Allen & Overy and Clifford Chance have kept top-level US associate bonuses static at $100,000 for the fourth consecutive year, in line with Wall Street giant Cravath, Swaine & Moore’s recent announcement.
The Magic Circle firms are awarding year-end bonuses of $ 100,000 for 2009 and 2010 US associates and $90,000 for 2011 lawyers, A&O and CC both confirmed. Continue reading “US bonuses: Magic Circle follows Wall Street standard with bonus freeze as associate reward season comes round again”
The Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) has handed Locke Lord its largest ever financial penalty imposed on a law firm, fining the US-based firm £500,000 after one of its former UK lawyers engaged in ‘dubious financial arrangements’ with a client’s bank account.
The lawyer in question, Jonathan Denton, had left Locke Lord in October 2015. Details of the decision published this week by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) disclose that the firm had ‘failed to prevent’ Denton from using a client account for ‘transactions that bore the hallmarks of dubious financial arrangements’. Continue reading “SDT hands Locke Lord record £500,000 fine for ‘dubious financial arrangements’ of former lawyer”
Latham & Watkins may have been aggressively sweeping up City talent from rivals but the US-based giant is remaining conservative on making up its own in the Square Mile with the firm this week confirming the promotion of two partners in London.
Charles Armstrong in finance and corporate specialist Huw Thomas have been appointed to partnership in the firm’s City office, with the duo coming amid a 31-strong global promotion round. Latham also promoted two partners in London in 2016 amid a firm-wide tally of 27. Continue reading “Promotion time: Latham keeps City round at two as new partners focused on Big Apple”
Elite US firms ramped up their London partner headcounts in October, with Kirkland & Ellis making up a record 97 new partners – equal to more than 10% of its existing partnership – 13 of them in its fast-growing London base, while White & Case’s more modest 31 included seven in its City arm.
The number of London promotions at Kirkland more than doubled last year’s round and its total tally is up on last year’s 81. The 2,000-lawyer US firm has an unusual model in that it makes up large ranks of salaried partners before considering promotions to its tightly-held equity, which at the end of 2016 totalled 359 of its 820 partners. Continue reading “NYLon focus continues as Kirkland and White & Case announce promotion rounds”
Why would a partner quit an elite London law firm with decades of history, Rolls-Royce support and a superb client base for the uncertain prospects of the City arm of a US rival?
Money is the obvious answer and in a sector in which laterals regularly increase their compensation by 50-100%, that is obviously a big part of the equation. One Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer rainmaker is currently reported to be sitting on a $10m a year standing offer. Continue reading “The Departed”
Nineteen months to the day since its last attempt to forge a transatlantic union with Greenberg Traurig was abandoned, Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has today (16 October) confirmed that it is in merger talks with Global 100 firm Bryan Cave.
Subject to a partnership vote later this year, the tie-up would create a firm comprising 1,500 lawyers spread across 32 offices in 12 countries, including St Louis-headquartered Bryan Cave’s 19 US outposts and with a combined revenue of around $975m. Continue reading “Back in the USA: BLP looks stateside again as merger talks with Bryan Cave confirmed”
Sullivan & Cromwell and Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz led a host of elite US law firms advising Amazon on its $13.7bn purchase of Whole Foods Market, marking the online retailer’s first expansion into the bricks-and-mortar food industry.
Continue reading “S&C and Wachtell lead on Amazon’s $13.7bn Whole Foods buyout”
The gap between top US firms and the middle-tier masses continues to widen as pressure to secure top-decile talent intensifies. Can the chasing pack keep up with America’s elite?
‘The competition is frenetic in terms of attracting talent as is the competition in being retained on the most complex and sophisticated client mandates,’ notes Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison chair Brad Karp. ‘When you think of the continuum with commoditised work on one end and hyper-complex big-ticket work on the other, firms like ours try very hard to ensure that 90% of work is in that tiny zone at the end of the spectrum.’
Continue reading “The Global 100: The Zone – The US elite turns up the pressure”
The group as a whole hiked revenues 3% to $98.82bn, pretty much tracking the increase in lawyer numbers. In part due to the strength of the dollar, there are some surprising results. The number of $2bn-plus law firms has fallen from ten to eight (thanks to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters). The number of $1bn-plus firms falls from 35 to 34. Consolidation continues to be a force in the industry but almost exclusively in the global mid-tier, not its upper echelons.
Continue reading “A grinding year for the Global 100 as US leaders assert dominance”
Kennedys and US insurance firm Carroll McNulty & Kull (CMK) have completed their merger, giving the firm over 1000 lawyers across the Americas, Asia-Pacific, Europe and the Middle East.
Continue reading “Kennedys complete merger with US insurance firm Carroll McNulty & Kull”
