Pinsents launches infra-focused Australia outpost

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After much speculation, Pinsent Masons announced the launch of an infrastructure sector-focused practice in Melbourne and Sydney last month, with a formal opening planned for July.

The five-partner operation will be headed up by David Rennick, a former chief executive of Australian firm Maddocks, who had been analysing the local market for Pinsents since March 2014. He will be joined by partners Greg Campbell and Simela Karasavidis, who also come from Maddocks; as well as Michael Battye, a former Pinsents lawyer who set up QED Legal, a construction boutique in Adelaide; and Andrew Denton, a construction disputes partner at Pinsents who will relocate from its London office.

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Life During Law – Kevin Ingram

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I fell into a career that suits me. I’ve done interesting things that kept me motivated and worked with intelligent, motivated people. I’ve never had a patch I didn’t enjoy.

I was the second person from my South Wales school to go to Oxford or Cambridge. All of the law firms at the time were recruiting heavily – nothing changes – I sent some printed CVs. It was quicker than filling in forms and Clifford Turner was one of them.

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Freshfields’ northshoring planned on radical scale as City leader repositions for changing law market

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Internal worries as firm’s new low-cost hub could affect up to 800 roles

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s decision to jump on the near-shoring wagon with its first low-cost services hub in Manchester is on a scale larger than its peers, with up to 800 support service jobs being transferred – a move which is unsettling some at its Fleet Street headquarters.

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Severn Trent sticks by Eversheds as sole adviser until 2020

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FTSE 100 water company Severn Trent has reappointed Eversheds as its sole adviser for a new five-year term, despite having strongly considered appointing at least two firms to its new roster.

The company’s review took proposals from a total of 13 firms across five different areas: debt recovery, employment, general quality regulation, property and combined competition/commercial economic regulation. The legal team at Severn Trent had originally planned to give the debt recovery mandate to a smaller, local firm because it didn’t have the volume of work to hand to a larger sole adviser. However several firms, including Eversheds, pitched for a single mandate.

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Linklaters suffers blow as US firms hire trio of leading partners

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Linklaters lost a trio of heavyweight partners in February with Milbank, Tweed, Hadley & McCloy and Kirkland & Ellis cherry-picking from the Magic Circle firm.

Milbank built out its projects practice with the hire of two leading projects partners from Linklaters’ London office, Matthew Hagopian and Manzer Ijaz, who count among their clients Glencore, BP and Eni.

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Mishcon gains ABS licence to include non-lawyers in partnership

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Mishcon de Reya has become the latest firm to acquire an alternative business structure (ABS) licence from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA), a move that was prompted by bringing up to four key employees into the partnership.

Having applied for the licence last July, the firm was granted approval on 12 February and will become an ABS structure on 10 April.

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Barclays Investment Bank hires new global GC

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Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher’s co-chair of its financial institutions Mark Shelton is leaving the US firm to join Barclays Investment Bank as its global general counsel (GC) and the regional GC for the Americas.

He leaves private practice after one year to return to the world of in-house in which he has over ten years’ experience. He joined Gibson Dunn in February 2014 from UBS where he was GC and global head of investigation and Americas GC in New York for almost 11 years.

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Branching out: RPC, Eversheds and Bird & Bird create new consultancy offerings

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The recent push by major UK firms into non-legal services looks set to continue, with Bird & Bird and RPC both unveiling moves into non-legal consultancy, while Eversheds further expands its pioneering service.

Sticking with its technology, media and telecoms specialism, Bird & Bird in February established an IT project consultancy, Baseline, in a joint venture with Lancashire-based ASE Consulting. The endeavour sees partners, led by co-head of Bird & Bird’s transformational project team Dominic Cook, invest their own capital in the project, with the team agreeing to pass legal work back to the firm.

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Growing confidence and smaller intakes boost Magic Circle’s trainee retention rates

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February saw a flurry of trainee retention rates announced, with the Magic Circle and top-tier firms posting higher rates than in 2014, though taken from smaller pools of young lawyers.

Allen & Overy (A&O) kept on the highest proportion of trainees among Magic Circle firms, with 93% (or 43 out of 46) newly-qualified lawyers being kept on – an increase from the 84% posted last year. Peer firms Clifford Chance and Linklaters were close behind, both unveiling retention rates of 91%, with 41 and 49 trainees staying on respectively. Figures were slightly lower at Slaughter and May, which kept on 37 newly-qualified lawyers (NQs) out of 42, or a rate of 88%, while Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer had the lowest rate of 85%, with 41 staying on from a cohort of 48.

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A new generation and challenges ahead as BLP leader takes helm

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Tom Moore on the challenges faced by BLP’s new leader

While Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) staged something of a recovery in 2013/14, longstanding managing partner Neville Eisenberg – who had attracted some internal criticism following a punishing 2012/13 trading period – announced just before Christmas that he would not seek another term. Will Lisa Mayhew, who in February was elected to succeed Eisenberg on 1 May after an intense election campaign, be able to refocus a firm that has faced some internal discord and a listing international strategy?

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