Editors' Blog
Alex Novarese
Editor, Legal WeekHerbies’ finance push: poor start, improving middle…
25/07/2008
Hopes, it has to be said, weren’t high when Herbert Smith starting making noises about building a serious finance practice three years back. The investment needed is considerable, the competition now well established, and you could argue the firm had...Can BVC providers seriously damage your health?
21/07/2008
The latest update in the prolonged and somewhat agonised debate over access to the Bar looks more likely to reignite discussion than resolve the matter.That update comes in the form of BSB proposals, issued on Friday (18 July), which revolve...US firms in London – time to forget Sonnenschein
14/07/2008
Being in its own way such a tight community, a few isolated episodes can have an impact for a very long time within the global-yet-narrow confines of the commercial legal profession. As such, the experiences of just two US law...Will Heller secure the big deal?
27/06/2008
Is the Heller Ehrman saga about to reach a new chapter? For those unfamiliar with the Californian legal market, the substantial West Coast firm is widely tipped to be on the merger trail. This comes against a backdrop of several...In constructive defence of ‘nonsense and spin’
20/06/2008
It’s great to have a debate but the challenge when someone criticises your position, especially if you’re a journalist, is to respond constructively without being petty, defensive or just sounding like a big baby. That’s tricky but I’ll give it...There is a process for partner hiring. It just doesn’t work all that often
16/06/2008
A recent blog I penned on the shortcomings of senior recruitment at law firms sparked a few responses, largely from consultants that felt I was underestimating the sophistication of the market. Some readers also thought that I was highlighting an...DLA Piper has reached the limits of style
13/06/2008
To be fair to DLA Piper, the global giant has said so many (sometimes contradictory) things about the nature of its global union and future intentions to tighten the union that you could argue - as the firm does -...Recruitment is key for law firms. They still suck at it
2/06/2008
Given that law firms spend large amounts of money on recruitment and are obsessed with attracting the best staff, one of the most consistently surprising things about their hiring is that they’re so bad at it.Once, when the lateral partner...Partnership 2008: supersize vs size zero
22/05/2008
When you produce a piece of research covering 47 law firms and comprising more than 600 numbers there are, unsurprisingly, quite a few ways to work the data. So glancing over Legal Week’s breakdown of the 2008 partnership round at...Results 2008: fighting fit ahead of battle
19/05/2008
So when is the crunch going to show up in law firms’ financial performance?Conventional wisdom has it that there’s a significant lag between the economic cycle turning and a worsening of law firms’ financials. The theory is that law firms...Last orders for QC?
16/05/2008
It’s easy to score cheap points off the arcane practices of the Bar but, glancing at news of the fast-shrinking application numbers in this year’s silk round, I won’t let that stop me.The figures released today (16 May) show that...Slaughters’ best friends – lots of necessity, not so much virtue
13/05/2008
There is an interesting piece from the always good–value Dominic Carman, writing in this month’s Legal Business, built around a meeting with Slaughter and May’s best friends alliance of European firms. But if Slaughters hoped the piece would extol the...Big four integration has legs for legal
9/05/2008
For years law firms have justified operating in networks or within firms branded as a single entity by using separate partnerships by pointing to the big four accountants. The argument goes that the audit giants operate what are seen to...US results 2007: high growth, high anxiety
1/05/2008
Here’s a telling story regarding the ambiguous mood in the outwardly-robust US legal market.At the time its well-received union was being finalised during late summer 2007, Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae were predicting profit distributions to partners...Bullish Linklaters leads on pay but will others follow?
30/04/2008
It certainly wasn’t a forgone conclusion but Linklaters set the agenda for the City pay round today (30 April) when it confirmed that it was lifting its salary bands for assistants for the financial year to come. The rise, which...Can I have some high-risk unpredictability, please?
25/04/2008
It seems entirely fitting that it was a corporate partner at a magic circle firm that brought the latest innovation in external litigation funding to Legal Week’s attention, rather than a litigator.The initiative, as detailed in a news story this...A&O’s RIM costs, part II - the Cadillac defence
22/04/2008
Finally, some good news for Allen & Overy’s (A&O’s) litigation team. While they have been branded over-priced in the UK, A&O could always refocus its IP practice on the US, where the City giant’s BlackBerry-related fees have received a comprehensive...A&O’s RIM costs – the bottom line is still the bottom line
18/04/2008
It has been a long time since a major UK law firm was on the receiving end of the kind of drubbing that Mr Justice Floyd yesterday (17 April) visited on Allen & Overy (A&O).Assessing costs on A&O’s largely successful...So near non-dom, so far
17/04/2008
At last, after months of searching for a US lawyer who was about to relocate across the Pond in protest at Alistair Darling’s cack-handed assault on the non-dom community, it appeared that Legal Week’s news team had at last located...SJs: thinking beyond Europe
11/04/2008
SJ Berwin is reaching a key point in its international development. Having nearly a decade ago trail-blazed by relaunching itself as a European player, the question is where the firm goes now that its long Continental campaign is largely finished.That...Kurer under siege: that’s what you’re really up against
4/04/2008
Citing the nomination of UBS general counsel Peter Kurer as chairman, Legal Week noted that the credit crunch would push lawyers centre stage to help stabilise battered institutions. But the flipside is that such trends would be short-lived, as the...Both your houses - dust settles on White & Case exits to reveal two visions and an opportunity
27/03/2008
So after just the seven years of claims that he is leaving White & Case, Maurice Allen finally confirmed that he is to head for Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer along with fellow banking heavyweight Mike Goetz.It’s an understatement to say White...Glad to be PWMBMWCPPIG?
20/03/2008
Perhaps this is hopeless naivety but I’d always assumed the legal profession was very gay-friendly. Having a little more flair and glamour than accountancy and a lot less machismo than banking, law always seemed a fairly hospitable place for the...McDermott's ironic anniversary
14/03/2008
It seems unfortunately symbolic that McDermott Will & Emery is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary in London under the management of a US-qualified lawyer. As announced yesterday, energy specialist Doron Ezickson is to succeed David Dalgarno as the firm’s...Cuddly firm leagues show where there’s a will...
11/03/2008
It’s easy to be cynical about law firms in 'good employer' league tables. For years, a select band of regional law firms have made The Sunday Times’ 100 Best Companies to Work For list but City firms - which used...Taxing non-doms and other outrages
6/03/2008
Ever get the feeling advisers are being a touch melodramatic in forecasting the collapse of the City in light of the Treasury’s attempt to extract more tax from non-doms?City desks have been bombarded for weeks by self-interested missives arguing the...An eerily familiar departure and bad news for Kirkland
4/03/2008
How much new is there to say now that one of Kirkland & Ellis’ high profile City M&A recruits, Raymond McKeeve, has announced his not-at-all shock resignation from the firm? After all, many of the same issues that were relevant...Law firm marketing in need of marketing
29/02/2008
This is not something I ever imagined myself writing but having looked at this week’s Career Clinic, I’m feeling grudgingly moved to defend the noble art of marketing at law firms.For those that haven’t seen it, a two-year qualified solicitor...Oddly, Halliwells fires an unwelcome starting gun
27/02/2008
Not very impressively for a paid-up pundit, I wouldn’t have guessed Halliwells would be the first. While it has looked likely for some time that the current slowdown would see some retrenchment at the offices of new and newish entrants...All over bar the moaning about the pound
21/02/2008
The good news for Clifford Chance (CC) is that the once-ceaseless sniping it suffered in Manhattan has been reduced to a few ex-partners making bitchy comments about the exchange rate. That, at least to judge by an in-depth profile of...Class actions and other scary stories
19/02/2008
Has there ever been a more useful bogeyman for the UK business lobby than the class action monster? Whatever the circumstance or evidence to the contrary, if it involves litigation against a company or public body by individuals, policy-makers and...One for the PR community…
14/02/2008
While I’m not planning on boring readers with many blogs on the inner workings of Legal Week, I’ve repeatedly been told by our marketing department that ‘educating the market’ is A Good Thing. As such, it seems an apt moment...The Unpredictable States of America
8/02/2008
What can you tell from the numbers emerging from America’s largest law firms as this year’s ‘reporting season’ gets under way? The obvious conclusion - aside from the fact that the uncertain economic climate is already having some impact -...CSR reaches its legal tipping point
1/02/2008
It is remarkable how quickly a debate can move once the momentum builds. Legal Week recently noted that law firms, while waking up in recent years to the marketing potential of corporate social responsibility (CSR), were not yet ready to...Only read this blog if you’re really into private equity…
25/01/2008
Sometimes it’s nice to jump outside the legal goldfish bowl. One such occasion occurred recently when I was asked to speak at a conference on Sir David Walker’s disclosure code for private equity, which provided a fascinating insight into one...Source for the goose…
22/01/2008
Last Tuesday (15 January) we received a call from a law firm with an unusual announcement regarding the resignation of one of its partners. What made this strange was that it related to claims of substantive professional short-comings on the...Let’s get some perspective on the doom-filled kitchen sink
16/01/2008
Having said that I was going to give the crystal ball-gazing a miss, a fresh round of melodramatic headlines in today’s papers regarding the impending economic collapse has prompted me to swiftly break that New Year’s resolution.And what grim reading...European M&A: And then there were four (plus Cleary)
14/01/2008
Unfortunately for pundits, the Legal Week/Mergermarket primary adviser table, which tracks advisers with lead M&A roles on Europe’s top corporate deals, is another reminder that the back-of-the-envelope predictions about the legal profession in the mid-1990s were, in the main, boringly...A lot of Wiki this way comes
8/01/2008
If New Year is the time to get reflective, it’s also the time for Legal Week to think about our website, legalweek.com, which was comprehensively overhauled this time last year. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that it was...David Gold’s very fast right of reply
6/12/2007
Stupidly, I’ve recently said a few times that Legal Week should work harder to represent the views of our subjects and to give them more of a right to reply - whether we agree with their views or not.It sounds...Hiring Mr Enron for global domination
3/12/2007
If you start from the basis that 90% of partner moves aren’t that interesting, the proportion of the noteworthy 10% this year hailing from bankruptcy is now verging on the ridiculous.As if there hadn’t been enough top-level recruitment already, the...Neuberger and access: let’s square that circle
28/11/2007
It’s tortuously difficult to write about the Bar and the simmering issues of access and diversity without breaking into twisted metaphors.So how are we to characterise the publication this week of Lord Neuberger’s much-anticipated report on widening access to the...Italian indies: giant killers turned masochists
23/11/2007
Just a few years ago, Italy’s leading law firms looked like the exception to the rule in global legal markets.Where the top US and UK law firms had elsewhere swept all before them, Italy’s blend of individualism, rainmaker-friendly pay and...Death, taxes and red tape
22/11/2007
Yet more evidence that there’s never been a better time to be a lawyer working in a regulatory field comes from this year’s Client Satisfaction Survey.The 180-page report, the work of Legal Week’s dedicated research arm Legal Week Intelligence, shows...A fair result and a fresh chance for Freshfields
21/11/2007
All in all, you would have to say it was a fair result that ended probably as it should have. The announcement today (21 November) that Peter Bloxham will not be appealing the conclusive victory secured by his former firm,...Akzo Nobel not so clear cut as many argue
16/10/2007
Law, like all communities, has its accepted truths and prevailing opinion. Take the recent Akzo Nobel judgment, which has been taken up as a cause in the legal community, in the UK at least, for those campaigning for the rights...Mark Stephens beats David Cheyne, weirdly
10/10/2007
Legal Week observed recently that the success story of City law firms in the British economy is still going comprehensively unsung outside the legal goldfish bowl. Well, fresh proof of just how badly underweight commercial lawyers are punching in terms...Silky PR skills can’t quite cover the embarrassment of Links’ Cologne withdrawal
4/10/2007
Linklaters has clearly been taking lessons on managing tricky news, but there is such a thing as being too cute. Buried away at the bottom of a press release confirming the admittedly quite interesting news that the magic circle giant...US alliance exposed BLP’s image problem
2/10/2007
Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has an image problem. Given the number of firms struggling to differentiate themselves in the the City's crowded legal market, there’s nothing unusual about that. The difference with BLP, as underlined by the announcement of the...Herbert Smith’s new deal won’t be the last
14/09/2007
One of the less flashy but more interesting stories I’ve seen pass my desk in recent days comes courtesy of Herbert Smith, which has recently created a new role for senior professional support lawyers (PSLs). Judging by the number of...Good for Chancery Lane, bad for the profession
7/09/2007
It might be a perverse observation but while the Law Society’s decision to cancel its annual conference is a smart bit of politics for Chancery Lane, the move also marks a fairly uninspiring day for the profession.It is certainly true...Once bitten, twice... well up for it
30/08/2007
Dewey Ballantine must be thanking its lucky stars that it so narrowly avoided a union with an expansive mid-tier firm run by a forceful leader who calls all the shots in favour of its current impending union with an, er,...A weasel-free take on legal services and the credit crunch
20/08/2007
Don’t you hate it when financial journalists try to weasel out of giving an actual view on the market when things get bumpy? Out come the hedged bets, fence-sitting and anything to avoid actually taking a view on what the...American English
17/08/2007
Eagle-eyed readers and web spods may have noticed a new addition to legalweek.com’s main navigation bar. The extra link is for law.com, the umbrella website of American Lawyer Media (ALM), which today (17 August) formally becomes part of Legal Week’s...Giving clients a chance to talk shop
13/08/2007
Legalweek.com launches a new feature today aimed at bringing more of the interactivity that is the hallmark of our site to corporate counsel’s door. The new feature, dubbed (with stunning creativity) Corporate Counsel Q&A, will run within the Talkback section...Law firms 'getting slightly better at treating staff' shock
2/08/2007
What else is there to say about the much-debated topics of assistant morale, talent wars and work-life balance? Quite a bit if you are prepared to ignore some of the more hyperbolic claims and take a balanced look.Reading through Legal...Camerons' Euro push looks fine on paper...
30/07/2007
Has Camerons’ strategy for competing with larger rivals through a refocused CMS network got legs?The initiative, first reported in June by Legal Week, at least has simplicity on its side. It centres on focusing Camerons’ efforts on the wider European...The Top 50 from the other side of the fence
19/07/2007
Given the increasing transparency in law firms’ financial performance, there has already been a fair amount of commentary regarding this year’s results as Legal Week delivers its annual breakdown of the results of the UK’s 50 largest firms.Obviously, much of...Blue-sky Beringer delivers on some of the hype
13/07/2007
What a difference a year makes in commercial law. There was Allen & Overy (A&O) being written off in some circles after a tough 18 months that had raised genuine questions about its ability to keep pace with its three...Legal Week hits Soho
9/07/2007
Here at Legal Week and legalweek.com, we naturally pride ourselves on bringing you the most insightful, up-to-date commentary and analysis. Unfortunately, this blog is not going to add to that distinguished canon.Instead, we can inform readers who wish to know...Linklaters’ results hat-trick will be Angel’s legacy
5/07/2007
David Childs and Ted Burke must be hoping Linklaters’ incoming managing partner, Simon Davies, proves to be a miserable failure. Because judged on Linklaters’ 2006-07 financial results, it is going to take a major shock to slow down the City’s...Client resentment for ‘training’ junior lawyers is misplaced
4/07/2007
A familiar refrain that emerges when quizzing clients regarding the fees charged by large City firms is resentment that they are being asked to foot the bill for ‘training’ junior lawyers. The logic of this assertion, which emerged again during...Bargain basement Wall Street
28/06/2007
At a conference recently, a senior lawyer from Credit Suisse advised delegates to shop further than the top-tier advisers in their respective jurisdictions as a means of keeping a lid on costs - the logic being that you "don’t have...Talk of Eversheds’ highland fling still echoes round the valley
22/06/2007
Discussion of McGrigors’ relationship with Eversheds just won’t die down. As reported earlier this year, the two firms in April conceded that they are operating an informal referral relationship but categorically denied persistent external claims that they are positioning themselves...Legal Week 2.0
14/06/2007
Legal Week (the magazine) gets a makeover this week, largely to reflect the amount of reader-generated copy that legalweek.com now attracts.There will be just as much original copy as before in the print edition but the new look will give...Addleshaws statement of intent exposes rivals’ crude calculations
8/06/2007
Mark Jones, Addleshaw Goddard’s managing partner, is not a man prone to hyperbole or marketing guff, so it is unsurprising that he spoke to Legal Week of the firm’s recent salary review in such measured tones.But there is no doubt...An unnecessary risk
4/06/2007
'Concurrence' is an unwieldy concept for the Government and legal profession to publicly lock horns over but it has happened.Perhaps 'independence' rather more succinctly describes the tangle at the centre of the letter written on 1 June by Bar Council...Another first for shell-shocked LBO advisers
1/06/2007
More cause for horror among conservative acquisition finance lawyers still reeling at the topsy-turvy deal lending that is seeing banks rapidly ditch their traditional rights to secure business.Research out this week from the Bank of England shows that UK banks...‘Tis the season to be…
31/05/2007
Thanks to the popularity of our Legal Week Wiki pay round special with both readers and posters, we have decided to extend the model with a table and thread dedicated to the incoming financial results from the UK’s leading law...Hang on Wall Street, London’s finest are back on track
30/05/2007
This week’s eagerly awaited financial results from Clifford Chance (CC), which you can read all about here, are the final, conclusive proof that London’s original global firm is back with a vengeance.Revenues are up 16% to hit £1.194bn - making...Latham don’t give a damn about the dollar (for now)
25/05/2007
What a generous bunch they are at the City arm of Latham & Watkins. As reported in the current issue of Legal Week (see story), LA’s finest legal export has come up with salaries in London that appear to make...A very long Citi break
24/05/2007
Much has been made of late of the desire of the banking community to recruit lawyers from private practice but the ongoing restructuring at Citi is a reminder that life at a major company brings different kinds of uncertainties.Certainly, the...Corporate counsel’s best form of defence...
21/05/2007
The career development theme that ran through the Legal Week Corporate Counsel Forum was a timely reminder of the challenges still facing in-house lawyers. The employed section of the profession has grown in influence over the last five years but...A complicated conclusion
18/05/2007
Those looking for a message to be drawn from the death of Matthew Courtney, the young Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer assistant who died on 9 February this year, will struggle to extrapolate much from this week’s inquest.What the hearing in Southwark...Will Herbies grasp that Euro-nettle?
14/05/2007
The words ‘strategy’ and ‘Herbert Smith’ are once again being bandied around in the same sentence. This always looks odd, since the firm - never at the cutting edge of law firm management - probably has the most cobbled-together strategic...The cash-hungry assistants the magic circle deserve
16/04/2007
You could argue City law firms have the assistants they deserve. What they certainly don’t have, as the market gears up for the annual blinking contest that passes for the traditional pay round, are grateful or loyal junior lawyers.Having blinked...Stars and hypes
13/04/2007
It has become traditional at this time of year when details of the financial performance of US firms emerge (including in the pages of Legal Week) for many a hyperbolic claim to be made concerning the international prowess of America’s...Cadwalader's very predictable succession problem
8/03/2007
So it was rumored, so it has come to pass.The persistent gossip in restructuring circles was that Andrew Wilkinson would be quitting Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft as the Eurotunnel restructuring winds down for a major investment bank (see comment). And...A reader query about trainees
23/02/2007
One legalweek.com reader this week posted a comment querying the veracity of a recent story regarding the retention rate of trainees.The piece in question stated that a large number of City law firms are to offer jobs to over 90%...The odd success of White & Case
21/02/2007
Is White & Case the strangest London outpost of a US firm?The practice seems to go through endless debates about governance, never reaching agreement with the mother-ship; it gets little of the hype dished out to many of its US...The Freshfields project takes its toll
15/02/2007
For a firm that is doing so well, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer seems to have more than its fair share of internal problems at present.The firm tops the league tables for European M&A and seems to win a role on every...