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International Edition

Magic circle trio check in for roles on £394m sale of Luton Airport

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Clifford Chance (CC) and Allen & Overy (A&O) have all advised on the £394m takeover of Luton Airport. A consortium formed by Spanish airport operator Aena and AXA Private Equity is set to acquire the airport from TBI Airport Holdings, the majority of which is owned by Spanish conglomerate Abertis.
2 minute read

International Edition

UK top 50 – performance in context

10-year overview of UK top 50 performance
1 minute read

International Edition

He who would be King – firms must run to stay still as merger glut gathers pace

When SJ Berwin elected Stephen Kon as its senior partner last year, it did so on a manifesto promise of international growth. And Kon has certainly delivered. The firm has never been one to follow the herd, and the successful conclusion of its merger talks with Sino-Australian giant King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) this week certainly marks it out. The combination – uniting the top 30 firm with the partnerships of legacy King & Wood and Australia's Mallesons Stephen Jaques – will create a firm of some 2,700 lawyers, with the UK firm's moniker being subsumed and KWM lawyers outnumbering SJ Berwin's five to one.
3 minute read

International Edition

UK top 50 2012-13 – firm by firm

The UK's top law firms have achieved a third consecutive year of growth despite the continued unsettled economy, with combined revenues for the 50 largest firms forcing their way through the £13bn mark.
1 minute read

International Edition

Up the bracket – BLP vows to stick to high-end market strategy despite PEP hit

""In the past five years, we've invested a lot in people from the very best firms. They have been getting up to speed and now we are competing for higher-quality work than we used to – part of the reason we found last year challenging..."
5 minute read

International Edition

Mergers fuel growth in domestic market as national firms outpace top 50 rivals

Nationally represented law firms have once again outpaced their City counterparts as consolidation among mid-tier firms continues to drive growth. Mergers and acquisitions involving top 50 firms across the UK helped push average revenue growth up to 12.3%, well ahead of the average growth of 6.9% for the top 50 as a whole and also up on last year's average growth of 9.4% for the same group. Expansive DWF posted by far the biggest increase as revenues climbed 84.5% to £188.2m, following a transformative year which included a string of mergers, most notably the February acquisition of Cobbetts – catapulting the firm 15 places up the UK top 50 to 18th.
3 minute read

International Edition

Damage control – how law firms can reduce their risk of costly negligence claims

Claims against solicitors can be expensive, not just in terms of damages and costs, but also in terms of reputation risks, the amount of time likely to be spent dealing with the claim and a resultant increase in professional indemnity insurance (PII) premiums. A good place to start for any firm concerned about its risk profile and wishing to improve its risk management is to identify the top 10 risks faced by the firm and then consider the steps necessary to minimise those risks. For those with serious concerns, there are specialist risk management firms that can audit firms and prepare risk reports. A firm's risk profile will vary depending on its size and personnel, and the type of work. Property work is the most common source of claims, and commercial and financial work can give rise to the most costly claims; but all areas carry risk.
6 minute read

International Edition

A longer road? New partners offer career advice to frustrated associates

The top 30 law firms made up fewer partners this year, while there was a worrying dip in the number of women promoted at the magic circle. James Boxell, Anna Reynolds and Alex Newman spoke to new partners to seek their advice for frustrated associates, both female and male...
9 minute read

International Edition

Senior judges are wrong to treat family disputes like any other form of litigation

Divorce and parental separation frequently give rise to difficult practical and emotional issues: where and with whom any children should live, how often those children should see their other parent and how finances should be redistributed to provide for the needs of everyone involved. Sometimes separating couples are able to resolve these issues between themselves. When they cannot the only option left is to seek legal advice and, ultimately, engage the family justice system, generally at a time when the emotional wounds caused by a failed relationship may be still raw. Of course there is frequently an emotional overlay in other areas of legal practice; litigation concerning say, employment, reputational issues or boundary disputes can often be highly charged. But it is still difficult to conceive of any area of private law where the emotional aspect of the underlying dispute is so prominent. For many separating couples, the absence of any clearly stated objective of the legal process on which they embark adds more heat at the expense of light.
5 minute read

International Edition

At a premium – unstable law firms are ringing alarm bells for legal insurers

When the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) warned recently that more than 30 of the UK's leading 200 law firms were in "serious financial difficulty", it set alarm bells ringing among legal industry insurers. Their sense of anxiety will have only deepened last month when Samantha Barrass, the SRA executive director, gave a speech adding that the regulator was receiving "more and more" reports of firms in financial difficulty, and that it was working with 51 firms where the likelihood of a costly intervention was "very high".
14 minute read

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