Legal Business

The price of everything – Law firm metrics cannot measure broader values that will define their future

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Comment Pinsent Masons

Pinsents senior partner Richard Foley argues the industry needs new benchmarks for success

As Legal Business publishes its LB100, it seems apt to step back and ask ourselves whether the industry is focusing on the right things as it seeks to measure success. It should be uncontroversial to say that if law firms are to work better – for themselves, the wider business community and society – they must be diverse and inclusive of all talents. Measuring that type of success is every bit as important as whether a firm moves up or down a place or two in the financial league table. So, perhaps one measure we should look to in the next year’s LB100 is the progress firms are making in tackling issues of inclusion and diversity?

Legal Business

Revolving doors: Back to school for new City Clydes, Kennedys and Pinsents laterals as European hires continue apace

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Strategic recruitment Clyde & CoKennedysPinsent Masons

City firms have been gearing up for what looks to be a busy September as Clyde & Co, Kennedys and Pinsent Masons have added to their London benches and others continue with European investment drives.

Clyde & Co has appointed Stephen Jurgenson as partner in the firm’s global projects and construction group.

Jurgenson was previously a partner at Winston & Strawn in London and advises on project development and financing, banking and institutional finance, corporate lending and M&A in the utilities, renewable energy, oil and gas, natural resources, real estate and transport sectors.

Clydes partner and member of the global management board Liz Jenkins told Legal Business: ‘We needed to increase our project finance capabilities. We are particularly strong in disputes but we needed a better offering on the front end and Stephen absolutely ticked that box.

‘He will be working alongside our partners and teams in Africa and doing quite a bit of work looking into Latin America as well, which is a very interesting growth area. It’s an exciting time for the team,’ Jenkins added.

Meanwhile Clydes’ head of pensions Mark Howard has left after almost eight years to join workplace pension’s platform Smart Pension as general counsel. Clydes confirmed that partner Terry Saeedi would be taking over as head of the pensions team.

Elsewhere the ever-expansive insurance firm Kennedys has made four partner hires in its professional liability teams across three UK offices, including London partner Paul Castellani from RPC.

In Birmingham, partners Paul Chaplin and Steve Oates joined from DWF. Chaplin was head of professional indemnity at DWF in Birmingham while Oates is also qualified in the Republic of Ireland. Helen Ager has also been hired as head of the professional liability team in Taunton and joins from DAC Beachcroft.

Head of professional liability Jeremy Riley told Legal Business: ‘They all bring new client relationships to us and new specialisms, so it’s grabbing that market share through these hires. What’s been refreshing is that people are knocking on our door as opposed to us approaching people externally.’

Elsewhere in London, Pinsent Masons has hired Fieldfisher’s co-head of life sciences Nicole Jadeja.

Clare Tunstall, head of life sciences at Pinsents, told Legal Business: ‘We were interested in Nicole as somebody who is clearly a preeminent adviser in patent litigation supporting target clients. She’s a likeminded individual with the right skillset, doing really interesting work for exactly the sort of clients we act for.’

Further afield in Paris, Ashurst has hired Allen & Overy counsel Tom Longmuir as partner in its project finance team and Fieldfisher has appointed Emmanuel Paillard from Gowling WLG as partner and head of a new public law team.

Co-head of Ashurst’s global projects Joss Dare told Legal Business: ‘We’re making a consistent push at the moment to grow our international project finance capabilities in strategic locations, and one of those is Paris. We’re looking to capitalise on the opportunities with francophone clients and French banks in particular, who are operating out of Paris into francophone Africa.’

In Frankfurt, Morgan Lewis hired Sabine Konrad to its international disputes team from McDermott Will & Emery.

Konrad told Legal Business: ‘Morgan Lewis has the exact geographical spread that I need for an international arbitration practice, especially with the focus on the Middle East.’

Managing partner in Frankfurt Joerg Siegels told Legal Business: ‘It’s a once in a lifetime chance to find someone like Sabine, with her reputation, recognition, demand and connections into the market. Sabine, from an arbitration perspective, is an excellent fit and addition to the practice.

‘On the other hand it is a new field. It doesn’t mean we give up on our transactional focus. From a strategic point of view, although it’s a new field in terms of practice area, it helps us as a Frankfurt office to connect further with our colleagues all over the world,’ Siegels added.

muna.abdi@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Revolving doors: City move for Weil as HSF adds duo in South Africa

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Strategic recruitment Herbert Smith FreehillsPinsent MasonsWeil, Gotshal & Manges

In a quiet week for lateral recruitment, Weil, Gotshal & Manges hired from Ashurst in the City as other firms made notable moves further abroad.

In London, Weil expanded its banking and finance practice with the hire of Paul Stewart, currently at Ashurst. Stewart has experience in domestic and international finance transactions as well as leveraged acquisition finance and debt restructuring.

Weil London managing partner Mike Francies (pictured) commented: ‘We are delighted to have recruited someone of Paul’s caliber. His expertise and diverse lender practice are a perfect match for our market leading leveraged finance team.’

Meanwhile in South Africa, Herbert Smith Freehills added two partners and their teams to its Johannesburg office, for a total of 13 hires.

The hires included Nick Altini from Baker McKenzie, where he headed the firm’s competition practice, as well as corporate transactions partner Ross Lomax from Norton Rose Fulbright, who joins next month. HSF’s Johannesburg office now has three corporate partners and two competition partners.

Corporate partner Rudolph Du Plessis told Legal Business: ‘Towards the end of 2018, there was a dip from an M&A point of view but we’re expecting it to pick up in 2019. We have seen, in the first part of 2019, an increase on transactions both inbound and outbound. With an enhanced M&A activity there will be enhanced competition activity and there seems to be quite a lot of movement on the African continent in respects to competition law.’

Elsewhere, Pinsent Masons added to its life sciences and technology practice in Dublin with the hire of Michael Finn, who joins from Matheson. Finn, who led Matheson’s IT disputes group and established its life sciences regulatory and litigation practice, has experience in advising technology companies on life sciences and medical device laws, as well as IP litigation and the defence of product liability litigation.

Clare Tunstall, head of life sciences at Pinsent Masons said: ‘Pinsent Masons has a pan European team of lawyers specialising in life sciences and healthcare who advise across a range of IP, transactional and regulatory matters and Michael’s stellar reputation and experience makes him a fantastic addition to our team.’

Finally, Simmons and Simmons has hired George Vlavianos to its dispute resolutions practice in Doha, Qatar. Vlavianos joins from Bennett Jones and has a particular focus on complex energy and construction disputes with experience in advising owners, contractors and sub-contractors on contractual issues.

muna.abdi@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

Pinsents holds back ‘significant’ investment from partner profits amid 7% revenue growth

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Financial results 2018/19 Pinsent Masons

Pinsent Masons has ring-fenced ‘significant funds’ from partner profits in a bid to prioritise investing in the business, in turn cutting profit per equity partner (PEP) by 5%.

Revenue at the firm for the 2018/19 financial year rose 7% to £482m, slightly ahead of last year’s 6% increase and good for growth of more than 40% over the last five years. Gross profit rose 2.5%, but PEP fell to £620,000 from £653,000 as the firm put aside funds for investment in areas including IT and cybersecurity.

Pinsents managing partner John Cleland told Legal Business the firm had for the past four or five years diverted profit into investing in the business when necessary, but this year it was being ‘more overt’ about it. He expected the move would not be a one-off, although would not specify how much had been held back: based on last year’s equity partner numbers, however, the fund is likely to be in excess of £6m.

‘We’re deliberately signalling that while a significant proportion is going back to the principle stakeholders, the rest of it is being reinvested directly in the business,’ he commented. ‘Once we make investment, then we will redistribute back out to partners, so it’s a prioritising of investment, as opposed to moving away from a full distribution model.’

Cleland pointed to what he called an ‘aggressive’ eight office openings over the past four years as one area of investment, most recently opening its third German outpost in Frankfurt.

Furthermore, in March it appointed Kirsty Dougan to develop the firm’s Vario business – its flexible resourcing offering – in Asia-Pacific, having now launched in Australia, Singapore and Hong Kong. Cleland said that business had seen significant double-digit growth this year and its headcount has reached 600 globally. The firm also has about 50 legal technologists, analysts and engineers in an R&D function it is developing.

The firm’s overall partnership grew by 4% to 446 partners last year. It was also one of the leading firms on the Mindful Business Charter, an initiative it spearheaded alongside Addleshaw Goddard at Barclays to try to mitigate unnecessary stress for in-house and external lawyers.

‘We’ve continued to focus on organic growth in the business, but have also been investing in the services we think broaden our offering. We have a number of things that are important to us as a business and we need to invest in those,’ Cleland commented. ‘We continue to be interested in Europe. Germany’s been a very good market for us.’

hamish.mcnicol@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Prohibitively expensive: Pinsent lands £25m litigation funding deal

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Dispute resolution Pinsent Masons

Pinsent Masons has secured a £25m preferred-supplier deal with litigation funder August Ventures to offer ‘non-recourse’ funding at better terms than would normally be available.

Clients will have access to a dedicated facility at preferred rates and a fast-tracked due diligence process, while Augusta will also refer some clients to Pinsents.

Claimants will pay nothing if a claim is unsuccessful, and Augusta will fund the cost of pursuing the claim, including lawyer and expert fees, and recover payment from the paying party if the outcome is successful. The fee is reflective of the time taken to make a recovery, meaning the sooner the case settles, the smaller the fee.

Pinsents head of international arbitration Mark Roe, who leads third party funding for the firm, told Legal Business many clients viewed litigation and arbitration as prohibitively expensive. Even those that could afford it often preferred to invest in other areas of their business, he said.

He claims the deal with Augusta will provide clients with access to better prices for litigation funding than were generally available in the market.

‘Our deal with Augusta allows those who either haven’t got funds available or wish to use their funds on other things, to access justice substantially less expensively than would otherwise be the case,’ he commented. ‘What we’ve done is that by agreeing with Augusta that we will prefer them as our supplier they’ve agreed to give our clients much better terms than are generally available.’

Roe added that the disputes market had been busier this year: ‘What’s driving those varies from industry to industry. In the infrastructure space, margins are tighter, and there has been some tightening of the amount of cash available to contractors to pay claims and honour contractual obligations.’

Pinsents’ deal follows Clyde & Co announcing in March it had entered into an arrangement with Litigation Capital Management (LCM), which listed on the London Stock Exchange’s Alternative Investment Market last December, to make funding available for its clients on a single case or portfolio basis.

That deal landed its first portfolio financing arrangement in June this year, with LCM giving access to funding for 38 worldwide disputes and contractual claims over an initial five-year period for one of the firm’s aviation clients.

muna.abdi@legalbusiness.co.uk

Legal Business

Pinsents, Bird & Bird, BCLP and Network Rail the big winners at the 2019 Legal Business Awards

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Bryan Cave Leighton PaisnerPinsent Masons

Pinsent Masons, Bird & Bird, Network Rail and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) were among the major winners at the 2019 Legal Business Awards in front of more than 1,000 guests last night (28 March).

Hosted by comedian, writer and actress Meera Syal, the evening saw Pinsent Masons crowned Law Firm of the Year for a second time, with judges impressed by the firm’s performance in areas such as client satisfaction, CSR and innovation in addition to financial results.

Meanwhile, alongside BCLP and Heathrow Airport, Pinsents jointly won Energy and Infrastructure Team of the Year as the trio worked together to address the challenge of Heathrow’s proposed expansion. BCLP also picked up another accolade, winning Private Client Team of the Year.

Bird & Bird also won two awards on the night, named TMT Team of the Year in the first award of the evening before being named Legal Technology Team of the Year later on.

Network Rail was the standout in-house performer, a joint winner in the Real Estate Team of the Year category alongside its external advisers Clifford Chance and Eversheds Sutherland for its work on Project Condor, while also being named In-House Team of the Year. Collaboration was evident among a growing number of nominees, with Simmons & Simmons and Travers Smith jointly awarded Commercial Litigation Team of the Year.

Elsewhere, Kirkland & Ellis continues its blistering recent performance, winning the prestigious Private Equity Team of the Year award for a successive year, as well as being Highly Commended in the Law Firm of the Year category. It was a strong year again for US firms in London, with Davis Polk & Wardwell winning Finance Team of the Year, Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom securing Competition Team of the Year, King & Spalding International Arbitration Team of the Year and Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher named Corporate Team of the Year.

Individuals recognised on the night included Richard Miskella of Lewis Silkin, who won the Lawyer of the Year award for his work on  #MeToo-related investigations for The Old Vic and subsequent pro bono work in this area. Nick Thomas of Kennedys was named our Management Partner of the Year for his long and successful run as senior partner, while Frances Coats of The Ardonagh Group was named Rising Star In-House Counsel of the Year.

The debut Chambers of the Year award went to 3 Verulam Buildings, after reversing its fortunes to produce a robust performance in recent years.

Thanks go to our external judging panel of prominent general counsel who selected the winners: Nigel Paterson, GC and company secretary, Dixons Carphone; Anna Cosgrave, head of legal, Graze; Ruwan De Soyza, GC, Worldpay; Rushad Abadan, GC, Standard Life Aberdeen; Charlotte Heiss, group chief legal officer and company secretary, RSA; Neil Murrin, GC and director – regulatory affairs, Trainline; Richard Price, GC and company secretary, Anglo-American; Angus McBride, GC, News UK; Geoffrey Timms, GC and company secretary, Legal & General; Kirsty Cooper, GC and company secretary, Aviva; Dan Guildford, GC, The Financial Times; Nayeem Syed, assistant GC, Refinitiv; Liz Tanner, director of legal services, SSE; Elisabeth Messud, group legal director, Kingfisher; Joanne Jolly, GC and company secretary – Insurance and Wealth, Lloyds Banking Group; and Jeremy Barton, GC, KPMG UK.

Our May edition will include a full report of the night. For more details on the winners and the awards in general click, here.

thomas.alan@legalbusiness.co.uk

 

Legal Business Awards 2019 – The Winners

Bird & Bird – TMT Team of the Year

Davis Polk & Wardwell – Finance Team of the Year

King & Spalding – International Arbitration Team of the Year

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer – Restructuring Team of the Year

Skadden, Arps, Slate Meagher & Flom – Competition Team of the Year

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner/Heathrow Airport/Pinsent Masons – Energy and Infrastructure Team of the Year

Simmons & Simmons/Travers Smith – Commercial Litigation Team of the Year

Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner – Private Client Team of the Year

Hebert Smith Freehills – Insurance Team of the Year

Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher – Corporate Team of the Year

Kirkland & Ellis – Private Equity Team of the Year

Clifford Chance/Eversheds Sutherland/Network Rail – Real Estate Team of the Year

Northridge Law – Boutique Law Firm of the Year

Richard Miskella – Lawyer of the Year

Hogan Lovells – CSR Programme of the Year

A&L Goodbody – International Firm of the Year

Frances Coats, The Ardonagh Group – Rising Star In-House Counsel of the Year

Network Rail – In-House Team of the Year

Nick Thomas – Management Partner of the Year

White & Case – US Law Firm of the Year

Lucy Vernall, Funding Circle – GC of the Year

3 Verulam Buildings – Chambers of the Year

Bird & Bird – Technology Team of the Year

Ogier – Regional/Offshore Firm of the Year

 

Legal Business

Third German office and trio of Dublin hires the latest moves in Pinsents’ international odyssey

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Europe Pinsent Masons

Pinsent Masons has kicked off 2019 in expansionist mode, opening a new office in Frankfurt, right after finishing 2018 with three partner hires for its Irish base.

Three years after opening in Düsseldorf, Pinsents announced at the beginning of January it had hired six partners from a range of independent and international firms to spearhead the new German branch.

Legal Business

‘A global solution’: Pinsents hires six partners for Frankfurt launch as DLA expands in Dublin

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Strategic recruitment DLA PiperPinsent Masons

Pinsent Masons has hired six partners from a range of firms for a new Frankfurt office, the firm’s third opening in Germany since 2012.

Frankfurt follows moves into Munich and Düsseldorf for Pinsents in 2012 and 2016 respectively. The new office will focus on the technology, energy and real estate sectors initially with an eye to developing in financial services.

A founding team of six partners has been hired from multiple firms for the launch. Volker Balda joins from KPMG Law, where he was M&A head for Germany and co-head of the global corporate law practice, M&A partners Markus Friedel and Sven Shculte-Hillen join from Dechert, M&A partner Ronald Meissner joins from Oppenhoff & Partners, real estate partner Tobias Nuss joins from Beiten Burkhardt, and intellectual property partner Nils Rauer was hired from Hogan Lovells.

Pinsents’ Germany head Rainer Kreifels commented: ‘Establishing a presence in Frankfurt has been part of our vision for Germany from the outset. The new office in addition to our Munich and Düsseldorf locations will increase the strength and depth of our offering for clients locally and internationally.’

The firm has grown to 38 partners and more than 100 lawyers in Germany over the last six years, including five lateral hires in the past 12 months. Key mandates have included advising German tech company About You on a $300m funding deal and completing three Frankfurt Stock Exchange initial public offerings.

Last year, Fieldfisher and Covington & Burling also opened offices in Frankfurt.

Elsewhere, DLA Piper has hired four partners from different firms to join its Dublin office, which recently launched with the hire of David Carthy from William Fry.

Conor Houlihan joins from Dillon Eustace to lead DLA’s finance and projects practice in Ireland, Éanna Mellett joins as a corporate partner from Matheson, while former A&L Goodbody partners Mark Rasdale and Ciara McLoughlin join the intellectual property and technology and employment practices respectively.

Carthy, DLA’s Ireland managing partner, told Legal Business the firm intended to build a substantial practice in Ireland. He joined DLA in July to help refine the strategy and said the Irish market was ‘ripe for change’.

‘Clients are looking for a global solution and want more choice. DLA works differently from a lot of the Irish players. Clients are increasingly asking, “Can you help me in different jurisdictions?”’

Carthy expected to make further hires and saw the practice growing to at least 100 lawyers over the next couple of years. Financial services, technology and life sciences are a particular focus for the office, with Dublin seen as a key global hub in those sectors.

Carthy added: ‘The Irish economy is doing very well at the moment. Obviously Brexit has added major uncertainty, but there’s still plenty of activity.’

DLA was the fifth firm to open in Dublin after the Brexit vote, following in the footsteps of Lewis Silkin, Simmons & Simmons, Covington & Burling and Pinsents.

hamish.mcnicol@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

Deal watch: Bakers and Slaughters drink in £3.1bn Horlicks acquisition as AJ Bell IPO yields dividends for Pinsents and Addleshaws

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Addleshaw GoddardBaker McKenziePinsent MasonsSlaughter and May

As the market hunkers down for the festive season, GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) £3.1bn sale to Unilever of Horlicks has warmed the cockles of City teams from Baker McKenzie and Slaughter and May, while Pinsent Masons and Addleshaw Goddard have won key mandates on what is likely the year’s last big London listing.

The GSK deal sees it sell its malted drink brand Horlicks and other consumer healthcare nutrition brands to Unilever and includes the merger of listed GSK Consumer Healthcare India with Hindustan Unilever. GSK will also sell its 82% stake in GlaxoSmithKline Bangladesh in the deal, which is slated to complete by the end of next year.

Bakers stepped up for long-standing client Unilever on the deal, with a London team led by corporate partner David Scott alongside partners Steve Holmes, Sue McLean and Michelle Blunt, who advised on the IP and tech aspects of the deal, as well as tax partner Alistair Craig.

Indian firm Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas advised Unilever on Indian law, while Slaughter and May, with a team including partners David Johnson, Simon Nicholls and Christian Boney, acted for GSK.

Last year, Bakers advised Unilever on its acquisition of the personal care and homecare brands of Quala, the Latin American consumer goods company, as well as it joint venture with Europe & Asia Commercial Company in Myanmar.

Scott told Legal Business: ‘It was a pleasure to partner again with our great client, Unilever, and our friends at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, on this terrific acquisition, including an iconic brand such as Horlicks.’

Meanwhile, Slaughters earlier this year advised repeat client GSK on its $13bn acquisition of Novartis’ 36.5% stake in their consumer healthcare joint venture.

In other news, Pinsents secured a notable win to advise Manchester-headquartered AJ Bell, one of the largest UK investment platform providers, on a proposed listing on the London Stock Exchange which could raise up to £675m.

The price range for the offer has been set at £1.54 to £1.66 per ordinary share, implying a market capitalisation on admission of between £626m and £675m.

Pinsents corporate partner Julian Stanier led the team advising the company, which is also offering customers the opportunity to apply for shares via the AJ Bell website.

Stanier told Legal Business the IPO is slated to be the last big London listing of 2018 after what has been a choppy year for the capital markets.

‘It’s the same with all companies looking to list. If there is a growth story and strong management team, investors will back it, and we are confident that will be the case with AJ Bell.’

Stanier points to the customer offer alongside the institutional offer as being a point of interest.

He added: ‘The quasi-retail element is not the most common, although it has appeared before, such as in Ocado’s 2010 IPO. What’s interesting is that the whole customer offer can be done completely through AJ Bell’s website.’

Shares are due to be admitted on 12 December.

Addleshaws, meanwhile is advising Numis as sponsor, financial adviser, sole bookrunner and broker to AJ Bell on the float, led by partners Giles Distin in London and Richard Lee in Manchester.

The firm pointed to other notable listings it has worked on in the last two years, including the IPOs of Mind Gym, Sumo Digital, The City Pub Company and Ramsdens.

Distin commented: ‘Whilst UK IPO activity has generally been more muted this year, partly due to volatile market conditions and fears around Brexit, several sizeable and successful businesses have managed to complete a flotation. Like Numis, which has remained very active in the IPO market this year, we’re pleased to have been busy throughout 2018 advising on IPOs and other equity capital markets work.’

nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk

Legal Business

International round-up: Fieldfisher opens third China office as Pinsents settles Madrid dispute

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China FieldfisherPinsent Masons

Ever-expansive Fieldfisher has bolstered its presence in Asia having opened a third office in China, while Pinsent Masons has settled a dispute with its former Spanish best friend firm over its Madrid outpost.

Fieldfisher’s new office in in Guangzhou, which will focus on corporate, M&A, dispute resolution and IP work, is staffed by a seven-lawyer team from local firm Geenen Law Office.

Three are partners: Zhongran Lian, Kuan Liu and Connie Wong. Lian is a commercial litigation and arbitration specialist, with more than 30 years’ experience in representing both state-owned and private companies. Similarly, Liu is an arbitration and litigation partner with over 20 years’ experience in civil and commercial cases.

Wong has a broad corporate history and has advised a range of clients on both inbound and outbound cross-border investments.

The Guangzhou hub marks Fieldfisher’s third Chinese office, following launches in Beijing in November 2016 and Shanghai in February 2017.

Fieldfisher’s Chinese operation now consists of 14 partners and 21 lawyers as well as paralegals and support staff.

Managing partner of Fieldfisher China, Zhaofeng Zhou, told Legal Business: ‘We are following our clients, we have big clients in the Guangzhou region. Geographically it also has lots of potential due to financial investment from the Chinese government.’

Zhou noted that Guangzhou is one of China’s four first-tier cities with the others being Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen. It is the capital of Guangdong province, which has a GDP similar to Spain. The firm considers it home to companies from many of its key sectors, including automotive and biotechnology.

Meanwhile, a wrangle between Pinsents and former Spanish best friend firm Ramón & Cajal has been concluded.

Ramón had initially sued Pinsents after it hired four of its lawyers following failed merger talks in 2016. The UK-based firm had appointed Diego Lozano, Antonio Sánchez Montero, Inmaculada Castelló and Idoya Arteagabeitia, despite Ramón alleging that the hires violated a previously agreed no-hiring provision.

The Spanish firm turned to Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan co-head Richard East to fight its claim, while Pinsents enlisted Ashurt partner James Levy and Blackstone Chambers barrister Thomas Croxford.

A spokesperson for Pinsents said: ‘The parties have settled the litigation and their previous good relations are now restored.  The parties do not intend to comment further.’

tom.baker@legalease.co.uk