The Power List 2015 settled on 50 exceptional legal teams but there is a wealth of talent in the employed profession. Here we highlight some other strongly tipped corporate counsel.
Capital & Counties Properties
Steadily gaining a reputation in the market is the small but respected legal team at FTSE 250 company Capital & Counties Properties (Capco), a London property company demerged from Liberty International (now renamed Intu Properties) in 2010.
Led by general counsel (GC) Anne Byrne, who joined in February 2013 from Linklaters as the company’s first in-house lawyer, the team is responsible for over £2bn of assets, and receives much praise for its handling of issues surrounding major redevelopment projects.
Mishcon de Reya property litigation head Daniel Levy comments: ‘The team are leading the way on the redevelopment of London’s Earls Court and the enhancement of London’s iconic Covent Garden.’
Levy, whose team advised Capco on its 900,000 sq ft retail, office and residential portfolio in Covent Garden in 2012, also cites Byrne’s number two, Alison Fisher, as one to watch. Hogan Lovells global real estate head Jackie Newstead adds: ‘They have a very strong team. Very focused and very motivated towards building the reputation of their company.’
Goldman Sachs
With a gold-plated brand in the City, Goldman Sachs’ legal team unsurprisingly draws strong feedback, with the circa 80-lawyer UK legal team being described by one former senior counsel as demonstrating ‘a creative and solution orientated approach’.
‘The lawyers in the team have to be commercially astute and aware but also regulatory and politically sensitive.’ Stuart Kelly, Severn Trent.
The team runs high-value, high-profile transactions and cases, turning recently to White & Case on its defence against a claim from two former private wealth clients in the Far East, in which Goldman is counterclaiming around £19.1m.
Other mandates include the acquisition in October by Goldman’s private equity arm of industrial contracts logistics provider Neovia Logistics, and in the same month its first-ever sukuk, which raised a reported $500m.
Key lawyers in Europe include Goldman’s high-profile GC of investment banking, Laura Holleman.
Severn Trent
The well-regarded team at FTSE 100 water company Severn Trent is structured along the lines of the business, with lawyers operating across regulatory and strategy, property and procurement, consumer relations and wholesale.
One of the early adherents to the sole-adviser model, Severn Trent has instructed only Eversheds since April 2010 for a wide range of legal work spanning regulatory, commercial, competition, employment and property work. However, at the time of going to press it was about to announce the results of a panel review that looked set to usher in a new roster of between two and five firms.
The team prefers a fixed-fee arrangement for its external counsel and has driven legal efficiencies year on year. Deputy GC Stuart Kelly adds: ‘What makes this area more interesting is that the lawyers in the team have to be commercially astute and aware but also regulatory and politically sensitive. That’s a nice mix for a lawyer.’
William Grant & Sons
The third-largest producer of Scotch whisky after Diageo and Pernod Ricard, the legal team at William Grant & Sons is singled out by peers for its excellent management, ability to maintain a medium-to-long-term focus and dedication to team development. Head of legal Greg Bargeton has a sharp strategic focus, which has also seen him push for senior commercial counsel William Payne to be on the leadership MBA that William Grant runs, which is highly regarded internally and very demanding. Heineken UK’s head of legal Graeme Colquhoun comments: ‘The MBA means Will has much more work to do, and puts pressure on other people in the team. There aren’t all that many heads of legal that would want their assistant to be out of the game as much as Will is. It’s a nice longer-term approach and illustrates a critical point about leaders in legal teams – it’s about the people.’