Gerard Starkey

March 27, 2013 | International Edition

Keystone Law is moving into the temp lawyer market with a new service that will offer partner-level support to the City arms of US law firms. The new Law Firm Support service will enable firms to instruct Keystone's 120 lawyers to work on specific transactions and longer-term projects. This includes a guarantee from Keystone that no further instructions will be accepted by lawyers working for the client during the course of the temp assignment.

By Gerard Starkey

2 minute read

March 27, 2013 | International Edition

Clifford Chance (CC) and Linklaters have played lead roles on Royal London's £219m purchase of the Co-operative Banking Group's life insurance business. The deal is set to see Royal London, the UK's largest mutual life and pensions company, acquire Co-operative Insurance Society (CIS) and The Co-operative Asset Management.

By Gerard Starkey

2 minute read

March 27, 2013 | International Edition

Pinsent Masons has billed almost £13m through the Government Procurement Service (GPS) legal panel since the start of the 2011-12 financial year, more than double any other law firm, a Freedom of Information request has revealed. The figures show Pinsents accumulated £12.9m through the Government legal services framework – the central panel intended to cover all of the Government's external legal advice – between April 2011 and December 2012, well ahead of the next biggest biller, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, which charged £6.2m over the same period.

By Gerard Starkey

3 minute read

March 27, 2013 | International Edition

Addleshaw Goddard is set to increase the size of its Manchester transaction services team (TST) by almost 50% over the coming months, as it looks to step up the amount of work carried out by the paralegal service. The firm is planning to hire 10 paralegals each month for the next three months, in a recruitment drive intended to bring headcount to 100. The team has already grown from five to 70 paralegals since launch in 2010, and the firm is considering relocating it to a separate Manchester base. The increase in manpower comes as part of a firmwide efficiency drive intended to result in the TST delivering at least 10% of its work by 2015.

By Gerard Starkey

2 minute read

March 27, 2013 | International Edition

DWF has laid off 38 support staff in its central services team after a redundancy consultation affecting more than 140 people. The job losses, which come after the firm completed its pre-pack takeover of Cobbetts last month, cover a mix of both longer-term DWF staff and those recently brought in from the failed firm.

By Gerard Starkey

3 minute read

March 26, 2013 | International Edition

Addleshaw Goddard has made up eight partners in its latest round of partner promotions, an increase on last year's round of six. Half of the promoted lawyers are based in the firm's London office with Louisa Caswell (litigation), Jon Cheney (professional practices), Alex Dumphy and Steve Mackie (both banking) all set to join the firm partnership as of 1 May.

By Gerard Starkey

2 minute read

March 25, 2013 | International Edition

Osborne Clarke (OC) is set to bring a significant number of support staff functions back in-house after reducing the scope of services currently carried out by outsourcing provider Integreon. The move, which could result in a small number of job losses as not all of those employed by Integreon are guaranteed positions with OC, will see the law firm regain control of services including client relationship management, IT, events and network resources - a flexible pool of staff who can be delegated across roles such as out of hours personal assistants.

By Gerard Starkey

2 minute read

March 25, 2013 | International Edition

Pinsent Masons has sealed an exclusive deal with Balfour Beatty that will see the law firm take on the infrastructure giant's day-to-day legal work on a fixed-fee basis. Pinsents has been selected as sole legal suppliers of the infrastructure giant's 'business as usual' legal issues work, after Balfour invited its current panel firms to pitch for the role.

By Gerard Starkey

2 minute read

March 24, 2013 | International Edition

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer is making up six new partners in London as part of a 14-strong haul worldwide. Almost half of the magic circle firm's new partners are in its City headquarters, where corporate lawyers Sam Newhouse (energy), George Swan (financial institutions) and finance lawyer Denise Ryan (high yield/leverage finance) will join the partnership from 1 May.

By Gerard Starkey

3 minute read

March 21, 2013 | International Edition

Dickinson Dees has won an appointment to advise Northern Rail on commercial and financial issues, with the firm set to work alongside the rail operator's current main adviser SNR Denton. The northwest firm – which is merging with Bond Pearce in May this year to form Bond Dickinson – won the role to handle non-rail commercial legal services in January. The appointment has resulted in the scope of SNR Denton's contract being revised. The train operator, which runs 20% of the UK's railway stations, put the new contract out to tender late last year after deciding to bring in a law firm based within its network.

By Gerard Starkey

2 minute read