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  • October 29, 2008 |

    Loss leaders

    The lawyers that shepherd their clients down the road to the White House do everything from renting office space to vetting television ads to navigating the complex financial regulations that govern campaigns. These attorneys get front-row seats at the conventions, but are they making any money?"I can assure you that I do this for a profit and for a living," says Jan Baran of Wiley Rein, who most recently represented Stephen Colbert in his short-lived presidential run and acted as general counsel for George Bush senior's 1988 campaign. "But it is a lot easier dealing with business clients that recognise the need for counsel, pay for it promptly, and in amounts that would make most politicians blanch."This time around, the lead lawyers for the remaining candidates seem to be doing just fine, thank you. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Robert Bauer of Perkins Coie, general counsel to the Obama campaign, brought the firm close to $800,000 (£494,000) between January 2007 and July 2008. Trevor Potter of Caplin & Drysdale, general counsel for McCain, has raked in more than $400,000 (£247,000) during the same period. (The McCain campaign has made smaller payments to Bryan Cave, Dickstein Shapiro, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher and Akerman Senterfitt)."We're talking about a huge amount of money spent on a lot of innovative programming and outreach efforts," Bauer says. "At that level, there is a lot for lawyers to do."Both Bauer and Potter are loyalists. Bauer has worked for Obama since 2004, and his resume is packed with work for Democratic candidates and organisations reaching back through his 30 years of practice. Potter left his old firm, Wiley Rein, in 2001 over conflicts in his defence of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform act so he could continue representing the Arizona senator. Both say they have kept up with other clients to a certain degree although, as the election looms, they have devoted themselves fully to the campaign.

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  • October 24, 2008 |

    Skadden ends exclusive Chiomenti alliance

    Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom has ended its exclusive strategic alliance with Italian 'best friend' firm Chiomenti after seven years. The two firms said that the mutual decision was based on changes in client needs. The pair will continue to work together on a non-exclusive basis, referring work to other firms.

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  • October 24, 2008 |

    ...Legal Week Lunchbox: 24/10/08...

    The five most popular articles on legalweek.com today; the pick of the day's posts; and more

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  • October 23, 2008 |

    A global model (except Italy)

    Forget France’s much-touted cultural exceptionalism, in Europe the country that truly ignores the established rules of international legal practice…

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  • October 17, 2008 |

    UBS picks Sullivan as US counsel on $60bn bailout

    Sullivan & Cromwell has landed a lead role for UBS after the Swiss National Bank and the Government of Switzerland created a fund for the bank to dump $60bn in illiquid assets, reports the Am Law Daily. The elite US firm is advising UBS, Switzerland's largest bank, on US aspects of the bailout.Sullivan has worked with UBS in the past, advising the bank on its $10.8bn (£6.3bn) acquisition of private banker PaineWebber in 2000. The team handling the work was led by firm chairman Rodgin Cohen.

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  • October 16, 2008 |

    McDermott City expansion continues with Skadden hire

    McDermott Will & Emery's London office has sealed its eighth partner appointment of the year, with the hire of Mark Crofskey from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom. Crofskey, an associate at Skadden, joins the London office as a partner in the corporate practice. He joined Skadden in 2005 from Herbert Smith, where he was an associate.His hire is the first partner appointment for McDermott's City corporate team since the arrival of European corporate head Hugh Nineham from Lovells in January this year.

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  • October 15, 2008 |

    Global 100: Man of the world

    They came in saris, cheongsams, and Muslim headscarves - plus the usual black tuxedos and glittering gowns. After cocktails and tapas in the marble halls of the National Art Museum of Catalonia, they streamed into a Roman amphitheatre for an intimate sit-down dinner for 400 colleagues and another 300 or so of their significant others.If Baker & McKenzie ever wanted a sideline, party planning could be just the ticket. That soiree in Barcelona last spring was just one of the frequent global shindigs that Bakers uses to unite its far-flung lawyers. This one brought together Bakers' European and Middle East partners, just a fraction of the firm's 700 partners and its approximately 3,000 associates and counsel, who hail from more than 60 countries and speak 70 languages.

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  • October 15, 2008 |

    Global 100: The English advantage

    In a downturn, business people like to point out, some truths are laid bare. "You only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out," Warren Buffett famously told investors in a 2002 letter. Which is why, after the 2000 dotcom crash, it was the City's elite that were found to be revealing a little too much skin.This time, it is different. After madly shedding partners, doubling-down their bets on foreign offices and tightening their management controls, the big four magic circle firms - Allen & Overy (A&O), Clifford Chance (CC), Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters - look a little better-dressed than many of their rivals in the US. The irony is that the English law firms have succeeded by following the lesson of their American peers: they have hedged their bets. For US law firms, in the past that has meant a healthy dose of litigation and bankruptcy work to balance a corporate shortfall. For UK law firms, the strategy has been geographic: spreading their risk across several continents.

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  • October 15, 2008 |

    Global 100: Oil in the blood

    In previous careers, Vinson & Elkins (V&E) lawyers were roustabouts and roughnecks - petroleum engineers, land men and oil tanker dispatchers. They anchored pipelines to the Persian Gulf bed and the Atlantic Ocean floor, to the Alaskan tundra and the West Texas plains. Their families were entrenched in this world, too. Litigator Paula Hinton toured a wellhead factory on her first date with the man who became her husband. Regulatory expert Kathleen Lake grew up napping in her family's Oldsmobile station wagon while her father and grandfather, geologists, checked hydrocarbon cores in the dust of South Texas. Carbon trading guru Larry Nettles has six close family members now or formerly in the energy business. "This is the type of 'in the blood' relationship that simply does not exist in New York or London," he says. 'Oil in the blood' is a metaphor that pops up a lot in Houston, especially at the two leading deal firms, V&E and Baker Botts. But some in London are sceptical, including the general counsel of BP, who controls as many billable hours as any oil man on the planet. "Those [law firms] that say they have oil in their veins need to be clear about the distinctive contribution they can make on a particular matter, separate from in-house counsel or other outside firms," says BP general counsel Rupert Bondy.

    1 minute read

  • October 15, 2008 |

    The deals they are a-dyin'

    It's no secret that successful non-banking billion-dollar deals - whether friendly tender offers or hostile bids - are going the way of the dodo given…

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