We take a sizeable step in the evolution of Legal Business today with the launch of a new iPad edition, which we will be rolling out to our subscribers.
The app launches after months of development to coincide with our September edition, traditionally the largest of the year in which we publish our annual LB 100 coverage of the financial results of the UK’s largest law firms.
I’m not a big fan of comparing law firm mergers to marriages. All those torturous metaphors and incongruous imagery. But in assessing the three-year old union between Lovells and Hogan & Hartson, it’s hard to escape the nuptial motif. The deal was forged amid high expectations and a simple analysis: both firms were better off together as neither looked compellingly positioned for an emerging elite of global law. Putting together a transatlantic merger of equals with two large firms that ranked just below the top tier in their respective markets made sense and was arguably a first for the profession. Continue reading “Comment: Hogan Lovells was right to get hitched. It needs to remember that”
If upgrading your square footage is any litmus test of how City firms feel about the future then a raft of them including DLA Piper, Bird & Bird and Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW) can be said to be in confident mood.
As reported by Property Week on Tuesday (11 June), top Global 100 firm DLA is the most recent UK firm looking to expand its City office space, hiring Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL) to carry out a search for up to 200,000 sq ft of space, an increase on the 110,000 sq ft office it currently occupies in Noble Street. Continue reading “Comment: Say what you like, City practices taking on larger real estate is a good sign”
Ask yourself this question: do you think of yourself as a professional? For many readers of this blog, I suspect the answer to that question is a rather straightforward, Yes. Now ask yourself this question. Does thinking of yourself as a professional make you more or less ethical?
That is the fascinating issue explored in a new paper from Maryam Kouchaki from the Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics at Harvard. I urge all of you with an interest to read it.
Continue reading “Guest post: What does thinking like a professional mean?”
Former SJ Berwin head David Harrel argues that law firms delude themselves when it comes to their own values
The banking crisis and the revelations about mis-selling and Libor fixing, and the failures in the NHS, have highlighted the issues surrounding corporate and organisational culture. It is perhaps not surprising that the newly-formed Financial Conduct Authority has made business culture a particular area of focus. What is perhaps more surprising is that culture was not a central focus before.
Continue reading “DISSENT: When the BlackBerrys light up: why firms neglect their culture”
Here’s a question that’s been bothering me of late – what, exactly, is a quality legal service? You’ll have noticed that this phrase has become so common that it no longer requires an adjective (unless it’s poor quality). Many seem to think that if you say often enough that you provide one, it must be true.
It has come to the fore with the debate over criminal legal aid. First there is the Quality Assurance Scheme for Advocates (QASA). This elides ‘quality’ with competence. ‘The aim of QASA,’ says the application to the Legal Services Board for approval of the scheme, ‘is to assess and assure the competence of all advocates conducting criminal advocacy in courts in England and Wales.’
Continue reading “Guest post: Quality in law – endlessly invoked yet never defined”
I was recently asked to speak on a panel debate for Georgetown Law at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s City office to discuss the big issues facing the profession. As the panel’s host, Freshfields managing partner Ted Burke, sent the speakers some outline topics and questions beforehand, I sketched out some points to help order my thoughts.
There are plenty of editors who live on the conference circuit but I’ve never been one of them. Still, I did accept a spot on a recent Georgetown panel discussion hosted at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s London office to talk about the wider issues facing the profession. You know the kind of stuff: recession, diversity, Google Law.
As often happens on these occasions, I was struck by the strong emotions that are triggered if you dispassionately describe how the legal industry works. In this case the trigger was my argument that the law firm model and the tournament of partnership, in pure economic terms, functions perfectly fine while losing large numbers of female associates. Continue reading “It’s your profession – accept it, change it but be honest”
Of the long list of changes I had in mind for Legal Business when I agreed to join the title as editor in chief, perhaps the biggest was a root-and-branch overhaul of the magazine’s online presence. In beta form, at least, you are looking at our first major step in achieving that aim with the launch today of a totally new and much improved website. Continue reading “The beta goes on – Legal Business gets a brand new site”
Tony Angel and the cute teddy bear next to him greeted me as I found my new desk – a Legal Business cover from 2003 and a personal favourite, a brilliant dissection of Linklaters’ painful reinvention as metric-driven world-beater. I soon dug out other classics, including the 2009 Icarus-themed investigation into pre-collapse Halliwells and the crumpled Hammonds cigarette packet illustrating a 2005 piece on the national player’s strained finances.
Continue reading “Love the legacy but it’s time for renewal”
