4 February 2002

City firms on tenterhooks as BT creates official panel

BT is planning to formalise its legal panel. The decision has come out of an internal review of the BT legal department, which has been reorganised under the company’s new head of legal Anne Fletcher. The telecoms giant is well known for not guaranteeing repeat instructions. Over the last two years it has given multiple […]

Opinion

The message from the European Commission and the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) is that life is getting more and more dangerous for cartels.In the last weeks of 2001, there was an unprecedented run of decisions from the commission imposing record fines on companies involved in price-fixing agreements. The opening salvo was a record fine […]

Law Soc to mediate with Bahl as costs are evinced

The Law Society has belatedly agreed to enter into mediation with estranged former vice-president Kamlesh Bahl as the true cost of the whole affair is revealed for the first time The saga has cost the society just over £2m between legal advice for the employment tribunal brought by Bahl and the Griffiths report (a report […]

CSFB rejig sees Volk appointed chairman

Credit Suisse First Boston (CSFB) has appointed Stephen Volk as chairman The former Shearman & Sterling senior partner left the firm last summer to take up a post as CSFB vice-chairman.Volk’s ascension to chairman comes as part of a programme of restructuring at the banking giant. He replaces Joe Roby, who announced his intention to […]

Burges Salmon promotes five to partnership

Burges Salmon has promoted five associates to the partnership, taking the number of partners at the firm to 53 Colette Bewley (right) and Jane Bridgwater will become partners in the firm’s employment, pensions and incentives unit; David Hall (far right) will become a partner in the litigation department; Richard Owen will become a partner in […]

Buchanan slashes six partners from London

Buchanan Ingersoll is axing up to six partners from its London office in a bid to raise the profitability of its European practice The move comes after a US-led decision to focus on corporate finance and litigation. The new focus will mean that a number of the 15 lawyers based in the firm’s London office […]

Fried Frank told Enron to review partnerships

Revelations coming thick and fast in the wake of the Enron debacle have brought the name of another US law firm to the fore Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson has been named by Congressional investigators as one of the few professional advisers to voice concern over the way the company was structured.Houston firm Vinson […]

Ex-Herbert Smith star joins CC in Hong Kong

Litigation and dispute resolution star Martin Rogers has joined Clifford Chance’s Hong Kong Rogers has been on gardening leave since he left Herbert Smith in July. He is known for contentious regulatory and insolvency work, but will advise on a range of financial services regulatory work and insolvency matters.There are now three partners in the […]

Salans rides out storm with further growth and profits

Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn has revealed that 2001 was a year of growth in both turnover and profits The New York-based firm generated revenues of $121.7m (£86.15m) in 2001, up 7 per cent on 2000’s figure of $113.7m (£80.5m). Profits, too, sneaked upwards from $45.5m (£32.2m) to $47.7m (£33.76m), an increase of nearly 5 per […]

Legal Widow

It’s promotion time again in the classroom, and the Lawyer, who fancies himself a kingmaker in these matters, is advising Subjudice, who’s going for head girl.“You have two strategies,” he told her. “Threaten to leave, or find someone whose leg you can cling to.”“What about working hard and being popular?” asked Subjudice. The Lawyer snorted, […]

Rowe & Maw merger gets Illinois blues

Rowe & Maw and Mayer Brown & Platt will not be able to merge fully until the State of Illinois gives the go-ahead for limited liability partnerships (LLPs) The news comes in the wake of the firms’ deal to create a $614m (£434.7m) law firm – the tenth-largest in the world.In the meantime, the UK […]

Associate pay frozen by Cooley Godward

Cooley Godward has frozen associate salaries in a further attempt to rein in costs Associate lockstep salaries will remain as they were last year for all except second-year associates.Second-year associates can expect a $5,000 (£3,530) increase to their current $125,000 (£88,270) salary. This raise addresses the problem of first and second-year associates earning the same […]