Alex Novarese

May 11, 2011 | International Edition

It seemed like a good idea at the time. With plenty of interesting recent developments, I decided to write the lead piece for this week's in depth on defamation and privacy. Then stuff kept happening… well, it's certainly been fascinating but it's also been a fairly depressing spectacle as the debate about privacy, libel and free speech has been warped beyond all recognition by media hysteria.

By Alex Novarese

3 minute read

May 11, 2011 | International Edition

On 15 March the Government made good on a manifesto commitment of both coalition parties to act on libel reform, unveiling a draft Defamation Bill for consultation until 10 June.

By Alex Novarese

8 minute read

May 11, 2011 | International Edition

Already facing smaller payouts and a drop in claims, libel work has faded from its 1980s glory days. 
Will reform of defamation and civil costs – and the rise of reputation managers – spell the end for traditional libel lawyers? 
Alex Novarese reports

By Alex Novarese

18 minute read

May 05, 2011 | International Edition

If US culture traditionally celebrates individual achievement, the financial results for the world's largest legal market proved suitably patriotic last year. Overall there was little surprise, with the US top 100 firms achieving underlying revenue growth of 1.4% - a modest but respectable result that returned the group to growth after the 3.4% contraction seen in 2009. The prolonged squeeze on costs was enough to turn this modest revival into an 8.4% increase in average partner profits overall - very solid going for a hardly solid market.

By Alex Novarese

3 minute read

April 21, 2011 | International Edition

The question I'm probably most often asked these days by senior people in the profession is what I believe will happen when law firms are allowed to take external investment or utilise new business models. It's a timely debate in the month that Irwin Mitchell and Plexus Law both confirmed their intention to be in the first round of alternative business structures (ABS) when the regime goes live (probably) in October this year.

By Alex Novarese

4 minute read

April 21, 2011 | International Edition

You know you're on dodgy territory when journalists and lobbying groups start to claim a piece of legislation is badly drafted. Unless you're a trained lawyer - and one with a specialism in the area at that - it's pretty difficult to tell if statute is poorly written. Of course, as can been seen from this week's analysis, this didn't stop a storm of criticism hitting the Bribery Act, which must now surely rank as the most politically-charged piece of legislation to impact on corporates since the Human Rights Act of 1998. In part, the nature of these attacks was due to the content of the Act. Supporting bribery is a hard public position to adopt - which forced opponents of the Act to get into technical arguments regarding supposed deficiencies in drafting.

By Alex Novarese

3 minute read

April 14, 2011 | International Edition

While it is common to overplay the significance of individuals within businesses, there is no doubt that the end of David Cheyne's term as senior partner at Linklaters will mark the end of an era for one of the City's proudest brands. That is less because Cheyne personally embodied Linklaters - like Nigel Boardman at Slaughter and May, he remained too individualistic and self-contained for that - but he obviously represented the spiritual heartland of the firm: its City corporate practice. Given the huge changes the firm has seen over the last 15 years, and considering the three candidates it is currently considering to replace him, the new senior partner will, to a certain extent, represent the new face of Linklaters, particularly in terms of the huge expansion in its banking practice and international network. A new senior partner also seems likely to signify a shift to a more contemporary or informal style - less so in age, but certainly in personal approach.

By Alex Novarese

3 minute read

April 07, 2011 | International Edition

Having irritated a fair chunk of my senior contact-base by recently saying City law firms don't much care about diversity and social mobility, I wasn't planning to return so quickly to the subject, but this dog just won't stop barking. Only this week deputy prime minister Nick Clegg announced the Government's strategy on social mobility, which made much of a campaign to make work experience placements transparent (I won't call them internships - that's a nonsense dreamed up to make a questionable practice sound respectable).

By Alex Novarese

5 minute read

April 06, 2011 | International Edition

The legal profession, usually ignored by Whitehall, finds itself currently the stuff of political debate, mostly for negative reasons. Last week the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) unveiled its long-awaited policies on reforming civil litigation costs in a minor blaze of publicity about ambulance-chasing lawyers. Within days, that typical hotbed of tabloid controversy - The Law Society's annual statistical report - was enough to start a half-baked debate about the number of fat-cat lawyers exceeding those of police officers, supposedly off the back of the twin growth engines of legal aid and the Human Rights Act.

By Alex Novarese

3 minute read

March 29, 2011 | International Edition

What is it with the mid-tier, that much-maligned but ill-defined group of law firms that always gets it in the neck from consultants, pundits and journalists? Written off whatever the conditions of the day, observers of the legal industry will usually be told this breed will soon be history as an over-supplied and fragmented market is carved up between industry leaders and nimble boutiques. While there is a grain of truth here - which we'll get to later - it's usually stretched to the point of woolly nonsense delivered with shaky reference to the facts. For a start, who is this group supposed to be? Taken literally you could make a solid case that any firm south of Slaughter and May is mid-tier, though that isn't usually what is meant. Smaller than Ashurst, maybe? Consensus starts to break down. Outside the top 50? Take your pick. There are a bewilderingly large number of mid-tiers out there. In an industry obsessed by relative status, groups are defined as much by what you're not - so the mid-tier is, for many a firm, someone else.

By Alex Novarese

3 minute read