You can’t buy loyalty – the dos and don’ts of making the lateral hiring game pay off

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Fieldfisher’s Matthew Lohn argues that patience, structure and a dash of decency go a long way in hiring a partner

For most law firms, growth connotes success. Strategies to deliver the desired growth will usually rely on a steady, sometimes significant, stream of lateral partner hires. These new partners are perceived to be integral to the future success of a business – a supply of fresh talent which can expand different practice areas, enable a firm to enter new jurisdictions and access new clients. Successful law firms openly entice an assortment of lawyers from other firms to initiate or strengthen their offering. Success or failure of lateral hiring has consequently become important and the art and science of the lateral hire is becoming an increasingly analysed issue. Firms need to understand how a ‘lateral’ becomes an established and successful partner of their new firm – so what is the magic formula for success?

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Faster, higher, stronger – a vision for a better transport policy

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Brodies’ Bill Drummond argues that lack of infrastructure investment is damaging the UK’s major business and legal hubs

Writing this in early May, I’m conscious that many managing partners across the UK are, for once, doing much the same thing at the same time; mulling over the numbers for the past financial year. As I do so, my mind turns to one of the conundrums taxing economists – the UK’s stubbornly low level of productivity, despite our climb out of recession.

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Stephenson Harwood’s Tony Woodcock: Policing the City – where do in-house lawyers fit in?

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Though one is always on dangerous ground in suggesting that anything was clear or uncomplicated in the Financial Services Authority’s Handbook and its successors, one could comfortably say that in-house lawyers were not regarded as significant influence function-holders requiring approval under the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) 2000.

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Travers Smith’s Dolman: The mother of invention – why necessity and high prices will push private equity to new heights

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2014 was a year that saw the number and value of private equity (PE)-backed exits reach unparalleled highs globally. More benevolent economic and market conditions, including an increase in global M&A activity, created renewed confidence in the industry.

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Coming off the naughty step: Bakers’ Jonathan Walsh charts the quiet rehabilitation of asset-backed lending

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Securitisation has taken a battering in recent years. A complex financing technique, little understood by the public, it was an easy scapegoat as a principal cause of the global financial crisis. For a while after the crisis it seemed as if various supervisory authorities would regulate it to the point of extinction.

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‘A curious atmosphere of consensus’ – HSF fraud veteran Robert Hunter on how smart teams can make bad decisions

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Many admire John Kennedy and his advisers’ deft handling of the Cuban missile crisis. It is generally thought to result from some of the best-judged decisions of the era. Yet a year earlier, much the same group of people decided to support the Bay of Pigs invasion (a crackpot scheme for the invasion of Cuba in which the US pitted 1,600 men against 200,000), conversely thought of as one of the most idiotic.

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The mother of invention – why necessity and high prices will push private equity to new heights

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Travers Smith’s Paul Dolman argues a reviving buyout industry will increasingly drive European deal markets

2014 was a year that saw the number and value of private equity (PE)-backed exits reach unparalleled highs globally. More benevolent economic and market conditions, including an increase in global M&A activity, created renewed confidence in the industry. With a mountain of dry powder to deploy – that’s unused equity in the industry slang – and more debt funding available than has been the case for years (and on more favourable terms), PE firms have been very busy looking for new investment opportunities. This has resulted in fierce competition for any high-quality assets that come to market. Coupled with the continued high valuations of comparable companies on the public markets and near-zero interest rates, this has inflated valuations and resulted in the purchase-price multiples for leveraged buyouts in Europe reaching an average of ten times EBITDA – highs not seen since the peak of the last cycle.

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Policing the City – where do in-house lawyers fit in?

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Stephenson Harwood’s Tony Woodcock argues that financial regulation has failed to clarify the status of in-house counsel

Though one is always on dangerous ground in suggesting that anything was clear or uncomplicated in the Financial Services Authority’s Handbook and its successors, one could comfortably say that in-house lawyers were not regarded as significant influence function-holders requiring approval under the Financial Services and Markets Act (FSMA) 2000. They were not specifically named as holders of a ‘controlled function’ and would not be regarded as holders of a ‘significant management function’, the characterisation of which required a person to be a ‘senior manager’ of a significant business unit reporting directly to the governing body or the chief executive or the equivalent. The in-house lawyer’s role was not managerial and supervisory, but advisory and privileged.

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Coming off the naughty step

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Baker & McKenzie’s Jonathan Walsh charts the quiet rehabilitation of asset-backed lending

Securitisation has taken a battering in recent years. A complex financing technique, little understood by the public, it was an easy scapegoat as a principal cause of the global financial crisis. For a while after the crisis it seemed as if various supervisory authorities would regulate it to the point of extinction.

Thankfully, that did not happen. But over the past six or seven years (depending on when you think the financial crisis actually hit) rules aimed at stifling the securitisation market have been pumped out on both sides of the Atlantic. We have had rules on bank capital, rating agencies, investors and more. The additional regulations are complex, in some cases contradictory, and affect all aspects of securitisation transactions and the parties involved in such transactions.

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‘A curious atmosphere of consensus’ – the dangers of groupthink

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HSF fraud veteran Robert Hunter on how smart teams can make bad decisions

Many admire John Kennedy and his advisers’ deft handling of the Cuban missile crisis. It is generally thought to result from some of the best-judged decisions of the era. Yet a year earlier, much the same group of people decided to support the Bay of Pigs invasion (a crackpot scheme for the invasion of Cuba in which the US pitted 1,600 men against 200,000), conversely thought of as one of the most idiotic.

Continue reading “‘A curious atmosphere of consensus’ – the dangers of groupthink”