite

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Linklaters leads Magic Circle pack amid solid 2018/19 trading but uncertainty looms over the City elite

Lawyers are a pessimistic bunch by nature and, with the big four Magic Circle firms posting another year of solid but unspectacular revenue and profit per equity partner (PEP) growth, the consensus view is that 2018/19 could have been a lot worse.

Amid a wider slowing of the UK economy and Europe’s deal markets in the face of Brexit and a range of cross-border headwinds, the City’s big four international players posted another year of the moderate results that have defined their post-banking-crisis form. Continue reading “Linklaters leads Magic Circle pack amid solid 2018/19 trading but uncertainty looms over the City elite”

Taylor Wessing quartet boosts flourishing Goodwin City office as O’Melveny losses stack up

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Taylor Wessing quartet boosts flourishing Goodwin City office as O’Melveny losses stack up

The City offices of progressive US firms continue to set the tone for the London lateral recruitment market – a charge most recently exemplified by Goodwin Procter, which has secured a four-partner technology and life sciences team from Taylor Wessing.

Goodwin hired Malcolm Bates, David Mardle, Tim Worden and Adrian Rainey in a move that makes good on the firm’s promise to build out its City technology and life sciences bench. Mardle started in mid-June, while the remainder will join after completing their respective notice periods. Bates was head of the life sciences practice at Taylor Wessing and advises licensing, collaboration and distribution, manufacturing, outsourcing and R&D projects, as well as contract and patent disputes and regulatory matters. Continue reading “Taylor Wessing quartet boosts flourishing Goodwin City office as O’Melveny losses stack up”

Prestige, cash and a bit of spin: how to get ahead in trainee recruitment

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Prestige, cash and a bit of spin: how to get ahead in trainee recruitment

As the associate pay war rages, Thomas Alan finds major firms are falling back on cultural tropes in the expensive jostle for trainee talent

When Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer announced in May a pay hike for newly-qualified salaries, rising from £85,000 to £100,000 with bonuses on top, new battle lines were drawn in the war for junior talent. Continue reading “Prestige, cash and a bit of spin: how to get ahead in trainee recruitment”

NRF launches legal ops consulting arm with the mind behind Barclays’ radical panel reforms

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NRF launches legal ops consulting arm with the mind behind Barclays’ radical panel reforms

Norton Rose Fulbright (NRF) made an ‘offensive move’ against the much-hyped threat of the Big Four on legal operations consulting with the hire of the well-regarded former Barclays head of external engagement, Stéphanie Hamon (pictured).

Hamon, who quit the bank earlier this year, joins as a fee-earner in August to head the new practice and help ‘in-house departments function like a business’. Continue reading “NRF launches legal ops consulting arm with the mind behind Barclays’ radical panel reforms”

Brexit vs Dicey – The constitutional lawyer’s view on these strange days

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Brexit vs Dicey – The constitutional lawyer’s view on these strange days

With Brexit entrenching divisions, Britain’s patchwork constitution is being increasingly pitted against political upheaval. Do legal experts see crisis brewing?

Britain has developed an uncharacteristically laid-back attitude to constitutional change, with once-rare reforms to the UK’s ad hoc democratic settlement coming at a startling pace in recent years. The previous Labour administration ushered in varying degrees of devolution in Scotland and Wales, before in 2003 pulling the UK’s highest court out of the House of Lords and into the new Supreme Court (tacked on was reform of the Lord Chancellor’s historic role). The process of further EU integration under the Maastricht Treaty, not to mention Labour’s 1998 Human Rights Act, which gave domestic force to the European Convention on Human Rights, also had significant impact. Continue reading “Brexit vs Dicey – The constitutional lawyer’s view on these strange days”

Challenging Brexit headwinds force City middleweights to look to Europe for growth

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Challenging Brexit headwinds force City middleweights to look to Europe for growth

Thomas Alan assesses the early financial results in a tougher year for the UK’s chasing pack

The latest financial results from the UK’s mid-table firms show a more challenging economic environment is producing a lag on growth in the domestic market, as firms look to Europe to continue Brexit-proofing their growth. Continue reading “Challenging Brexit headwinds force City middleweights to look to Europe for growth”