Legal Business

Mid-pack pacesetters go early with half-year financials as performance matches expectations

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Financial results 2017 FieldfisherWatson Farley and Williams

Two of this year’s best-performing mid-pack firms in the Legal Business 100 (LB100), Watson Farley & Williams (WFW) and Fieldfisher, have continued their run of impressive form with their half-year 2017/18 results.

After quietly establishing itself as one of the strongest firms in the last financial year, WFW recorded a 13% jump in its 2017/18 half-year revenues. Turnover for the first six months of the financial year to 31 October grew to £76.1m, up from £67.6m the previous year. WFW co-managing partner Chris Lowe argued that the strong result was ‘clear evidence of the success of our industry sector-focused model despite a challenging macro-economic environment’.

Legal Business

Reversal of fortunes – how three mid-tiers outgunned the City elite for a decade

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FieldfisherOsborne ClarkeWatson Farley and Williams

It is dominated by mid-sized firms while global players and City leaders lag far behind. Watson Farley & Williams (WFW) sits in the third spot. You must scroll down nearly 40 positions before finding the likes of Linklaters and Clifford Chance.

It is not the chart for revenue, profits or partner earnings. It is a table of major British law firms’ organic growth over the last ten years, marking the period since the financial crisis.

Legal Business

Fieldfisher sets pace again with 20% H1 growth as it unveils more key hires

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Legal Business 100 2017 Fieldfisher

After a string of international office openings and staking a claim as one of the fastest growing firms in the LB100, Fieldfisher has announced a 20% rise in turnover in its half-year results for 2017/18.

The firm’s half-year revenue is £76.8m, up from £64.1m. The figure excludes turnover from all the Swiss Verein members and covers Fieldfisher’s offices in the UK, Silicon Valley, Paris, Brussels and Germany This represents a significant uptick in the top line from the two previous years: in 2016/17, revenue was up 10% at the H1 stage, while the firm posted an 8% rise the year previous.

The latest financial indicators match the full-year performance of the firm for 2016/17, which saw it emerge as the best-performing firm for revenue growth year-on-year in the LB100, with turnover up 36% to £165m.

The strong performance underlines the firm’s successful expansion in the past year, which saw new outposts established in China, Italy, The Netherlands and Birmingham.

Speaking to Legal Business, Fieldfisher managing partner Michael Chissick said ‘The office openings were key for us. Luckily, they’ve all been successful. Every office last year had its highest-ever turnover and we will probably do the same this year.’

Also cited as a major factor in the strong performance was Fieldfisher’s alternative legal services platform, Condor, which combines document data management and technology solutions with low-cost legal expertise. Condor recently opened a base in Belfast through a partnership with Donaldson Legal Consulting and also opened in South Africa.

Co-founder of Condor, and head of Fieldfisher’s derivatives group Guy Usher, told Legal Business in October that the platform had been so successful since its January launch that it had turned a profit within the first three months.

Fieldfisher’s strong financial performance has been underpinned by significant activity in the lateral market of late, and the firm has made another major play by bringing in veteran Osborne Clarke commercial partner Simon Rendell.

Rendell, who has over 25 years’ experience in giving corporate and commercial advice to digital business clients, will join Fieldfisher in December. He was interim acting head of legal at Vodafone in 2004 and is chairman of Pretty Green, Liam Gallagher’s clothing company, as well as the London IP Exchange and several other fast-growing technology companies.

Rendell said: ‘I have huge respect for [Fieldfisher’s] ambitious and international strategic growth plans, and its management.  I believe my entrepreneurial and commercial approach to supporting clients is very well suited.’

Chissick also noted how professionalising the firm’s business services has been a major factor in its growth and Fieldfisher has sought to strengthen that further, hiring CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang’s head of international human resources Carole Ohl. Ohl will join the firm in January.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Fieldfisher extends global reach as it launches alternative service Condor in South Africa

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Innovation Fieldfisher

Fieldfisher’s unrelenting international growth this year shows no sign of slowing, as the firm takes its alternative legal services platform Condor to South Africa through a partnership with Cognia Law.

Condor, headed by former Ashurst securities and derivatives chief Christopher Georgiou alongside derivatives partners Guy Usher and Luke Whitmore, is the firm’s platform combining document data management and technology solutions with low-cost legal expertise. The partnership with legal service outsourcing provider Cognia Law will see the launch of Condor South Africa, which will integrate into the wider Condor platform.

Usher told Legal Business that Condor has been so successful since its launch in January that it had turned a profit within the first three months. He added: ‘Cognia is really pleased to be one of our partners. We absolutely needed additional partners as it gives us a different kind of capacity at a different price point.’

Cognia Law chief executive Janet Taylor-Hall commented: ‘Clients have long been asking for an integrated solution that offers the benefits of a leading law firm and the efficiencies of an alternative legal service provider.’

Senior figures at the firm have talked up Condor since its introduction, with managing partner Michael Chissick telling Legal Business in September that client interest in the division has been ‘phenomenal’. He added: ‘We’ve got something special there.’

According to the firm, Condor has already attracted ‘several banking clients’ since its launch, and the platform has already been used to work on issues related to MiFID II, GDPR and Brexit. Usher confirmed the platform’s client base consists of global investment banks, some business-as-usual clients of the firm, and ‘a couple of Condor-only relationships.’

The focus on technology-assisted solutions for the financial market is in line with Fieldfisher’s overarching strategy. In June 2016, Chissick said the firm had identified three areas on which to focus its growth plans: finance, technology and energy and natural resources.

Since the start of the year, Fieldfisher has opened new offices in Shanghai, Amsterdam and Italy and intends to open in Barcelona and Madrid before the end of the financial year.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Gowling WLG and Fieldfisher to train solicitor apprentices as ULaw forges new paths to profession

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Education FieldfisherGowling WLG

Gowling WLG and Fieldfisher are to begin training solicitor apprentices with the University of Law (ULaw) as part of a training course designed to create new pathways to becoming a qualified lawyer.

The new course from ULaw, which officially launched on 25 September, will see 28 apprentices this autumn begin the six-year process in a programme aimed at encouraging a wider pool of candidates to enter the profession.

The course includes a combination of work-based and online supervised study, together with practical and academic activities that will give students a LLB in legal practice skills and ultimately allow them to qualify as solicitors. The programme is also designed to comply with the Government-backed trailblazer standard for legal apprenticeships.

Once apprentices complete the assessments and parts one and two of the incoming solicitors qualifying exam (SQE), which is due to come into force in 2020, they will be able to apply to become fully recognised as lawyers.

The SQE – often dubbed the ‘super exam’ – is part of an ‘outcomes-focused’ overhaul aimed at improving work-based training options and to open the profession up entrants without degrees.

Locations for the apprenticeships include London, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds, which ULaw claims will help to widen ‘opportunities for participation and is designed so that it can be tailored to the role undertaken by the apprentice and develop the practical skills employers require’. ULaw is, alongside BPP, one of the two dominant providers of vocational training to major UK law firms.

Gowling is sponsoring three apprentices at ULaw’s Birmingham branch, while Fieldfisher has apprentices in London and Manchester. The programme is also being supported by personal injury specialist Plexus Law, which has apprentices going through the programme in London, Leeds and Manchester.

Emma Cox, head of HR at Fieldfisher, added: ‘Ensuring that we have diversity of talent is increasingly important. Our clients are from a wide range of sectors, many of which do not always recruit from traditional backgrounds. We need to have teams advising them which are more representative of the communities in which they operate.’

Lucy Dolan, early talent resourcing manager at Gowling WLG, said: ‘The three apprentices from our firm have already proven themselves as valuable employees during previous paralegal apprenticeships and we look forward to supporting them on this new venture.’

The SRA announced in April 2017 that the new single, centrally-set SQE will come into use from September 2020, replacing the current requirements for trainee solicitors to take the Legal Practice Course (LPC) or Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) before undertaking two-year training contracts.

So far apprenticeships have been painfully slow to take off in the profession and moves to usher in the ‘super exam’ have been controversial with supporters of the status quo. However, a number of major law firms, including Burges Salmon, Reed Smith and Mayer Brown, have so far announced plans to train apprentices. With the profession’s dire record on social mobility generating more negative headlines, the pressure for more such initiatives is set to grow.

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk

For more on the controversial super-exam see: ‘A bit like Brexit’: SRA super-exam draws strong reaction but is it knee-jerk resistance to change? (£)

Legal Business

Legal Business 100: Case study – Fieldfisher

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Legal Business 100 2017 Fieldfisher

Another of 2016/17’s standout performers, Fieldfisher had an impressive year underpinned by considerable geographic expansion. The firm recorded a 34% increase in turnover for the last financial year, rising from £121.5m to £165m against a 10% increase in lawyer headcount, to strengthen its position in the upper mid-market.

The firm’s profit per equity partner has also grown significantly, rising 16% from £551,000 to £639,000, while profit per lawyer increased 19% from £78,000 to £93,000.

It is clear that Fieldfisher’s rainmakers have benefited from the firm’s financial success, with the top-of-equity figure shooting up 72% from £1.16m to £2m. Bottom-of-equity figures suggest a much wider gap in partner earnings now, with the amount falling 31% from £333,000 to £230,000.

On a five-year track revenue is up 69% for a firm that shifted its strategy in June 2016 to a three-year business plan called ‘Our Future Refocused’, which placed an emphasis on technology, energy and natural resources, and finance and financial services.

Managing partner Michael Chissick says that corporate and disputes performed particularly well, pointing out an uptick in arbitration work. The firm’s corporate practice is now worth £27.5m while disputes is worth £37.6m.

The main driver for Fieldfisher’s rapid rise has been the number of new offices that the firm has opened during the past financial year. Beginning with a tie-up with Chinese boutique firm JS Partners in November 2016, the firm then solidified its presence in the country by opening a four-partner Shanghai office in February.

Chissick says that a key goal for Fieldfisher is to have an office in every major European capital city, and the firm has set about achieving that aim, already opening in Amsterdam in May with an office staffed by five partners from respected Dutch tech boutique Kennedy Van der Laan. There were also openings in Italy in July 2016 and Birmingham in March, and the firm has plans to open in Barcelona and Madrid before the end of this financial year.

Fieldfisher will also be hoping that its Condor business, launched in January, will be a major source of revenue going forward. Headed by former Ashurst head of securities and derivatives Christopher Georgiou, Condor is an alternative legal services platform focused on the derivatives and securities financing markets. Three large banks and two global investment banks have so far signed up to use the service.

Chissick contends that Condor will be a major asset to the firm, describing client interest in the business as ‘phenomenal’ and stating: ‘We’ve got something special there.’

Post-Brexit, we are trying to be more European. We don’t want to retreat into our little island.
Michael Chissick, Fieldfisher

LB: What do you attribute Fieldfisher’s standout year to?

Michael Chissick: A lot of long-term plans came to fruition: Birmingham, Italy and Amsterdam, they didn’t happen overnight, but most of them came in within the last financial year. There’s a real sense of momentum and togetherness, and we were aided by having a partnership that suffered few departures.

Are clients expecting a more technology-driven service now?

Chissick: Clients want great legal services at great value. Interestingly, huge investments in technology that enable us to do things much quicker could lead to a perception from clients that they should pay less. You have to be careful, and make sure clients don’t see investment in technology as leading to a hugely discounted price. It’s expensive to create these systems.

Do you have any long-term fears about the impact of Brexit?

Chissick: We’re making the best of Brexit. There will be an upturn in legal work for an international client base that wants to understand the UK regulatory environment and the UK as a global legal centre will continue. When the regulatory environment becomes clearer for the many industries affected by Brexit, we’re positioning ourselves as the go-to firm for advising on that.

Was there a conscious choice to be more international to hedge against any potential post-Brexit uncertainty in the UK?

Chissick: I wish I could say I had a crystal ball but I didn’t! Post-Brexit, we are trying to be more European. We don’t want to retreat into our little island.

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Legal Business

‘A game changer’: Fieldfisher invests in digital platform for start-up funding rounds

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Innovation Fieldfisher

Fieldfisher has invested in a digital platform offering an automated way to generate and update documents required during funding rounds, allowing start-ups and investors to negotiate and close deals remotely and more quickly, which could also offer the firm new clients.

European firm Fieldfisher was part of a £1m investment round in SeedLegals, launched three months ago, along with another law firm, investment fund Seedcamp and several other companies. Fieldfisher has a particular technology, finance and energy focus and is growing its network of European offices.

SeedLegals founder and CEO Anthony Rose told Legal Business the platform ‘transforms the way documents are created’. ‘Normally, particularly when it comes to funding rounds, every document is an island: it is not linked to any other document and every time you need to change it you send it to a lawyer and they have to update it and send you a new one. Our platform transforms all that.’

Users will be able to insert information about their team and company on the platform and shareholders will be able to access the information, review and sign their documents online and get a notification on their device when any of these change.

‘The system makes sure start-ups are investment-ready,’  Rose said. ‘We ask a set of questions and as users answer them the system fills in the documents. Every time you change something, the system changes the documents [automatically].’

When the time for the funding round comes, the platform will be able to fill in the documents automatically, calculate shares and generate all the paperwork required for the deal.

The system, which according to Rose could reduce the time required for paperwork for a law firm ‘from 20 to seven hours’ and the time of doing a funding round from the three-month current average to a few days.

Fieldfisher corporate partner Tim Bird described as ‘a game-changer for the corporate legal world’. ‘We know the [start-up] sector is changing, and we need to adapt.’

Bird told Legal Business that a number of companies in their early stages would come to the firm for support in their initial funding rounds, ‘but we cannot always give it at the price they would like us to’. ‘Hopefully, now we will.’

He explained that the reason behind the firm’s investment in SeedLegals was twofold: ‘We expect a return on our investment, but we also hope that by being an investor we will have greater access to the companies using it and hopefully build relationships with them. I will be introducing companies to it – not necessarily clients, but those who could become clients – where I think that could be an interesting solution for them.’

He denied that this investment would mean a reduction in the number of junior associates, those normally more involved in drafting documents for clients, but rather a change in their roles: ‘The role of junior lawyers and trainees is changing: it has become less about ”manual labour” and more about using research tools, data analysis, they need to be more tech savvy, but this does not mean a reduction in headcount.’

Bird added that SeedLegals was an efficient and cost-effective way for start-ups to manage their legal documentation. ‘When I saw the product in action, I knew it was something that would be of great value to clients and it made sense for us to invest in the platform,’ Bird said, as the firm looks to offer corporate services to the start-up market.

Since its launch, Rose claims SeedLegals has since been used for an average of two funding rounds per day.

‘We have been surprised that only a small fraction of people got a lawyer involved to look at the documents the system generates: they read them themselves,’ said Rose. He added, however, that he did not think the system will replace lawyers in the future but rather meant they would no longer spend their time reviewing and fixing documents but could ‘use it to give high-level advice.’

Fieldfisher has a network across 16 offices spanning the UK, the Netherlands, China, Brussels, Germany, Italy, and Silicon Valley. Its client includes social media sites, life sciences and medical devices companies, energy suppliers, banks and government departments.

Marco.cillario@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

Fieldfisher posts 100% autumn trainee retention rates for second consecutive year

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Trainee retention Fieldfisher

Fieldfisher is retaining all of its London-based trainees for a second consecutive year, with a 13-strong cohort qualifying into a range of practice areas.

The newly-qualified lawyers (NQs), who will earn £63,000 a year, will join Fieldfisher’s corporate, dispute resolution, employment and pensions, finance, intellectual property, regulatory, property litigation and technology practices.

This year’s group of qualifiers is marginally larger than that of 2016, when Fieldfisher retained 100% of its 12 trainees.

In a statement, Fieldfisher also confirmed that it would increase the number of London trainees to 14, with two trainee places each in the firm’s Birmingham and Manchester offices.

Edward Miller, Fieldfisher’s training principal and structured finance partner, told Legal Business that the 100% retention rate was due to the firm ‘taking a lot of care in recruiting high quality trainees who we are keen to keep in the business.’

Miller also said Fieldfisher had become a more attractive firm for aspiring lawyers, adding: ‘We are seeing the fruits of the efforts that a lot of people around the firm have made to make it a more attractive business.’

Fieldfisher senior recruitment manager Amelia Spinks added that there are ‘additional NQ roles currently available at the firm.’

The firm posted strong financial results in May, with revenues up 34% to £165m.

Profit per equity partner at the firm also saw significant growth, rising 16% from £550,000 to £640,000.

Fieldfisher has also seen significant expansion this year, opening offices in Amsterdam, Shanghai and Bologna.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Fieldfisher opens fifth Italy office with merger as firm set for further expansion

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Italy Fieldfisher

Fieldfisher has combined with Bologna firm Lucchini Gattamorta & Associates (LGA) as it opens its fifth outpost in Italy, continuing this year’s global expansion spree.

Gianvincenzo Lucchini, LGA founding member and corporate partner will lead the new Italy office, joined by fellow LGA partner and dispute resolution specialist Andrea Gattamorta.  An 18-strong group of associates and trainees from LGA will also work in the office. LGA’s Rimini office will be closed as part of the merger.

With four other offices in Milan, Rome, Venice and Turin already in, Fieldfisher’s Italian arm now comprises over 210 lawyers and 28 partners. The offices focus on various areas of law including banking, corporate, employment, data protection and compliance.

Giusi Lamicela, executive partner of Fieldfisher in Italy, said the firm chose Bologna for its next office because of the city’s ‘strong industrial and commercial history.’ Lamicela added that Fieldfisher seeks to be a ‘leading influence’ in the Italian legal market by making further strategic partnerships.

Fieldfisher managing partner Michael Chissick said that the firm’s Italian branch has been effective ‘at cross-selling and developing relationships across the network – particularly in our energy and natural resources sector.’

Chissick also restated the firm’s ambition to increase its Spanish presence within the next year, targeting launches in Barcelona and Madrid. Earlier this year, Chissick told Legal Business that Fieldfisher has plans to be represented in each of the major capital cities in Europe.

Fieldfisher opened in Italy for the first time in June 2016, through a merger with Studio Associato Servizi Professionali Integrati (SASPI). The tie-up provided Fieldfisher with offices in Milan, Rome, Venice and Turin.

The firm has expanded this year, opening offices in both Amsterdam and Shanghai. The Amsterdam arm launched on 1 May, with a five-partner team from local TMT specialists Kennedy Van der Laan.

The four-partner Shanghai office opened in February, with Fieldfisher corporate partner Liang Xing leading the new office.

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Fieldfisher, Capsticks and Capital Law win spots on SRA’s new general advisory panel

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Adviser reviews Capital LawCapsticksFieldfisher

Fieldfisher, Capsticks and Capital Law have all won roles on the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s (SRA) inaugural general counsel (GC) panel, Legal Business can reveal.

This follows the decision by the SRA in May to name Capsticks as its sole provider for disciplinary and litigation work, opting to abandon a law firm panel approach. It is understood that tenders for both panels were run in parallel to each other.

The GC panel will last for a 3 year term initially, with the possibility to extend for a further two years.

Fieldfisher will advise on issues surrounding regulatory reform, policy development and governance, while Capsticks will advise on public law including judicial review, public policy, and information law requirements.

The GC team was formed in 2015, to provide legal advice to the SRA.  It advises on public law and regulatory issues, including judicial review, effective decision making and broader corporate support to the organisation.

The six firms that formed the previous litigation and investigations panels were Kingsley Napley, Simmons & Simmons, Capsticks, Devonshires, Russell-Cooke and Bevan Brittan.

At the time, the SRA’s chief executive Paul Philip said that moving to a sole provider model would ‘help to ensure consistency across all our legal work.’

Capsticks’ working relationship with the SRA dates back to 2009, and the firm was appointed to the SRA’s litigation panel after a successful retender in 2013. Disputes partner Daniel Purcell will lead for the firm on the new sole mandate.

Meanwhile earlier this month, Legal Business revealed that Fieldfisher was advising the SRA on the contractual provider which will eventually assist the SRA on delivering the new Solicitors Qualification Examination (SQE) also known as ‘the super exam’.

A team from the firm, led by technology partner Sam Jardine and head of privacy Hazel Grant, tendered for the work over six months ago.

It is understood that the work is at an advanced stage, with the SRA expecting to tender the contract out imminently. The contract was due to be tendered by this summer.

Fieldfisher are the only firm working with the SRA on the draft contract for an independent organisation, which will take ultimate responsibility for the delivery of the SQE once it is finalised.

kathryn.mccann@legalease.co.uk