Legal Business

A&O picks up corporate partner as Shearman announces Düsseldorf and Munich closures

Posted on |
Strategic recruitment Allen & OveryShearman & Sterling
legal-business-default

Allen & Overy has hired Shearman & Sterling’s corporate partner Hans Diekmann as a partner in its Düsseldorf office.

Diekmann, whose start date at A&O is yet to be confirmed, joined Shearman as a partner in 1999. Before that he worked in the legal department of Deutsche Bank’s headquarters in Frankfurt for over seven years. Diekmann will become the sixth partner in A&O’s Düsseldorf office, all of which have been hired in.

Meanwhile, Shearman has confirmed that it will close its Düsseldorf and Munich offices this year, consolidating its German operations into Frankfurt. In a statement, senior partner Creighton Condon said: ‘This concentration in Frankfurt will enable us to respond to a significantly altered market in Germany while providing our clients with the same level of exceptional service that they have always expected from Shearman & Sterling. In addition, this will enable us to continue to invest in growth initiatives that will benefit our clients throughout Europe and around the world.’

On the hire of Diekmann A&O’s senior partner in Germany, Neil Weiand said: ‘Previously, it was not an option to merge with a German firm, so we decided to do it with a healthy mix of lateral hires and organic growth. We want to be a full service office. The current focus is very much on consolidating our top position in Corporate and M&A. Hans Diekmann will help us in doing so.’

The firm is also growing organically in Germany and has announced three partner promotions with effect from 1 May – employment partner Markulf Behrendt and corporate/M&A partner Malte Holthaus in Hamburg; and banking and finance partner Franz Bernhard Herding in Frankfurt.

Meanwhile Matthias Winter, a senior counsel in Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s finance practice group, joined Bird & Bird’s international aviation group in Frankfurt on 17 April.

Winter’s move to Bird & Bird follows that of asset finance partners Brett Hailey in London from SNR Denton, and Leo Fattorini in Singapore, who was previously in-house counsel at Virgin Atlantic. The lateral hires also come in the wake of Bird & Bird’s 11-strong partner promotion of senior associates in early April, which saw the firm boost its European-wide IP, employment, media, energy and antitrust practices.

Jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

The appeal of the hourglass

Posted on |
In-house Addleshaw GoddardAllen & Overy
legal-business-default

One particularly interesting statistic emerged from our in-house survey last month: 33% of respondents said they felt law firms were not handling their work at the appropriate level. And the biggest losers in all of this? The senior associates.

Legal Business

LB100 Allen & Overy: Turnover Soars With Globalisation

Posted on |
Legal Business 100 2012 Allen & Overy
legal-business-default

Allen & Overy’s worldwide senior partner David Morley remembers doing his first deal for Goldman Sachs as a young partner in the banking group in 1992.

This was a time when the fact that an American investment bank was in London was still big news: the arrival of the US financial institutions, which began at the end of the eighties, shook up the City.

‘I remember a UK corporate client being asked about the difference that Goldman had made in London,’ recalls Morley. ‘He said he used to ring up his merchant bank about a deal and they said they’d come round tomorrow to talk to him. When he rang Goldman, they said they’d be round in half an hour, and they ran.’

Legal Business

Magic Circle sees revenues up after muted financial year

Posted on |
Magic Circle Allen & OveryFreshfields Bruckhaus DeringerLinklaters
legal-business-default

Turnover at Magic Circle firms rose by a modest 2.6% this year, with the UK’s five Global Elite firms pulling in over £5.2bn of fees and £4.2bn worth of profit in the 2011/12 financial year.

As the UK’s financial reporting season kicks off, Allen & Overy emerges as one of the top performers after another strong year that saw turnover climb by 5% to reach £1.18bn, up from £1.12bn in 2010/11. The firm is one of the best performing in the group over the past five years, growing revenues by an average of 3% each year since 2008. Much of that can be attributed to the firm’s network in emerging markets, with around 15% of A&O’s lawyers now based in Asia.

Legal Business

Emerging markets dominate 2012 partner promotions round

Posted on |
Partnership promotions Allen & OveryDLA Piper
legal-business-default

Good news for senior associates in emerging markets: there are now more partners than ever being made up in Asia. If you are an aspiring associate in Asia or Australia you stand a much greater chance of making partner at a UK firm now than five years ago. According to data collected by LB, this year the UK’s top 25 firms made up 48 partners in Asia, compared to just 26 in 2008.

Legal Business

Quinn Emanuel snags A&O London arbitration duo

Posted on |
Strategic recruitment Allen & OveryQuinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan
legal-business-default

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan has ruffled Allen & Overy (A&O)’s feathers in London after the US litigation specialist hired the Magic Circle firm’s global arbitration chairman Stephen Jagusch and fellow partner Anthony Sinclair in May. The firms are understood to be locking horns over the departure terms, with a deal yet to be struck.

The hires will see Quinn Emanuel launch its own City arbitration practice, to be led by Jagusch. While the firm has already had some success in arbitration work in London, it plans to grow the office to 35 lawyers, of which ten will be partners.

Legal Business

FSA’s Cole holds all the cards in choosing her next move

Posted on |
Finance Allen & Overy
legal-business-default

After two years of speculation in the financial services sector, it has finally happened. Margaret Cole, Financial Services Authority (FSA) managing director and all-round tough lady, is leaving the regulator after seven years.

Dubbed in 2011 by a finance partner as the ‘most hated woman in the City’, Cole’s legacy at the UK watchdog will forever be entrenched in her recent uncompromising stance against the country’s banking industry. The past five years have seen the FSA hand out a number of jaw-dropping fines and crack a series of insider trading rings.

Legal Business

Magic Circle reigns but cracks are there

Posted on |
Magic Circle Allen & OveryClifford ChanceLinklatersSlaughter and May
legal-business-default

In the same way the sports media has speculated long and hard these past couple of years on the ‘demise’ of Tiger Woods, much has also been said about the Magic Circle also losing its aura of invincibility since the global financial crisis.

The Magic Circle’s relentless pursuit of domination has inspired awe over the last two decades but at the same time has drawn brickbats when things have gone awry. It is all too easy to build something up only to knock it down.

Legal Business

Eurozone debt: Keeping it together

Posted on |
Europe Allen & OveryArthur CoxCleary Gottlieb Steen & HamiltonClifford Chance
legal-business-default

As the sovereign debt crisis threatens to bring the euro to its knees, a group of lawyers has been working behind the scenes to keep the cogs turning. LB finds out what happened backstage.

Lee Buchheit has faced a frantic few months. He has been advising the Greek government on how to sort out its massive debt problem. This has seen him shuttle between meetings across Europe for the past five months and spend more time in hotel rooms in Paris, Brussels, Berlin and London than in his hometown of New York.

Legal Business

Kop Kings – Liverpool FC

Posted on |
Allen & OverySlaughter and MayThe Royal Bank of Scotland
legal-business-default

From the fields of Anfield Road to the offices on Bunhill Row, the takeover of Liverpool Football Club was played out in the full glare of the courts and the press. Legal Business talks to the key legal players

When John William Henry II descended the curving flight of stairs into the cool, inconspicuous client reception at Slaughter and May’s offices on Bunhill Row on the afternoon of 15 October 2010, he was met by an unusual sight. As the threshold of a law firm that has long prided itself on its understated manner, it’s usually exceptionally quiet. But that afternoon there was little evidence of calm: pandemonium had taken hold.