24 October 2011

Tulkinghorn: Homburger with cheers

Swiss giant Homburger moved house recently, out from the centre of Zurich to Switzerland’s new tallest building. While the 126m Prime Tower would be dwarfed by your average London or New York skyscraper, its glassy façade is sweetly impressive. So proud is Homburger of its new offices, up on the 31st floor of the tower, […]

Paul Ayre
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Focus: Gordons – Gordons’ tonic

How does a Bradford firm pay Slaughters-level remuneration? The managing partner behind this stellar performance reveals all

City holds mixed fortunes for European outposts

Running a London office is proving to be a mixed blessing for European firms, as newly released LLP accounts reveal. A third of Europe’s top 30 firms operate their London offices as LLPs. Italian firm Chiomenti Studio Legale converted to LLP status in late September, while three firms – Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners, ­Wikborg Rein and […]

Steven Greenwood

Stone King

These days, it’s all about focus, and this is particularly true at smaller firms. Stone King is no exception. Last year the Bath-headquartered firm added more than £1m to revenue, a growth of 12 per cent, while in the current year it is projecting a growth rate of 10 per cent, which will take revenue […]

Peter Watts

Opinion: Legal advisers must be EU contract law savvy

For some time the EU has been interested in harmonising member states’ laws of contract. Ideas for achieving this have ranged from the ’toolbox’ approach (model wording for lawmakers to use if they think fit) to establishing a single civil code that would replace existing national laws covering contract, tort and much else. Now the […]

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Squire Sanders moves partner to Moscow

Squire Sanders & Dempsey is continuing the growth of its Moscow office by relocating London-based partner Stephen Nelson to Russia full-time. Nelson’s corporate practice focuses on transactions in Russia and Central and Eastern Europe and covers a wide range of sectors including energy, telecoms and manufacturing. The move follows the recent hire of Allen & […]

A&O dispatches top man to Hong Kong to shore up energy practice

Allen & Overy (A&O) is sending a senior oil and gas partner to Hong Kong in a bid to boost the firm’s Asia Pacific energy practice. Oil and gas partner Paul Griffin, who joined A&O from Herbert Smith in November 2010 and has been working in the sector for more than 25 years, will move […]

Osborne Clarke bags Taylor Wessing duo

Osborne Clarke has ­continued its push in financial services with a double partner hire from Taylor Wessing. Dominic Ross was head of acquisition finance at ­Taylor Wessing and joins Osborne Clarke along with Akmal Ghauri, a partner in Taylor Wessing’s finance group. Both will join the firm as equity partners in the banking team in […]

New FFW chief puts growth top of agenda

Field Fisher Waterhouse’s (FFW) new managing partner Matthew Lohn has vowed to put growth and talent development at the heart of his first stint as head of the firm. Lohn took over from Moira Gilmour as managing partner last week. Gilmour had been in the post since 2006. She was elected unopposed for a ­second […]

Law and the order of things

You wait months for a good judicial speech, then four come along at once. This October there’s been Baroness Hale’s contribution to feminist judgments (see page 60) and her justified criticism of her brother judges’ membership of the all-male Garrick Club. There’s also been the Lord Chief Justice’s lecture on the influence of the King […]

Chartis aims to bring down costs with European panel

Chartis, the property casualty insurance carrier of US insurance giant AIG, is to launch its first European panel in 2012 in an effort to streamline its legal spend. European general counsel Chris Newby said that in addition to establishing a Europe-wide roster the insurer would create a panel for its newly launched ­London headquarters. “We […]

RJW beefs up PI arm to take on high street rivals

Russell Jones & Walker (RJW) is to expand rapidly the number of consumer products promoted through Claims Direct to compete with the arrival of alternative business structures (ABS) in the consumer markets. The claims management non-profitmaking subsidiary of RJW collects personal injury (PI) claims and divides them between the firm and a panel of 35 […]