31 December 2007

On your marks…

On your marks…04-Jan-2008Never mind flavour of the month, the Middle East looks set to be flavour of the year…again. Never mind flavour of the month, the Middle East looks set to be flavour of the year…again. Post-merger Dewey & LeBoeuf has sprung out of the New Year blocks to grab a piece of the action. […]

Taylor Wessing lays off four in BD restructuring

Taylor Wessing has made four business development managers redundant as part of a departmental re-jig due to complete in the next few months. Under the changes, four new heads corresponding to individual practice areas will be appointed at a higher level than the four who were made redundant. According to a spokesperson at the firm, […]

Linklaters steers banks to success on troubled Ugandan project

Linklaters has advised the 10 lenders that brought the $867.7m (£439.4m) Bujagali power plant deal in Uganda to a successful close after the previous sponsor, AES, pulled out. The firm won the instruction through an existing relationship with senior lender African Development Bank on smaller deals in the continent. The withdrawal of developer AES’s sponsorship […]

Alcoholic lawyers targeted by new treatment centre

Lawyers are being targeted by a new luxury purpose-built addiction treatment centre in Kent as alcohol-related deaths in the legal profession are found to be double the national average. Lawyers have the highest national mortality rate related to alcohol-related diseases and 30 per cent of male lawyers and 20 per cent of female lawyers “drink […]

Dewey & LeBoeuf raids Akin Gump to secure Dubai base

Dewey & LeBoeuf has raided the Dubai office of Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld for its first launch since last October’s merger between Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf Lamb Greene & MacRae. The firm has launched a Dubai office under partners Gavin Watson and Chris Sioufi, Akin Gump’s only partners in the emirate, with the […]

Duane Morris chairman steps down

US firm Duane Morris has appointed vice chairman of its litigation group, John Soroko, as its new chairman. Soroko, who officially began his new role yesterday (3 January), has replaced Sheldon Bonovitz, who has been chairman for a decade, taking up the post in 1998. During his time as chairman, Bonovitz has been instrumental in […]

Magic circle dominates 2007 Thomson M&A league

The magic circle firms have grabbed a record volume of the European 2007 M&A pie, which has grown by 36 per cent to $1.8tr (£911bn), despite a weak finish to the year. The magic circle have this year all but sewn up the European M&A market between them off the back of the $193bn Rio […]

Osborne Clarke hires new German patents chief

Osborne Clarke has boosted its Cologne office with the appointment of partner Michael Trimborn who will lead its German patent practice. It is the first lateral hire to the firm’s Cologne office since May last year when Osborne Clarke hired Anke Freckman to its employment practice. Trimborn will focus on providing strategic patent related advice […]

When two become one

Local government in the North East is set for its biggest shake-up in decades Those living or working in Northumberland or County Durham will be subject to new local authorities within two years. This was announced on 25 July by local government minister John Healey following a 12-week stakeholder consultation period and a rigorous assessment […]

Town centre come-back

With the opening of the Metro Centre in Gateshead in 1986, out-of-town developments in the UK moved into a new era. Consumers flocked to these shopping meccas, deserting the high street and turning town centres into ghost towns of charity shops and empty premises. It soon became clear that a major problem was facing the […]

Surge in renewable energy

If necessity truly is the mother of invention, then West Country law firms could be in line for a huge boost as the impacts of global warming, pollution and urbanisation hit home. The West Country is home to a fast-growing cleantech industry, which is at the leading edge of creating new technologies that make better […]

Recruiting for the future

A good website is now vital for attracting the best graduates. Recruitment, in particular graduate recruitment, is a very different beast to what it was a decade ago. Today’s graduates are the first for whom the internet is synonymous with their lifestyles. To keep up with these changes, many law firms have invested heavily in […]