The East Midlands team from Gateley has been named Legal Team of the Year for the first time at the 2014 East Midlands Insider Dealmaker of the Year Awards. In addition, corporate partner Mark Rutherford was shortlisted in the Dealmaker of the Year category for the second year running. The team was also shortlisted for […]
Berwin Leighton Paisner has unveiled a 5.6 per cent rise in turnover for the 2013/14 financial year to £246m and boosted profit per equity partner (PEP) to £542,000. Last year the firm’s revenue dropped 5 per cent from £246m to £233m for 2012/13 but the firm delayed releasing its PEP figure until September, when it […]
Hogan Lovells is considering taking up a blind curriculum vitae (CV) policy in a bid to counter bias towards trainee applicants who received an Oxbridge degree or were educated privately. If the move goes ahead the firm will join Clifford Chance, Mayer Brown and Macfarlanes in the CV-blind recruitment technique, which is gaining traction in […]
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is the most popular legal brand in London and the UK among general counsels, research by Acritas claims. The research, based on responses of 344 senior general counsel in UK organisations with revenues over £25m reveals Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) and Freshfields as the big winners in the capital having climbed to […]
Indian property company Unitech will pursue Libor-based claims against Deutsche Bank after the Supreme Court refused the bank permission to appeal (PTA) a claim amendment accepted by the Court of Appeal. Last November the CoA said Unitech, which has instructed Stephenson Harwood partner Richard Gwynne, could ammend its counterclaim against the bank to include Libor […]
More power to gender diversity initiatives, as Linklaters gets on board Did Pinsent Masons think it would be a trendsetter when it adopted gender diversity targets in March? They are certainly a must-have now. Linklaters is the first of the magic circle to adopt the initiative. By 2018 it wants 30 per cent of its […]
The big auditors are targeting the legal sector again, and this time the mid-market had better be prepared The accountants’ previous assault on the legal market might have turned out to be a bit of a damp squib, but this time around law firms could really have something to worry about. With PricewaterhouseCoopers’ legal arm […]
Long hours, mountainous workloads, combative cultures – stress is part of lawyering. But are firms doing enough to help people manage it, or is their talk of help programmes just hot air? The law can be a stressful profession. This is no great taboo. Graduates are solemnly informed of the tough working hours. Trainees and […]
Peter Shervington, product liability expert at Eversheds, has commented on the latest news that Peugeot China has recalled more than 160,000 vehicles. Shervington noted that for car-makers, undertaking a consumer recall is a major step wherever it takes place — the direct costs of contacting vehicle owners, disseminating information through dealer networks and informing regulatory authorities […]
Eversheds construction expert Michael Conroy-Harris has commented on the news that the UK government is set to reduce support for Building Information Modelling (BIM). Conroy-Harris said: ‘At first sight, this news might be seen as troubling — but is it really bad news for BIM? Rarely has there been such an industry-wide consensus that an […]
Ker-ching! That’s the sound inside Capita’s finance department, as the outsourcing giant bills £2.3m to the Treasury Solicitor’s department (TSol) for the first quarter of 2014. That entire £2.3m has gone on temporary legal staff, with a spokesperson insisting that the merging of government legal departments triggered a demand for temporary staff while TSol recruited […]
Over the past couple of weeks TV deals have played a starring role in the M&A market. All3Media, the indie production company behind Chester-based soap Hollyoaks and Midsomer Murders, became the latest European acquisition by Liberty Global alongside Discovery Communications. US giant Viacom pocketed Channel 5, while ITV made its latest move in the American […]