7 November 2011

Adrian Bland

Work Life Quiz: Adrian Bland, Wragge & Co

What was your first-ever job?   Litter picker on the Killington service area of the M6 near Sedbergh – in the days when you just used your bare hands. What was your worst ­experience as a trainee? Being called at my desk in Brum by an irate partner asking why I wasn’t at a pre-meeting […]

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Tulkinghorn: Dickinson flees

Tulkinghorn was passing through the lovely ­Victorian arches of York’s railway station the other week when a set of adverts caught his beady eye – adverts for Dickinson Dees. Dickinson flees   The sight made poor old Tulkinghorn choke on his Yorkshire Tea, for after all is Dickie Dees not in the process of pulling […]

Chris Newby

Chartis European GC: The claim man

Having seen its UK arm through the financial crisis of 2008, Chartis European general counsel Chris Newby has shown his mettle. Katy Dowell reports When Chris Newby left Norton Rose for AIG, as Chartis was then known, back in 2006, he could not have envisaged the way he would come to influence the international insurer’s […]

Lawyers unite to promote pro bono

Today (7 November) sees the start of National Pro Bono Week. To herald the seven days of events, Hogan Lovells recently held a gathering of eminent lawyers ­hosted by Attorney-General Dominic Grieve QC to mark the launch of another high-profile pro bono ­initiative. The International Senior Lawyers Project (ISLP) is a scheme aimed at encouraging ­senior and […]

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Focus: Alternative business structures – Law and new order

There’s more to the ABS model than attracting the man in the street and procuring external investment. Partners at the big corporate firms, take note… So, alternative business structures (ABSs) have nothing to do with big commercial firms, do they? The announcement that DLA Piper is investing in a prospective ABS called LawVest and aimed […]

Debra Erni

On the move

DLA Piper has announced the ­appointment of Debra Erni as a partner to its finance and projects group. Move of the week Erni joins the asset finance team and will frequently work from the firm’s Moscow office. She joins DLA Piper from White & Case, where she was a senior associate in the asset finance […]

Dewey and Bakers advise on Disney’s JV with UTH

Dewey & LeBoeuf and Baker & McKenzie have advised on Russian United TV’s (UTH) joint venture with The Walt Disney Company to launch a Disney-branded free-to-air Russian television channel in a deal worth $300m (£186m). London-based Dewey partner Amy Comer and Moscow managing partner Brian Zimbler advised UTH. In-house counsel Matthew McGinnis and Baker & […]

Irwin Mitchell guides Mayfair site purchase

Irwin Mitchell advised Phones 4U founder John Caudwell’s property division on its £143m purchase of the Audley Square House site in London’s Mayfair – one of the most prized ­properties held by Ireland’s National Asset Management Agency (Nama). Allen & Overy, led by associate Rhiannon Blackmore, advised Nama, the bank set up in Ireland to […]

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O’Melveny on board as RIT invests in filesharer Dropbox

O’Melveny & Myers has won a role on popular digital filesharing business ­Dropbox’s latest major fundraising, aimed at allowing the Californian upstart to compete with Apple and Google in the cloud computing sphere. The US firm is acting for an investor controlled by investment banker Sir Jacob Rothschild, the only major UK investor in the […]

Wolley Dod

Norton Rose, Trowers win roles on £1.1bn property loans deal

Norton Rose and Trowers & Hamlins both landed roles on real estate services and investment company Kennedy Wilson’s $1.8bn (£1.12bn) purchase of a real estate loan portfolio from Bank of Ireland. Norton Rose partner Duncan Hubbard said the deal is “likely to be the largest real estate loan ­portfolio sale of this kind in Europe […]

Sam Everatt

Labour networks bolster their ranks as they catch the cross-border wave

Three employment law alliances have expanded in the past month in response to the increasing effect of globalisation on labour law. Established network Ius Laboris added Hungarian full-service firm CLV Partners to its membership at the start of October. The Employment Law Alliance (ELA) followed with the addition of Belgian firm Lydian and France’s Fromont Briens. Meanwhile, […]