As general counsel (GCs) push their advisers to think more innovatively about costs savings, Slaughter and May has begun offering the services of Carillion’s new low-cost legal arm to its own clients, including a recent transaction for key client Vodafone.
The Magic Circle firm, which is one of Carillion’s lead corporate panel advisers, offered Vodafone the option to use Newcastle-based Carillion Advice Services (CAS) on an undisclosed deal, which included a customer contract exercise.
Penningtons’ takeover of troubled Manches last month says almost as much about the state of the legal market as it does of the firms involved, although, Manches’ administrators say, there are clear lessons to be learned.
On 15 October, 265 Manches employees, including 46 partners officially moved to Penningtons in a pre-pack deal brokered by PwC.
Manches had been earmarked for a merger by the LB100 this summer, after its revenues dropped by 13% to £26.3m – a drop of 11 places to 93 – and its profits per equity partner slid by 43% to £134,000.
It’s historically proved one of the hardest practice areas for City firms to break, proving often impenetrable for even elite London players, but DLA Piper is hoping its Anglo/American reach can help it make a mark in one of the most lucrative areas of deal finance.
In a major investment in its City finance team, DLA Piper has recruited former Clifford Chance (CC) high yield and leveraged finance specialist Tony Lopez, who joins the firm’s eight-partner London structured finance team today (4 November).
Long a trailblazer in the insurance sector, Clyde & Co has now become the first international law firm to launch in southwest China after setting up a joint law venture (JLV) in China with local practice West Link Partnership in Chongqing.
Clydes this week became the first among its peers to launch an office in South West China after local regulators permitted the London-headquartered practice to form an association with West Link.
It’s big, spanning continents, oceans, hugely disparate cultures and a complex governance and profit-sharing model and it’s going live today (1 November) – welcome to King & Wood Mallesons SJ Berwin.
The firm has now confirmed who will be taking on the task of managing the newly-merged giant after announcing the line-up of global practice heads and its new management committee. (For lawyers who spent their summer in a cave, the firm is the combination of top 25 UK practice SJ Berwin and Asia-Pacific giant King & Wood Mallesons).
Allen & Overy (A&O) has announced a salary increase for its associates, bringing the firm in line with its key City peers.
For a newly-qualified (NQ) lawyer, pay will rise to £64,000 from £61,500, for one year post-qualified experience (PQE), salary rises to £69,500, two year PQEs goes from £74,500 to £78,500 and three year PQEs will earn £89,000, against £86,000 currently. The news was first reported on the legal site RollOnFriday.
The most hackneyed cliché of the pundit is history repeating itself, a claim that rarely holds up upon closer examination. But with the recent departure of Linklaters’ private equity co-heads Ian Bagshaw and Richard Youle for White & Case, well, sometimes you just can’t escape the past.
Personality clashes, a mid-market practice not gelling with Linklaters’ M&A business, finance supposedly not supporting sponsor clients, prolonged rumours over exit talks, and, finally, a dramatic exit to a big spending US rival; yes, it’s 2006 all over again when Graham White and Raymond McKeeve quit for Kirkland & Ellis.
The legal profession has seen a handful of high profile cases of commercial lawyers caught out in allegations of fraud or questionable behaviour in recent years, a process that often involves the employing law firm rapidly turning on its own staff.
But while the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has referred two partners of Addleshaw Goddard to the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal (SDT) following an investigation into disbursements, the firm looks to be standing by its men.
Squire Sanders has re-appointed Peter Crossley and Stephen Mahon to their respective European and firm-wide managing partner roles in a week that has also seen Dentons elect its Warsaw managing partner, Tomasz Dabrowski, as the new European chief executive seven months after its tripartite merger went live.
For Squire Sanders, the re-election of Crossley and Mahon, which were appointed by the firm’s UK and US LLP management committees, will see the duo undertake a further three-year term beginning 1 January 2014.
Having served two terms as legacy Hammonds’ managing partner, Crossley took up the role of European managing partner when the firm merged with US firm Squire Sanders & Dempsey in January 2011.
In further evidence of the intense pressure facing small practices, the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) today (31 October) announced that 153 law firms are at threat of closure after having failed to secure professional indemnity insurance (PII) cover.
Under the new PII arrangements – introduced this year to replace the old assigned risks pool – these solicitor firms will now enter a 60-day ‘cessation period’ in which firms can only deal with existing instructions while they seek an insurer. Those failing to gain cover by 29 December will be required to close.
