Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner Ryan Beckwith broke down in tears in front of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal as he told the tribunal his version of events, in which he described the complainant, Person A, “passionately kissing” him outside the toilets of a pub. Restructuring partner Beckwith is facing claims from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) […]
Whenever law firm leaders tell you about the importance of ‘purpose’ to organisations, there is a mysterious gap when it comes to civil liberties. The Hong Kong protests against the proposed extradition law that could hand its citizens into mainland Chinese jurisdiction gave birth to a crisis that posed thorny questions to the business community. […]
To kick us off, one of the most significant cases to keep an eye on will be the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) taking on Big Four accountancy firm Deloitte.
Two years after hiring Mayer Brown’s Jeremy Kenley and Sandy Bhogal, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher has brought over another partner from the firm to expand its London office. Ben Fryer, who will make the move to the US firm’s City office, is a tax partner regularly advising on aspects of UK and cross-border transactions, including […]
Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer partner Ryan Beckwith broke down in tears in front of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal as he told the tribunal his version of events, in which he described the complainant, Person A, “passionately kissing” him outside the toilets of a pub. Restructuring partner Beckwith is facing claims from the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) […]
Whenever law firm leaders tell you about the importance of ‘purpose’ to organisations, there is a mysterious gap when it comes to civil liberties. The Hong Kong protests against the proposed extradition law that could hand its citizens into mainland Chinese jurisdiction gave birth to a crisis that posed thorny questions to the business community. […]
To kick us off, one of the most significant cases to keep an eye on will be the Financial Reporting Council (FRC) taking on Big Four accountancy firm Deloitte.
Two years after hiring Mayer Brown’s Jeremy Kenley and Sandy Bhogal, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher has brought over another partner from the firm to expand its London office. Ben Fryer, who will make the move to the US firm’s City office, is a tax partner regularly advising on aspects of UK and cross-border transactions, including […]
A complaint has been made by a former lawyer at Allen & Overy to the Luxembourg Bar Association over claims she was discriminated against in the workplace. After she was dismissed from her role in June 2018, the associate, who had been at the firm a year, sent a 10-page complaint to the firm alleging that […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
The Lawyer‘s Christian Smith, Catrin Griffiths, Richard Simmons, Katy Dowell and Charlotte Lear are joined by College of Legal Practice CEO Giles Proctor for this emergency episode of The Lawyer Podcast as they discuss the latest Solicitors Qualification Exam debacle: marking errors that led to 175 students being incorrectly told they had failed. What went […]
Fieldfisher is bolstering its German presence with a hire of 11 lawyers from local firm SKW Schwartz, in an effort to expand its media, technology and IP offerings. The hire includes partners Martin Diesbach, Gerd Hansen and Elisabeth Noltenius, joined by lawyer Julia Schafdecker, who specialise in media, entertainment and digital business. This will up […]
Debevoise & Plimpton is hiring from Goodwin Procter as it adds a new partner to its London investment funds team. Shawn D’Aguiar is switching to a new US firm in London eight years after joining Goodwin from King & Wood Mallesons (KWM). He was part of a four-partner team move led by then funds head Michael […]
Barclays lost 44 lawyers in its legal team over 2023, almost four times the average number of leavers across the UK’s top banks. The banks with the second highest number of leavers is tied between HSBC and NatWest, with 12 lawyer exits each, according to indicative data. On the other end of the scale, Royal […]
CMS’s promotion numbers have ebbed slightly in its latest round seeing 10 elevated to the partnership in the UK and a total of 54 globally. In 2023, CMS promoted 65 lawyers to partner globally, with 16 of these in the UK, compared with 40 in mainland Europe. For this year the UK cohort is made […]
