Macfarlanes and Lovells won key advisory roles on ITV’s sale of loss-making social networking site Friends Reunited. Tom Whelan Lovells advised longstanding client ITV on the £25m deal, with partner Tom Whelan leading a team from the firm. Online publishing and technology business Brightsolid and its owner, Dundee-based publishing company DC Thomson & Co, instructed […]
Just one day after TheLawyer.com reported (3 August) that Maurice Allen and Mike Goetz were leaving Freshfields Bruckhaus Derigner, a headhunter was already emailing senior City banking lawyers about a position that was available in a firm with a £1.44m average profit per equity partner (PEP) – the exact number that Freshfields posted this year. […]
Clydes is succeeding where many a magic circle firm has failed, but will its strategy outlive the downturn? asks Julia Berris Peter Hasson International expansion has been at the heart of Clyde & Co’s strategy for years. During the 2007-08 financial year the insurance-focused firm stepped up a gear, borrowing almost £40m to help fund […]
K&L Gates is looking to build up its Asian arbitration practice after hiring a Watson Farley & Williams partner to lead the group. Peter Kalis Raja Bose will be based in K&L Gates’s Singapore office, which the firm launched in March (The Lawyer, 2 March). The office is K&L Gates’s fifth in Asia. Chairman […]
A former senior associate from Clifford Chance’s Warsaw office has left the firm to take over as managing partner at local firm Lukowicz Swierzewski & Partners (LSP). Adrian Krzyzanowski Adrian Krzyzanowski, a banking and real estate lawyer who spent ten years at Clifford Chance in Warsaw and London, has taken over from Olgierd Swierzewski in the management […]
Given the doom and gloom surrounding the property market and notable failures such as Fox Hayes and Hammonds Direct, it makes a change to highlight a firm that appears to be doing well. Residential property boutique Arc Property Solicitors is not only projecting a 33 per cent increase in turnover for the 2009-10 financial year, […]
North East firm Walker Morris saw average profit per equity partner (PEP) drop 27 per cent in 2008-09 on the back of a turnover drop of 8 per cent. PEP dropped from £670,000 in 2007-08 to £486,000. Revenue fell from £48m to £44.2m. Managing partner Peter Smart said: “While this reduction is disappointing we can’t defy gravity. […]
Scottish firm Brodies has ended its eight-year run of double-digit turnover growth after posting a turnover rise of 5 per cent for 2008-09. At the end of the financial year turnover stood at £39m, up from £37m the previous year. Average profit per equity partner (PEP) fell by 18 per cent, taking the firm back […]
Edinburgh-headquartered Shepherd & Wedderburn’s turnover fell by 7 per cent in the 2008-09 financial year, with average profit per equity partner (PEP) dropping 26 per cent. At the end of the year the firm’s turnover stood at £39.6m, down from £42.6m, while PEP fell from £311,000 to £230,000. Chief executive Patrick Andrew said: “We, along with many […]
Hammonds has overhauled its management structure to give more power to office heads. Robert Weekes The heads of the national firm’s offices in Leeds, London, Manchester and Birmingham now sit on its operations board. They join managing partner Peter Crossley and Hammonds’ international department heads. The board deals with the day-to-day running of the firm […]
Cheltenham Borough Council recently lost a controversial High Court action against its former managing director Christine Laird. Paul Daniels The decision raises many interesting issues. First, how much information must be disclosed to a prospective employer on a candidate’s medical history? Second, is it discriminatory for an employer to make decisions based solely on information […]
North West firm Brabners Chaffe Street has won a role advising the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) on employment matters. The mandate comes on the back of the firm’s relationships with other business networks, including The Employment Agents Movement and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation. The BCC instruction will be led by employment partners Paul […]