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Bakers’ Leite set for second term leading world’s largest law firm

Eduardo Leite looks set to be re-appointed as chairman of Baker & McKenzie shortly after it regained its position as the world’s largest law firm. Leite, who took charge of the US-bred practice in 2010, has faced no opposition for the post and partners at the firm understand his re-election will be a formality.

His next term is expected to be confirmed by partners during the firm’s upcoming annual meeting in London in October. Bakers typically looks to extend leadership positions on a rolling basis, with Leite set to stay on as chairman for between two and four further years.

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Reviving deal market lifts LB100 as top UK firms edge up profits and fees

While the headline Legal Business 100 (LB100) results are once again inflated by significant merger activity at every level, there is evidence that many of the top 100 grossing firms in the UK are enjoying organic growth again.

Total revenue for the LB100 for 2013/14 is £20.82bn, an increase of 9%, while lawyer headcount swelled 6% to 65,111. With revenue growth slightly faster than 2012/13 but headcount growth slower, average revenue per lawyer (RPL), profit per lawyer (PPL) and profit per equity partner (PEP) were all up by 3% to £320,000, £98,000 and £640,000 respectively.

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Weil, Gotshal & Manges settles multimillion-pound negligence claim with private equity house

Weil, Gotshal & Manges has paid over £3m to settle a professional negligence claim made against it in late 2013 by private equity house Bancroft.

The case was set to be heard before the commercial court in July but the US law firm agreed a confidential settlement that Legal Business understands to be between £3m and £5m.

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LB100: The Top 25 – Wind in their Sails

Consolidating firms are jostling for position in the race to dominate international and UK markets. But even amid fairer conditions, the course to victory is uncertain.

‘To reach a port we must set sail –
Sail, not tie at anchor
Sail, not drift.’

Franklin D Roosevelt, 1938

‘One feels from the body language out there that firms which have come through the recession successfully are beginning to unwind, beginning to stretch a bit, beginning to feel as though more business is coming back – particularly in the corporate market. The corporate partners who had to lay low for some years are starting to unfurl their wings a little bit and ruffle their feathers.’

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Accounts show fee and profits slide at Edwards Wildman in London as partner departures pile up

Having endured a difficult time in recent months with an exodus of partners from its London office, US law firm Edwards Wildman Palmer published its UK limited liability partnership (LLP) accounts in August, which recorded a 10% drop in UK turnover, alongside a 21% drop in profit.

The LLP accounts, dated to 31 December 2013, show revenue fell to £25.1m from £27.8m, operating profit decreased to £8m from £10.1m and net debt rose to £323,827 from £54,952.

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‘Clifford Chance is brave to be looking at these things’: City giant mulls move towards all-equity

Latest proposed changes by Magic Circle firm after recent overhaul of governance structure

Having taken the summer to vote through a substantive overhaul of its governance structure, the autumn agenda of Clifford Chance (CC) will see the partnership consider whether the firm should move to an all-equity model.

The Magic Circle firm currently deploys a single profit pool, lockstep system and partners spend three years as juniors before progressing onto the equity, which ranges between 40 and 100 units.

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Hong Kong Law Society president forced to go amid row over independence from China

Ambrose Lam, president of the Hong Kong Law Society since May last year, was forced to resign on 19 August after a vote of no confidence was issued in response to his recent support of a Beijing white paper that raised issues over Hong Kong’s judicial independence. Hong Kong lawyers turned out in force on 14 August to an extraordinary general meeting (EGM), where 2,392 lawyers cast a vote of no confidence in the president. Just 1,478 lawyers voted against the motion, despite law firms reporting pressure from clients on the mainland not to pass the motion.

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Mishcons set to move to full-equity LLP in 2015

Mishcon de Reya is set to bring all partners into the equity and convert to a limited liability partnership at the end of autumn 2015. The proposed new model will constitute a marked shift from the firm’s current structure, which consists of legal directors, junior (or fixed-share) partners and senior (equity) partners.

The transformation will see every partner become a form of equity partner, the current 37 become ‘senior equity partners’ and junior partners will be ‘junior equity partners’.

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Short-term boom but long-term questions loom for lawyers if Scotland votes to go it alone

Michael West finds mixed feelings on independence from Scotland’s bloodied legal profession

It’s long been a hoary cliché to say that uncertainty is good news for the legal profession but it is hard to escape the conclusion that the uncertain prospect of a momentous vote on Scottish independence this month would be very good news for local lawyers… in the short term.

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Will $50bn Yukos award lead states to pull out of international arbitration treaties?

The landmark Yukos decision has forced governments to consider the consequences of entering into international treaties that allow foreign investors to take disputes to arbitration. With the likes of Indonesia and South Africa having already torn up agreements, Russia having withdrawn from the Energy Charter Treaty that gave the Yukos shareholders jurisdiction and India mulling an exit from bilateral investment treaties, could the $50bn award lead more states to withdraw their consent to arbitration?

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Ireland: Tracking Dublin’s Young Tigers

Man walking upstairs with Irish flag printed on

Ireland is breathing a little easier again. With more than five years of economic turbulence battering both businesses and reputations, the nation has finally managed to hoist itself out of recession. Having officially exited its €67.5bn bailout programme in December 2013 – a move described by finance minister Michael Noonan as Ireland being ‘handed back her purse’ – this summer also saw the Central Statistics Office announce economic growth of 2.7% for the first quarter of 2014.

While the situation is still deemed perilous in many parts, with a mammoth public deficit, a woeful property market and high unemployment, a sense of confidence is returning to Ireland’s legal elite. And such is the battle-hardened resilience of the young lawyers that made partner around the time the economy crumbled – including those at Arthur Cox, McCann FitzGerald, A&L Goodbody, William Fry, Matheson and others – that a crop of up-and-coming individuals are emerging as the next generation of stars to define Ireland’s legal market in the years ahead. Continue reading “Ireland: Tracking Dublin’s Young Tigers”

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After a patchy 2013 and a high-profile finance departure, can Weil sustain its City momentum?

Tom Moore assesses the recent upheaval at Weil and talks to City head Francies about its ambitions

Life has never been dull at the City arm of Weil, Gotshal & Manges, but even those familiar with the firm’s eventful run since its launch in the mid-1990s turned their heads at the departure this summer of Stephen Lucas for Kirkland & Ellis. The former Linklaters partner, whose exit came shortly before his three-year guaranteed pay package expired, had been regarded as highly successful at building a deal finance team at Weil.

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Protection rackets – behind the controversy of looming reforms on insuring law firms

The insurance regime for law firms faces more upheaval amid reforms to rules on minimum cover. Legal Business assesses the latest controversy

In July, following a short consultation earlier this summer, the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) announced a number of reforms, including proposals to reduce the minimum compulsory cover levels for professional indemnity insurance (PII) from £2m to £500,000 and the requirement that law firms assess the PII cover level appropriate for their work themselves.

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A&O joins US firms on Walgreens’ acquisition of Alliance Boots

US advisers take the lead on £5.6bn takeover of UK institution

The Walgreen Company has instructed New York law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz and Allen & Overy (A&O) to handle its acquisition of the remaining 55% of Nottingham-based chemist Alliance Boots in a £5.6bn deal.

The pharmacy giant already has a 45% stake in the group, which owns UK high-street favourite Boots, which it acquired in August 2012. This new deal will create the combined entity of Walgreens Boots Alliance, with more than 11,000 stores in ten countries and a portfolio of retail and business brands.

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Dechert gains Singapore licence after eight-month wait as PwC completes local tie-up

Dechert and PwC step into Singapore as global players sustain push into key Asian hub

This summer saw continued interest by advisers in the Asian legal market, as top-50 US firm Dechert finally received the green light to open an office in Singapore eight months after applying for a Foreign Legal Practice licence. Meanwhile, Big Four accountancy giant PwC made a move to enhance its legal offering in the Asia-Pacific region, having entered into a tie-up in Singapore with local firm Camford Law.

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Chadbourne closes Kiev arm as Freshfields duo set up in Barcelona

Political tension and economic turbulence have seen more law firms retrench in the wider European region, with Chadbourne & Parke and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer both confirming office closures. US firm Chadbourne last month confirmed that it was closing its Kiev office, a move which saw Dentons benefit as it snapped up Kiev-based corporate partner Adam Mycyk. Meanwhile, a pair of Freshfields lawyers have established an IP/IT specialist boutique following the closure of the Magic Circle firm’s Barcelona office in April this year.

Mycyk, who is also the former managing partner for CMS Cameron McKenna’s Kiev office, will join Dentons as a partner in its corporate practice just 18 months after moving to Chadbourne.

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A chance to turn the corner for the SFO but a high-stakes test on ‘blockbuster’ cases could define its fate

Michael West assesses the prospects for the agency after settlement of the Tchenguiz claims

He was always going to have a painfully full in-tray on taking over as head of the troubled Serious Fraud Office (SFO) a little over two years ago, but even against that context, the previous 12 months must have looked something like an annus horribilis to David Green QC. Lows during this period saw the Public Accounts Committee issue trenchant criticism of the body, important investigation documents misplaced and the chaotic collapse of the trial against Victor Dahdaleh.

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The Target – will tougher measures finally boost gender diversity in the City?

Faced with dire rates of female retention, law firms have abandoned previous resistance to public gender targets for their partnerships. Will it work?

It had been a fairly dry debate at the 2013 Georgetown Law panel discussion in London, covering a number of worthy issues facing the profession. Dry at least until near the end, when a Legal Business journalist on the panel told the sizeable audience of lawyers that law firms were perfectly able to function commercially while haemorrhaging female lawyers, the caveat being that if the profession was waiting for economic drivers to solve the gender diversity dilemma, it would be a long wait. The journalist then mentioned that the profession may want to consider more drastic measures.

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