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Once more, with feeling: sort out your cash collection

A toxic combination of rising costs has put working capital levels under pressure. The gauge will rise as firms adjust to a new tax regime that prevents them from holding onto taxable profits generated by equity partners for almost two years. Traditionally that pot of cash yielded high interest rates and it could be put […]

Shares stocks

Listed firms are fading

Listed firms once claimed to be pioneering a new style of firm. But the four outfits currently in this misshapen gang (and former members DWF and Ince Group), have had their fair share of shakes and wobbles. They must satisfy two distinct audiences. On one hand there are equity partners, and on the other the […]

Get yourself a sustainability head

If you haven’t got a head of sustainability, you’re increasingly in the minority. For the last three years, law firms have been jumping on this trend: since 2021, no fewer than 27 firms have appointed a sustainability or ESG leader. Looking at where all these green gurus have come from is an interesting exercise in […]

A litigator is not just for London

Law folklore dictates that any indication of a transactional slowdown will see a growth in contentious business. But despite economic fragility, partner hiring has favoured corporate and finance stars rather than litigators for much of 2023. The US firms are, as always, to blame for this. Indicative data from Atlas by Codex Edge shows that […]

Phone hacking

A&O’s cyber-ransom is a fact of modern life

Today would have been deadline day for Allen & Overy (A&O). You’ll recall that earlier this month (9 November), the firm was targeted by a cyber-attack. This, it said, was “a data incident impacting a small number of storage servers”. In contrast, the Russian LockBit ransomware group that claimed responsibility, and which is understood to […]

US firms are real estate influencers

The elite US firms are reshaping the City landscape with their demands for climate-friendly Grade A space. Rents are rising too; a top floor at some of London’s newest buildings commands rents above £100 per sq ft – compare that with Glasgow where occupier adviser DeVono put prime rents at £36 per sq ft earlier […]