The Last Word: Players old and new

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With the publication of our annual Global London report, leading figures at foreign firms in the City assess their performance and how the market is shaping up.

Fair weather

‘In doing offshore, you become quite a good barometer. My sense is that people feel a lot more confident than two years ago – it’s still quite driven by sectors. We’re almost 50% up on where we were at in 2013, mostly from the finance space. Quite perversely, we’ve slimmed down numbers but grown the book of business.’
Jack Boldarin, London managing partner, Walkers

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The Last Word – The Team Elite

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To coincide with the annual launch of our GC Power List, we asked the City’s most experienced private practitioners: what makes an outstanding in-house legal team?

Eyes and ears

‘A good in-house team has the ear of the commercial client, an understanding of its drivers and the strength to speak out when it is going down the wrong path. Teams should ensure they understand the varied approaches to dispute resolution, adopt appropriate methods in different transactional documentation, and consider mediation as a clean and proactive process for disputes at any stage.’
Katie Bradford, head of property litigation, Linklaters

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The Last Word: Done deals

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With confidence in the M&A market slowly returning, the City M&A elite reflects on a positive year and give their prognosis for deal activity in 2015.

Fragile confidence

‘With the value of M&A activity hitting $3.7trn for 2014 and M&A activity increasing in almost every sector of the economy, confidence returned in spades last year and was the result of strategies adopted by companies since the financial crisis.

‘I expect the high value of deals to continue in 2015, but a combination of factors – including the general election in May, the price of oil and the effect of geopolitical risks on business confidence – make me wary of predicting another record year.’

David Patient, managing partner, Travers Smith

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The Last Word – Reflections and looking ahead

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Senior figures provide personal perspectives on a changing industry for our 250th edition

Working with Salz

‘I worked for Anthony as an associate. In order of descending seniority, Phil Richards, me and Will Lawes were his “bag carriers”. It was an exciting time. During the 1980s our M&A team were the new kids on the block and the firm was undergoing a reputational transition from a traditional Bank of England adviser to a push-the-envelope transactional adviser. By the 1990s, Freshfields was the go-to firm.

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The Last Word – Hot property

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Renewed interest from international investors leading to increased deal flow means real estate practices are back in favour again. We ask leading practitioners about the future of this volatile market

 

Solemn vows

‘We’ve treated real estate like a marriage – in sickness and in health, for richer, for poorer. We haven’t reneged on our responsibilities, so when potential new clients talk to existing ones about our relationship, they hear the same thing – that we’re a committed and consistent team that has continued to deliver.’

Leona Ahmed, real estate divisional managing partner, Addleshaw Goddard

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The Last Word – The client’s view

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Interviewed for our annual in-house report, general counsel (GCs) at leading companies give us their views on panels, pricing, regulation and diversity

Law across borders

‘We are going to see a lot more cross-border, multinational transactions that involve an in-depth legal scope well beyond the UK Companies Act. In-house lawyers, especially at the GC level, even if they just manage a local UK business, are going to see a lot more cross-border transactions and complexity. In my experience, law firms in the UK, especially in the South East and London, are much more flexible and open about the discussion on alternative billing than firms in New York.’

Bill Mordan, senior vice president and group GC, Reckitt Benckiser

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The last word – strategic recruitment

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From disastrous due diligence to delusions of grandeur, leaders from LB100 firms and senior recruitment specialists give their take on making lateral hires work.

Bigger picture

‘Be patient and think long term. Moving firms isn’t easy for anyone. It never works out exactly how you’d planned it and the client market can shift significantly, but if the character fit, quality, strategic fit and business fit were right at the outset, then it should come good in the long term. In the meantime, the profit-sharing system needs the flexibility to accommodate this.  Continue reading “The last word – strategic recruitment”

The last word – the state of law firm leadership

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With a spate of executive elections taking place recently, we ask the c-suite at leading City firms how management has changed over the last five years


CONSENSUS APPROACH

‘The command and control structure doesn’t generally work in law firms. Nonetheless, the last five years have seen a greater acceptance from partners for the need to operate more tightly and collectively. Partnerships will always have mixed feelings about their leadership. Leading a law firm is about managing ambiguity, ambivalence and disparate viewpoints.

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The Last Word – English Law

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With the popularity of English law a key issue in the global legal market, we ask partners for their take on the exportability of UK law and how it stacks up against New York law.

Early adoption

‘Where parties adopt a law other than their own and look for a law with application for an international contract, English law is popular by quite some margin followed by New York law. It’s particularly increasing in use in South America. One important aspect of that is the role of the Commercial Court in London in continuing to develop and adapt the law to changing circumstances.

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