Today’s issue of The Lawyer is a first: we survey 153 LLP accounts taken from the list of firms in The Lawyer’s UK 200 to investigate debt levels within the UK’s leading legal practices. While we have a caveat that there are many varieties of partnership funding, what is clear is that a traditionally conservative […]
Information and experience are invisible yet valuable assets which some firms are leveraging to build stronger client relationships How useful to your firm is knowledge management (KM) and your KM team? The question is more relevant these days than ever because even in this era of Big Data, automation and disaggregation, many firms are still […]
How Michael Chissick plans to put the spark back into idling Field Fisher Waterhouse Failed merger talks, ego clashes and management changes have kept Field Fisher Waterhouse (FFW) looking back instead of forward for too long. Managing partner Michael Chissick stepped into the top role a year ago and is now on a mission to […]
Firm aims to shed second-tier stereotype by targeting ambitious trainees According to Simmons & Simmons graduate recruitment partner Alan Gar, top of most of his fellow partners’ wishlists of trainee qualities is ambition. At first glance, this seems rather anodyne. Like saying ‘we want the best, most enthusiastic candidates’. As opposed to the worst and […]
Debt can kill a firm but it can also fund ambition. Our first-ever market snapshot shows firms in the UK 200 getting into it in a big way “Theorist Nicholas Nassim Taleb says that if you’re financed by debt you’d better be able to predict future revenues and future volatility,” says Peter Kalis, global managing […]
Everyday legal work is at a halt and the country’s lawyers stand ready to do their bit in the army if the Russians move in The political crisis in Ukraine has shifted the priorities of the country’s lawyers. Day-to-day legal activity has ground to a halt as citizens work out what the impact of the […]
Beyond the headline infrastructure projects, UK construction work is still recovering from the clobbering it took during the slump Q: What is the state of the domestic market in construction? Tim Reid, partner, Ashurst: The market is still patchy but there are some big projects such as Crossrail and, potentially, HS2. The Budget brought the announcement […]
It can be an adventure in bureaucracy but the energy sector in turbulent Turkey offers lucrative and varied opportunities for investors Despite the attempt by Turkey’s prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to shut down Twitter last week, top-tier local lawyers routinely claim that the odd dramatic incident aside, it is “business as usual” in Turkey. […]
Move of the week Squire Sanders has recruited Michelle Chen as partner in its global corporate group. She was previously director of China business at Berwin Leighton Paisner and before that was an of counsel at the same firm. Chen is dual-qualified and advises on foreign direct investment into China and on Chinese outbound investment […]
Sarah Nelson Smith, UK legal chief of KFC and Pizza Hut owner Yum! Brands took a fresh approach to panel review Kentucky-based Yum! Brands, the umbrella group for KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell, is not the most obvious setting for a magic circle-trained oil and gas litigator, but Sarah Nelson Smith says the restaurant giant […]
Information and experience are invisible yet valuable assets which some firms are leveraging to build stronger client relationships How useful to your firm is knowledge management (KM) and your KM team? The question is more relevant these days than ever because even in this era of Big Data, automation and disaggregation, many firms are still […]