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  • October 29, 2008 |

    Addleshaws partner joins Proskauer's City office

    Proskauer Rose has made its first partner-level hire in London since January with the arrival of Michael Crosby from Addleshaw Goddard. Crosby will head up the firm's corporate finance group in the City. He advisers lenders and borrowers on all aspects of acquisition financings, debt restructurings, recapitalisations and leveraged buyouts.Proskauer's London managing partner Matthew Hudson said: "Michael's background and practice will allow us to fully expand our finance platform into the UK and capitalise on these opportunities on behalf of our clients."

    1 minute read

  • October 23, 2008 |

    Addleshaws secures funding for £50m litigation

    Addleshaw Goddard has joined forces with a host of top names in the litigation funding market to launch a £50m action on behalf of a group of claimants against a London law firm. Addleshaws and three funders have signed up around 500 individuals to bring the claim against the law firm and a foreign business national over advice they gave on technology investment schemes, which they claim were unsuccessful.The group action, which is still to be filed, is being funded through a groundbreaking financial litigation package combining conditional fee agreements, after-the-event insurance (ATE) and third-party funding.

    1 minute read

  • October 14, 2008 |

    A&O takes lead on Britannia/Co-op merger talks

    Allen & Overy (A&O) has landed a mandate to advise Britannia Building Society on its merger discussions with Co-operative Financial Services (CFS). Corporate partner Richard Slynn is leading a team advising Britannia on the early stages of talks that could see a marriage between the two building societies, creating an organisation worth more than £70bn in assets.The instruction marks the second major M&A role for Slynn in as many months after Nationwide turned to longstanding adviser A&O on its August takeover of Derbyshire and Cheshire building societies.

    1 minute read

  • October 14, 2008 |

    Lack of work-life balance could deter talent from profession, says study

    Long hours and barriers to flexible working could cause a drain on the legal profession with young mothers and fathers struggling to find a balance between family and career, new research has found. Legal Lives: Retaining Talent through a Balanced Culture, sponsored by Addleshaw Goddard and compiled by work-life balance charity Working Families, surveyed 13 City law firms on their approach to work-life balance.The study will be published today (14 October) at the Legal Lives conference at the Stock Exchange, to be addressed by Baroness Scotland.

    1 minute read

  • October 13, 2008 |

    Addleshaws makes 16 job cuts over 12 months

    National law firm Addleshaw Goddard has made 16 redundancies over the course of this financial year, it has emerged. The firm has cut two part-time fee earners, while a further 14 support staff have been made redundant, with six being axed from the City office and four each from the firm's branches in Leeds and Manchester. A further part-time fee-earner was also cut last NovemberThe majority of the redundancies were made during July, with some of the redundancies taking place earlier in the year. The number of losses represents the highest number of cuts at the firm in a single year since 2003, with the firm making redundancies every year since 2005.

    1 minute read

  • October 10, 2008 |

    Four firms ranked among top employers for women

    Clifford Chance (CC), Herbert Smith, Addleshaw Goddard and Eversheds have all been recognised as top places to work for women. All four firms feature in The Times's Top 50 'Where Women Want to Work' ranking. Herbert Smith is the only new entrant to the rankings, which are now in their third year. Addleshaws has featured in all three years, with CC and Eversheds making the grade in 2007 in addition to 2008.

    1 minute read

  • October 9, 2008 | International Edition

    Beachcroft launches new mentoring scheme for newly-promoted lawyers

    Beachcroft has launched a mentoring scheme intended to help newly-promoted lawyers adapt to changes in their roles.More than 60 of the national law firm's partners and staff have signed up to mentor lawyers at the firm, as part of a scheme that was officially rolled out at the beginning of the month. The programme, which is primarily aimed at helping salaried partners make the steps to the equity ranks, will also see trainees within the firm assigned a mentor throughout their two-year training contract.Around 25 individuals, including partners, senior associates and human resources officers, have so far been trained as mentors, with a similar number expected to be trained by the end of the month.Lawyers will be able to turn to their mentors for advice on issues concerning their clients, their roles within the firm and their career path. Beachcroft's human resources director, Phil Cousins, said: "In the broadest sense it is to help a gradual cultural shift to a coaching style as opposed to the conventional directive style typical to lawyers. As a result, one of the tactics of the scheme is, in a sense, as much about coaching as it is about mentoring. "Rather than open up the floodgates we are taking a gradual approach so the scheme is welcomed, beneficial and wanted. We need to take it steadily to show that effective mentoring can be achieved."Many of London's law firms, including Berwin Leighton Paisner, Allen & Overy and Addleshaw Goddard, already operate some form of mentoring system for lawyers.Separately, SJ Berwin has become the latest firm to explore the option of alternative career paths. The firm is consulting with its associate solicitors forum about the option of bringing in an alternative to partner, potentially bringing in an 'of counsel' role. Legal Week's assistant report, published late last month, found that 67% of law firms now operate some form of partnership alternative, with firms including Olswang and Nabarro among more recent converts.

    1 minute read

  • October 9, 2008 |

    Beachcroft launches new mentoring scheme for newly-promoted lawyers

    Beachcroft has launched a mentoring scheme intended to help newly-promoted lawyers adapt to changes in their roles.More than 60 of the national law firm's partners and staff have signed up to mentor lawyers at the firm, as part of a scheme that was officially rolled out at the beginning of the month. The programme, which is primarily aimed at helping salaried partners make the steps to the equity ranks, will also see trainees within the firm assigned a mentor throughout their two-year training contract.Around 25 individuals, including partners, senior associates and human resources officers, have so far been trained as mentors, with a similar number expected to be trained by the end of the month.Lawyers will be able to turn to their mentors for advice on issues concerning their clients, their roles within the firm and their career path. Beachcroft's human resources director, Phil Cousins, said: "In the broadest sense it is to help a gradual cultural shift to a coaching style as opposed to the conventional directive style typical to lawyers. As a result, one of the tactics of the scheme is, in a sense, as much about coaching as it is about mentoring. "Rather than open up the floodgates we are taking a gradual approach so the scheme is welcomed, beneficial and wanted. We need to take it steadily to show that effective mentoring can be achieved."Many of London's law firms, including Berwin Leighton Paisner, Allen & Overy and Addleshaw Goddard, already operate some form of mentoring system for lawyers.Separately, SJ Berwin has become the latest firm to explore the option of alternative career paths. The firm is consulting with its associate solicitors forum about the option of bringing in an alternative to partner, potentially bringing in an 'of counsel' role. Legal Week's assistant report, published late last month, found that 67% of law firms now operate some form of partnership alternative, with firms including Olswang and Nabarro among more recent converts.

    1 minute read

  • October 2, 2008 |

    Analysis: The bubble bursts - predictably

    It is hard to imagine an industry that, on paper, is less exposed to asset price bubbles, the vagaries of financial markets or the risks of leverage. And yet, as a string of law firm redundancy announcements in recent weeks have made clear, law firms have been far from immune to the speculative bubble that built up since the mid-1990s in the UK property market.With hundreds of redundancies now announced in real estate (see box, right) - including more than 100 jobs being officially put under threat in redundancy consultations last week alone - it has become clear that UK law firms have too many jobs for a real estate sector that is set to substantially shrink over the next two years. So much for cautious, conservative law firms.

    1 minute read

  • September 25, 2008 |

    A&O and Addleshaws review retirement rules

    Allen & Overy (A&O) and Addleshaw Goddard are reviewing provisions for older partners, as it emerges that many of the UK's top law firms are still struggling to comply with age discrimination laws brought in two years ago. A&O, which has a UK retirement age of 60, is consulting with the partnership about what it needs to do to bring its policies in line with the law, which came into effect on 1 October, 2006. The consultation is understood to be looking at how to help partners once they have retired as well as how to keep those wishing to stay on. Addleshaws, meanwhile, has launched a new initiative giving older partners the option of choosing a flexible working arrangement, with those nearing the law firm's mandatory retirement age of 62 also being offered career counselling. Linklaters is also thought to be intending to look at the issue next year. Legal Week reported earlier this summer that both Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Clifford Chance were looking at options for their partners as they head towards retirement. The impact of age discrimination rules on law firms has come to the fore recently as Field Fisher Waterhouse prepares to face an employment tribunal. The firm's head of trademark and brand protection, John Olsen, has issued a claim of age discrimination and harassment against the law firm. Many firms have already brought in some changes, such as increasing the mandatory retirement age or axing it all together like Ashurst and Berwin Leighton Paisner. However, firms also need to be able to justify the position they have adopted.

    1 minute read