Revenue at the London branch of US firm King & Spalding (K&S) surged 16% to £27.2m in 2014 as the firm rapidly expanded its legal team.
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Comment: What can you be sure of as the LB100 goes down the rabbit hole?
It’s common in the legal industry to talk about unprecedented change but there are many rules of professional gravity unchanged for 20 years to keep feet on the ground and most lawyers in their place.
Continue reading “Comment: What can you be sure of as the LB100 goes down the rabbit hole?”
LB100: The Top 25 – The world turned upside down
The predicted comeback year for the UK legal elite instead turned industry trends and conventional wisdom on their head. Legal Business jumps down the rabbit hole and tries to make sense of it all.
‘Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!’ The Red Queen, Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking-Glass
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Continue reading “LB100: The Top 25 – The world turned upside down”
The LB 100 2015 – Through the looking glass
The LB 100 2015 – Through the looking glass
Legal Business 100 2015: Interactive main table
What can you be sure of as the LB100 goes down the rabbit hole?
It’s common in the legal industry to talk about unprecedented change but there are many rules of professional gravity unchanged for 20 years to keep feet on the ground and most lawyers in their place. For one: top-tier City firms were far larger, more international and at least twice as profitable as their mid-tier and smaller London cousins. They also generally outgrew the also-rans, carried on winds of transactional booms. These rules couldn’t be challenged. Except, for the first time in recent memory, such notions are being challenged, and with an intensity that few in the profession have fully grasped.
There have been many years in which major UK firms have been predicted to post disastrous results only to collectively grind out perfectly respectable numbers. This year, with a reviving domestic economy, busy deal markets and plenty of regulatory and disputes activity, larger UK firms have unveiled numbers that are at best disappointing. London’s Big Four City firms are barely tracking inflation over five years (a time horizon that takes out the reset year of 2009/10).
Continue reading “What can you be sure of as the LB100 goes down the rabbit hole?”