Linklaters and Simmons & Simmons: Parallel lines
Two very different law firms occupying disparate places in the legal echelons – but Linklaters and Simmons seem to employ uncannily similar methods to achieve similar aims.
The SRA is on the ropes
On Tuesday last week (9 April), the SRA sought to quell a rising tide of discontent around the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE). In its most recent SQE annual report, SRA chief executive Paul Philip said the public and profession could have “confidence” in this “rigorous assessment”. That confidence was short-lived. Yesterday (15 April), Philip was […]
Some firms have all the luck
For one firm, the pan-Nordic dream is dead. For another, it’s just begun. Hannes Snellman’s announcement that its Stockholm and Helsinki offices will be going their separate ways later this year represented the end of a strategic gamble that started 16 years ago. Back then, its leadership bet that opening in Stockholm (2008) and Copenhagen […]
Your managing partner is off on one again
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 […]
Bristol has too many lawyers
What do Southend-on-Sea and Slough have in common? The answer is that they are the largest urban settlements in Britain without a UK200 law firm. The denizens of these benighted places have to make do without so much as a solitary capital markets lawyer to keep the wheels of commerce turning. Can you imagine? Perhaps […]
The more partners you make, the better
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 […]
Another Milbank leaver exits for A&O
Another partner from Milbank’s financial restructuring team is set to leave the firm, this time joining Allen & Overy ahead of its merger with Shearman & Sterling. Karen McMaster is the latest partner loss from Milbank following last month’s news of a structured finance team led by partner John Goldfinch moving to Allen & Overy, soon […]
HSF promotions: Eight make the grade in London
Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has promoted 27 lawyers to partnership, with eight making the grade in London. This year’s cohort is smaller than last year, when 32 promotions were announced, but it brings the figure back in line with pre-pandemic rounds. Over half of this year’s cohort has been promoted in the UK and Australia, […]
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SQE fiasco as Kaplan wrongly tells 175 students they failed
Nearly 200 law students were incorrectly told they had failed their first set of Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) exams, in what the chief executive of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has called “the most serious operational mistake that we’ve made in the last two and half years.” Kaplan, the exam administrator for the SQE, has […]
Travers to ditch partner car scheme as it goes electric
Travers Smith is scouring the market for providers that will help it to replicate its employee electric car scheme for the firm’s partnership. In 2022, Travers became the latest firm to offer an electric car initiative for employees, which enabled interested staff to participate in a salary sacrifice scheme in order to lease an electric […]
Gap years and conditional offers: Low SQE pass rates force firms to rethink trainee recruitment
As pass rates for the first stage of the Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) stagnate at a 52 per cent average for 2022/23, City firm recruiters and early careers leaders are voicing concerns about their future pipeline planning. Certainly, a consistent pass rate confirms the goals of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) to create what it […]
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