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Taxation without representation – would you pay for the Law Society to represent you?

From court fee hikes to a mooted City law tax to legal aid cuts, the profession’s relationship with government is at a low ebb. With the Law Society’s fundraising powers under threat, is it time for a new trade union?

It was the most contentious attack on City lawyers in recent memory. A proposal by incoming justice secretary Michael Gove to tax top law firms to fund the criminal courts acted as a rallying cry to the usually placid commercial profession. But it wasn’t the Law Society, which receives £35m a year to represent the profession in England and Wales, leading the fight. Opposition was mounted by the firms themselves and a tiny body operating on nearly a hundredth of the Law Society’s budget.

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The bigger short – third party funding bets on new markets and models

Historically confined to David vs Goliath claims, a new band of dispute funders are pushing the model into new frontiers. How far can they go?

Hedge fund methodology – the process of using hard numbers to make statistical predictions – is not part of a dispute lawyer’s traditional armoury. Yet the same kind of financial calculation used by banks and asset managers is not just creeping into the disputes market, but threatening to have a significant impact on it.

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Too many reasonable men? What ails law firm leadership

As two of the most highly regarded leaders in the Square Mile – David Morley at Allen & Overy (A&O) and Chris Saul at Slaughter and May – prepare to hand over, it’s an apt moment to reflect on the state of leadership at leading UK law firms.

It’s not clear that what emerges from the profession is all that flattering. Governance has professionalised and become more technocratic, yes. There are more senior non-lawyer managers, though given the industry’s propensity for paying for top dollar for mediocre support staff with ill-defined authority and accountability, it’s debatable that this is a yardstick of success or sophistication.

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BLP/Greenberg: unique, compelling, bloody difficult

In the age of the anodyne corporate law firm, you can at least say a marriage of Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) and Greenberg Traurig would be a distinct beast. If the talks are successful, it would be the first major international deal built on the foundation of real estate.

It would also be the first financially integrated US/UK tie-up of any consequence for years, given that the pair have ruled out a verein-based semi-merger. Both points look in favour of the marriage: there is a place in the global legal market for a real estate-heavy player and on the evidence of the last five years, the multi-profit centre unions have been indifferent performers.

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From Chancery Lane to Waterloo – it’s time for the Law Society’s levy to go

There is a reason that the slogan ‘No taxation without representation’ has echoed through history. The rally cry of the American revolution demonstrates a basic truth that institutions and figures of authority hitting up constituencies for money without broadly representing their interests are in the long run asking for trouble.

On that yardstick, the Law Society has been asking for trouble for many years and it looks like it has finally got it as the Conservative government threatens to finish the job Labour started with the Legal Services Act and end the body’s ability to levy fees on the profession.

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Shell starts panel review as BG Group legal team undergoes post-acquisition restructure

Shell external roster set to dominate reconfigured in-house department

Royal Dutch Shell has kicked off a review of its external legal roster after finalising its £47bn takeover of BG Group last month and as their existing panels come to an end. As a result of the takeover, the second-largest energy deal on record, both companies will overhaul their legal divisions.

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Gove’s City levy kicked into long-grass amid Treasury opposition

A tax on City lawyers floated by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) to subsidise the criminal court system has been effectively abandoned amid Treasury opposition, according to senior City sources.

The levy was floated by the MoJ in October last year as a means to replace revenue generated from a controversial court charge on convicted criminals that was supposed to bring in £65m to £90m annually.

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KWM restructures London as Europe managing partner returns to full-time fee-earning

King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) is restructuring its London teams, which has delayed the election of a new European managing partner and comes amid cash flow problems in the legacy SJ Berwin practice.

The move comes as the firm rolls out its 2020 strategy, which KWM global managing partner Stuart Fuller described as setting ‘a vision to be in the global elite for the next century’.

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Real estate, financial integration and Maher: the particulars of the ambitious BLP/Greenberg union

Firm leaders discuss selling points as deal goes to a vote

As Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) closes in on its merger with Miami-based Greenberg Traurig, both firms have targeted full financial integration as their leaders sell the deal to their partnerships.

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Corporate is king as Dejonghe and Ballheimer win vote to lead Allen & Overy until 2020

After a four-month election, Allen & Overy (A&O)’s C-suite for the next four years was revealed last month with corporate lawyers Wim Dejonghe and Andrew Ballheimer chosen as the new leaders.

Arguably the only Magic Circle firm to keep pace with US rivals over the last five years, A&O’s partnership opted for continuity as Dejonghe, who has been managing partner for the past eight years, was named senior partner. Co-head of corporate Ballheimer joined him as global managing partner, giving the management duo at A&O – which has traditionally included a partner from the firm’s signature banking group – a distinctly corporate look.

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Legal freelancing enters the big league as LOD seals £25m merger with Australian firm

In the largest New Law merger to date, the UK’s biggest freelance lawyer service Lawyers On Demand (LOD) has sealed a deal with Australia’s AdventBalance to create a £25m business.

Revenue at LOD rose by 42% in the 2014/15 financial year to hit £12.3m and, with the merger doubling turnover, the deal is set to catapult LOD into the UK’s 100 largest legal services businesses, pulling in more than established law firms such as Harbottle & Lewis and Boodle Hatfield, less than a decade since its launch.

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City firms line up on Asahi deal as SABMiller’s merger with AB InBev draws nearer

A&O, Freshfields and Hogan Lovells advise on €2.55bn sell-off

In preparation for one of the largest corporate deals of the year, Allen & Overy (A&O), Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Hogan Lovells won roles on the proposed divestment of SABMiller’s European beer brands to Japanese brewer Asahi, the latest sale aimed at facilitating the $275bn merger between SABMiller and Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev). Continue reading “City firms line up on Asahi deal as SABMiller’s merger with AB InBev draws nearer”

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Wall Street elite go head to head in largest ever Chinese acquisition

Continued interest in European assets by Chinese investors peaked last month, as Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and Davis Polk & Wardwell landed key roles on China National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina)’s $43bn bid for Swiss seeds and pesticides group Syngenta – in what will be the largest-ever acquisition by a Chinese firm.

Simpson Thacher advised state-owned ChemChina on M&A, acquisition finance and regulation with a team led by partners Alan Klein, Shaolin Luo, Chris May and Sinead O’Shea, alongside Swiss corporate leader Homburger. Davis Polk and another top-tier Swiss player, Bär & Karrer, acted for Syngenta. Davis Polk’s team included partners Louis Goldberg and Oliver Smith, with John Reynolds providing regulatory advice; Ronan Harty and Jon Leibowitz advising on competition law; and Avishai Shachar advising on tax.

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Abu Dhabi exodus continues as Simmons becomes the latest major firm to pull out

With many major law firms losing money in the Middle East after overinvesting during the oil boom in the 2000s, Simmons & Simmons has followed Latham & Watkins and Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) in shutting down its Abu Dhabi operations.

Simmons carried out ‘a detailed review’ after its losses in the Middle East, which also includes offices in Dubai and Doha, rose from £243,000 in 2014 to just under £2m in the 12 months to 30 April 2015. The closure of the Abu Dhabi office affects five lawyers, including three partners. The firm’s accounts show in total Simmons has 56 staff, including 29 fee-earners and three partners in the Middle East.

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‘We needed to move on’: Why Fieldfisher has turned its back on the dating game

Victoria Young speaks to the management duo about the transformed mid-market player

‘We’ll be the first to admit the firm of five years ago wasn’t delivering what the partners wanted,’ says Fieldfisher managing partner Michael Chissick. In 2012, Legal Business took a close look at Field Fisher Waterhouse and at the time the mid-market law firm was desperate for a suitor. Three years, two failed merger talks and several high-profile partner exits later, and Fieldfisher has undergone a reboot far beyond its change of name.

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Client profile: Tom Melbye Eide, Royal Dutch Shell

The energy group’s upstream legal chief discusses general counsel’s role as a risk partner and that £47bn deal

As BG Group general counsel (GC), and now executive vice president and GC for Royal Dutch Shell’s upstream business, Tom Melbye Eide has an enviable addition to his CV, considering his lead role in BG’s £47bn acquisition by Shell, the world’s second-biggest energy deal on record, which completed last month. Continue reading “Client profile: Tom Melbye Eide, Royal Dutch Shell”