Last week’s news that the SRA plans to withdraw from the Graduate Recruitment Code, which stops firms offering students training contracts before their final year of university, touched a nerve right across the profession. If the SRA’s plans go ahead, trainee recruitment is likely to become significantly more competitive. Theoretically, it means that for the […]
Firm takes the US lead with a thumping 10.8% profit leap. As the US firm financial reporting season continued last week, one of the market’s titans, DLA Piper, posted a whopping rise in profit. For some at least, it seems the good times are back. Global net profit at DLA Piper rocketed by 10.8 per […]
Just eight women hold senior management roles in the UK’s top 50 firms despite females dominating the profession at entry level. How can that gulf be closed and what career steps will make the top more reachable? We asked today’s leaders. Gender in law firms is a hot topic, and with a growing number of […]
Move of the week London-based Seddons has hired libel and defamation lawyer Mark Lewis as a partner. Lewis joined from Taylor Hampton, where he was known for his work on behalf of clients involved in the recent phone-hacking scandal. He has 25 years of experience working on libel, privacy, confidentiality, reputation management and intellectual property matters. […]
Austrian firms are hanging tough and looking for opportunities in a central European region bounded by a battlefield on its eastern flank. It may be 165 miles away, the capital of a country only of 2 million people and a city slightly smaller than Nottingham – but all eyes at one Vienna law firm are […]
Early repayment of its bailout and solid M&A interest from foreign investors have brought optimism to Portugal’s lawyers. The word ‘crisis’ no longer has such strong associations with the Portuguese market. The country recently announced it is paying back half of its bailout loan – around €14bn (£10.2bn) – to the IMF early, meaning things […]
At French energy company Schneider Electric, Peter Wexler has a steady flow of mergers, acquisitions and compliance issues – but it’s the people that give his role its spark. Peter Wexler is, unabashedly, a people person. As group general counsel of Paris-listed global energy company Schneider Electric, Wexler says his strategy both for building his […]