Editors' Blog
Deal Comment
Legal Week's take on the biggest deal stories, key trends in the City and the teams and individuals who are hitting the headlines.A disarming new head to lead Slaughters
17/01/2008
There has been no shortage of praise for Slaughter and May’s newly-elected senior partner, Chris Saul, this afternoon, following the announcement he is to replace Tim Clark at the helm of the magic circle firm.The compliments centre both on his...LawSoc pensions overhaul is way overdue
5/12/2007
For many, news that the Law Society is embarking on yet another campaign to cut costs – this time by overhauling its pay and pensions system – will come as no surprise. After all, the body’s employees have enjoyed average...Redundancies the exception not the rule... for now
29/11/2007
First San Francisco, then New York, then London, then Newcastle, then New York again – redundancies are popping up in all sorts of places at the moment.Yesterday’s discovery that New York firm Thacher Proffitt & Wood is poised to make...Pro bono, pro-profile
14/11/2007
Few Legal Week stories have generated such fury as one written in June last year that noted how few of the large City firms were formally participating in National Pro Bono Week.One partner at a magic circle firm shouted at...Backs to the Wal-Mart
9/11/2007
An expert on US general counsel popped in to say hello earlier this week. Steve Pressman, editor of GC California, a Legal Week sister title, was interested to find out how European in-house departments tackled the perennial issue of rising...Conflicts: the letter of the bore
25/10/2007
Taking the decision to let the dust settle before weighing in on the latest controversy over alleged conflicts of interest is something of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it gave us the chance in today’s issue of Legal...Legal jobs at banks – hoping no news is good news
17/10/2007
The year’s most popular threat by banking associates wanting a pay rise is that they will leave for an investment bank. These are institutions that are desperate to get hold of them and will pay through the nose to secure...Freshfields and Sidley get closure but age timebomb ticks on
12/10/2007
Two recent cases on either side of the Atlantic point to one of the most crucial issues currently facing commercial law firms. Namely, how to cope with the pressures caused by ageing partnerships.In the UK, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer finally emerged...Democracy White & Case-style leaves London with uncertain constituency
5/10/2007
Judged by a hatful of metrics, White & Case’s London office is an undoubted success. Revenue of $172m (£84.3m) last year, up 38% since 2005; market-leading acquisition finance and project finance practices; high-profile rainmakers with key relationships with Deutsche Bank,...Taking a gamble on red-meat litigation
27/09/2007
It’s been a while since a US-based law firm made a genuinely eye-catching hire in London but Wednesday saw both New York’s Debevoise & Plimpton and Anglo-American giant Mayer Brown achieve that distinction, in both cases in litigation.With all due...Breaking the transatlantic stalemate
21/09/2007
Legal Week’s survey of US law firms operating in London remains the most-read story on this website for a second day running. It has also attracted considerable interest on the other side of the pond, both on our sister site...CC’s retirement package review could prove a hot potato
10/08/2007
One of the downsides for a firm the size of Clifford Chance (CC) size is that discussing weighty matters like making changes to the partnership deed can take an awfully long time.Perhaps this goes some way to explaining why CC...BPP regains the prize…but at what cost?
9/08/2007
The robotically upbeat responses of the law schools that missed out on the City LPC consortium contract last week suggest there was never much doubt about who would win it.Even before the multi-million pound contract was awarded to existing provider...SRA has nothing to shout about as M&S saga ends with a whimper
3/08/2007
It was a confident press release sent out by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) yesterday following the long-anticipated end to Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s M&S conflicts saga. “City law firm fined for misconduct” it announced, with subsequent crowing about ensuring that firms...Golden goose?! What golden goose?
26/07/2007
I had a brief meeting with the new Lord Chancellor last night. Brief because the Ministry of Justice press reception had about 40 journalists to every Jack Straw.“Legal Week? Of course, I read that these days,” joked Straw before sensing...A tale of two Cities
20/06/2007
Handy to get confirmation of the SJ Berwin's profits and turnover and the financial results of Lawrence Graham – sorry, LG – on the same day. The simultaneous announcement makes it easy to compare two mid-market firms that not that many...Bursting REIT bubble brings property lawyers back down to earth
11/06/2007
The collapse of the Vector Hospitality's £2.64bn flotation has given a shock to property lawyers, who in recent years have become used to the continuing upward spiral of the UK real estate market.More worryingly, lawyers are rethinking the prospects for...Freshfields’ messy M&S tribunal becomes a blame game
7/06/2007
It has been going on for so long that it is easy to forget where the disciplinary tribunal of two of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s top corporate lawyers is at (see story).The cynic would say the Law Society was at one...Different laws for judges?
10/05/2007
Conspiracy theorists have been having a field day of late down at the Royal Courts of Justice.Tongues have been wagging after it emerged that Lord Justice Richards – one of the UK’s most senior Court of Appeal judges – has...Beware those cap-wearing Trojan horses
4/05/2007
Interesting to hear of ‘revelations’ concerning the shock use of liability caps. Perhaps it was slightly less revelatory three years ago, when Legal Week established that Eversheds was using such limits on potential negligence claims in its standard terms, at...Alliance Boots is a breakthrough for private equity (and CC)
25/04/2007
The symbolism of the first-ever buy-out of a FTSE 100 company is not lost on private equity lawyers. They have been talking about such an event occurring for at least a couple of years now.And many say that KKR’s £11bn...Sensible Olswang opts for chalk and more chalk
18/04/2007
Ah, the old law firm management dilemma: should firms go for a rainmaker or a technocrat?Many firms go for one of each. Take Linklaters, which opted for a big name in David Cheyne as senior partner but a relatively unknown...Through the looking glass with leveraged finance
29/03/2007
Those searching for a better example of the current through-the-looking-glass mood of the European leveraged finance market won’t find a better example than the current fuss regarding “covenant-lite” debt.The deals that the have attracted the most attention are from JP...Budget draws out partner opinions
22/03/2007
Lawyers are well-known for their diffidence, but they have been far from slow to offer their opinions on Chancellor Gordon Brown’s Budget yesterday (21 March).City partners welcomed a reduction in corporation tax from 30% to 28% in April 2008 in...Barclays gives CC a shot at big league but A&O could find it hard to go Dutch
21/03/2007
Even in these days of buccaneering takeovers and rampant private equity activity, bids like this don’t come along often. By size alone Barclays’ high-stakes bid for ABN Amro is the fourth-largest merger ever in Europe.But its significance obviously goes far...Deal Week’s Manhattan transfer finds New Yorkers less than bullish
15/03/2007
Breakfast with Cravath, coffee with Sullivan, now on to Wachtell – it has been a busy week on Legal Week’s ongoing tour of Manhattan.The purpose of all the glad-handing (aside from providing material for the Deal Comment blog) is preparation for...Heller 2.0 pulls off one hell of a reboot
8/03/2007
Who would have thought that the most promising UK law debut for years would have been made by San Francisco’s Heller Ehrman – for years dismissed as one of the much-hyped Californian legal community’s dullest members?Yet here is Heller, officially...An unsentimental education
2/03/2007
Several years back, College of Law chief executive Nigel Savage must have been tempted to give up.The College was doing OK but pesky law school upstarts in Nottingham and Oxford – as well as London rival BPP – had secured...A week is a long time in Lovells
9/02/2007
It has certainly been an eventful week for Lovells. On Monday legalweek.com broke the news of the firm’s long-awaited Dubai launch before two days later revealing that two partners were quitting its expansive US arm. Today, we report that its...Young gunning for private equity
2/02/2007
Another week, another Linklaters magic circle partner hire.The impending end of Tony Angel’s managing partner term seems to have given the City giant the confidence to splash the cash on some big name laterals. While the hire of Freshfields Bruckhaus...Smooth, clever and baggage-free
1/02/2007
As numerous law firm elections have shown, there’s always something to be said for being an unknown quantity. Less time to make enemies, less time to get on the wrong side of corporate and less baggage – that most dangerous...Less fudge leaves Freshfields finance team with smaller seat at the table
26/01/2007
To think it was only a few years ago that Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer was doing all it could to promote its low-profile finance offering in the City.Million-pound McKinsey reviews, a ‘top 10 banks’ hit-list and a PR push on any...Magic circle reticence on capping is a real liability
24/01/2007
For once it seems that the magic circle is trailing the rest of the UK top 50. London's five elite firms are refusing to take the initiative on the issue of capping their liability on individual deals, despite a rise...Dewey can learn from predatory Leboeuf
18/01/2007
LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & McRae’s London office is getting something of a predatory reputation for its London hiring - something the firm's appointment of a two-partner capital markets team from Dewey Ballantine this week (see story) has done little to...
RSSRecent Posts
- A disarming new head to lead Slaughters17/01/2008
- LawSoc pensions overhaul is way overdue 5/12/2007
- Redundancies the exception not the rule... for now29/11/2007
- Pro bono, pro-profile14/11/2007