Next week one of the biggest legal market events of the year will roll into London. It should be good – it’s been 800 years in the making. The first-ever Global Law Summit (GLS), which takes Magna Carta as its jumping off point, will rightly showcase the immense talent across the breadth of the UK […]
A £3bn privatisation, a £12bn pensions hole, a hostile trade union and a panel shake-up– the past few years have been full of ups and downs for Royal Mail GC Neil Harnby and his team. How do you manage cultural change? Royal Mail general counsel Neil Harnby could write a text book on it. When […]
As the UK contract lawyers market goes into overdrive, the CEO of A&O’s flexible resourcing arm is staying ahead of the curve – watch out world. If, as a hard-bitten, committed deals junkie who sees sleep as the enemy you have any doubts that flexible working is the best way to get the most out […]
Technology M&A is leading the way in Israel as foreign companies clamour to invest, but will a regulator’s U-turn put the brakes on growth? Last July, at the height of Israel’s seven-week war with Hamas in Gaza, then Israeli finance minister Yair Lapid assured the public that the conflict would not damage the country’s economy, […]
Move of the week Patent and trademark firm JA Kemp has appointed IP litigator Alan Bryson as head of its litigation group. He joins from Wilberforce Chambers, where he was a barrister. Before being called to the bar in 2004, he was an IP partner with Clifford Chance for 17 years. Bryson will be responsible […]
The news last Friday that Addleshaw Goddard is clambering aboard the flexible resourcing juggernaut underlines how quickly this part of the legal services market is moving. Over the past couple of years or so a growing number of traditional law firms have followed the trail blazed by Berwin Leighton Paisner, which launched Lawyers on Demand […]
Loss of PE star Oliver Felsenstein must surely force firm’s hand over lockstep reform. “Of course, if we lose a partner it does concern us – some partners more, and some partners less,” Clifford Chance’s co-head of private equity Oliver Felsenstein told The Lawyer last October. It’s likely that Felsenstein’s own resignation last week will […]
BLP’s Lisa Mayhew joins a select few women running law firms. A raft of City firms over the last year or so have signed up to various initiatives and targets designed to improve the still-woeful gender diversity in the UK’s legal market. Many, including Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP), have set ambitious aims of dramatically improving the […]
Clifford Chance’s top of equity pay lags behind its peers yet partners have so far resisted change. They may not for much longer. Last month Clifford Chance (CC) confirmed that it was beginning a comprehensive review of its global lockstep remuneration system. It’s a timely move coming as it does amidst a continuing series of […]
Referral relationships help independent firms to punch above their weight against internationals in an increasingly cross-border legal world. In a legal world increasingly characterised by global consolidation, having a strong referral network not only helps independent firms compete with their international rivals when trying to attract clients or break into emerging markets – it can […]
Northern cities will need more than token devolved power if they are to become an economic Powerhouse to rival the South-east. The Chancellor recently expanded on his vision of a “Northern Powerhouse”, a hub of commercial activity concentrated around the north of England’s largest cities. This overarching vision forms part of a larger economic goal […]