MBRM's equity partners become hot potatoes

Despite the most enduring M&A boom for years, it seems that sacking equity partners is all the rage.

The City was just getting over The Lawyer’s February revelation that Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer would be getting rid of 100 partners, when The Lawyer hit the stands today with news of a Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw (MBRM) plan to chop 45 equity partners. See story.

While both Freshfields and MBRM may have learnt the profit-boosting strategy from Linklaters, the firms are both being a lot more grown-up, with frank explanations of the business reasons behind their drastic actions.

MBRM general counsel and chairman-elect Jim Holzhauer told The Lawyer why the firm was restructuring, just as Freshfields chief executive Ted Burke did when talking about his firm’s “difficult decisions” on The Lawyer’s podcast. Check out www.thelawyerpodcast.com, which has shot up to number 11 in the iTunes business charts.