Catrin is the editor of The Lawyer.
If you want a cacophonous, vicious, spectacularly partisan constituency competition, then Siena would have been the place to be this week. You’ll have seen it in Quantum of Solace: the palio – a three-lap horse race in which 10 of the city’s 17 wards, each with their own insignia, compete for glory and bragging rights. […]
In the last 12 months, the top 100 law firms in the UK have spent literally millions on lateral hires, bringing in a total of 12,177 new partners. Such hope. So many dreams. How many of them will actually work out? If you’re assessing return on investment then the usual response is to look at […]
$20m partners are rare, but they are multiplying. Paul Weiss, Kirkland, Davis Polk, Weil Gotshal and latterly Latham are reshaping their partner compensation for the big figure, stretched upwards from the $9m that Paul Weiss paid for Scott Barshay in 2016. As The Lawyer reported yesterday, even Cleary – Cleary! – is now considering it. […]
The scene: A US firm boardroom, somewhere not in New York*. Big Cheese (furiously): ‘We’re not growing fast enough. What have you got?’ Smaller Cheese (panicking): Private equity! That’s the thing! Kirkland! Paul Weiss!’ Big Cheese: ‘Do whatever it takes. And do it now.’ Smaller Cheese: ‘Leave it with me. We’ll hire big in London. […]
It seems that one of the chief attributes of managing partners is wild optimism. You can’t move for law firm leaders committing their firms to hardcore five-year targets – particularly in the upper mid-tier, where we’re hearing of plans to double or even triple revenues by the end of the decade. We’d like some of […]
It’s new partner season for UK firms, when hundreds of happy associates are granted new status, obligations and bragging rights. Most firms lag behind Kirkland & Ellis, though, which made up 26 in London this year alone. Like the Roman Empire, Kirkland has always made generous grants of citizenship to expand its borders; the more […]
Linklaters’ management team is taking soundings on three separate proposals that aim to trim payouts to departing members and reduce the overall cost to the firm, The Lawyer can reveal. The consultation process, which is ongoing, is likely to go to a partnership vote in a few weeks. The first proposal is to ditch the […]
The magic circle has a secret weapon, and that is breadth. And the UK leaders’ multiple, richly-staffed practice areas are starting to give them a helpful differentiation within the global elite. Megawatt firms such as Kirkland & Ellis, Paul Weiss or Simpson Thacher primarily operate in the vertical of asset management and private capital, a […]
Another Linklaters partner has resigned to join Paul Weiss. The Lawyer understands that Dan Schuster-Woldan is leaving the magic circle firm. Schuster-Woldan is co-head of Linklaters’ insurance group sector group and has advised Axa and Phoenix Group. More recent deals have seen him acting on the proposed sale of the Telegraph newspaper and Spectator magazine. […]
Less than two years after it overhauled its lockstep to keep its top performers, Linklaters is mulling a radical shake-up of its compensation system. The proposals would give management full control of individual partner pay on an annual basis – and confiscate retained profit distributions if they leave for any firm that is a ‘deemed […]
Turns out you don’t need to float to get some acquisitions under your belt. Mishcon de Reya’s latest buy is paralegal and interim resourcing business Flex Legal, which will be housed in its consultancies division. Why would a law firm buy a recruitment platform? Despite the fact that law firms and resourcing providers are superficially […]
Mishcon de Reya has swooped for interim talent provider Flex Legal as it continues to build out its alternative services offering. Flex Legal was set up seven years ago by Mary Bonsor and James Moore as an online flexible resourcing business and is thought to have attracted over 6,000 lawyers and paralegals to its platform. […]