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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.

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  • 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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  • October 9, 2008 |

    Linklaters edges aside Freehills to top Asia-Pacific M&A rankings table

    Linklaters has topped Mergermarket's Asia-Pacific (excluding Japan) M&A rankings by value for the first three quarters of this year. The firm is closely followed by Wall Street leaders Sullivan & Cromwell and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom in second and third place respectively, while Australian firm Freehills - which topped the ranking at year-end 2007 - has been knocked into eighth place. The rankings show Slaughter and May and Lovells making significant improvements to their positions over the first three quarters of 2008, with Slaughters jumping from number 53 at year-end 2007 to sixth place and Lovells leaping from 38th to 10th position. Australian leader Mallesons Stephen Jaques tops the Asia-Pacific M&A deal rankings by volume so far this year, followed by Freehills and Baker & McKenzie.Linklaters and Shearman & Sterling have advised on the region's largest deal over the period - the $30bn (£17bn) takeover of China Netcom Group Corporation by China Unicom which closed on 2 June. The deal saw Linklaters advise the target while Shearman advised the seller.Mergermarket's rankings also show Linklaters making a significant improvement in the US M&A tables by value. The firm ranked at number 50 at the end of 2007 but jumped to number 10 over Q1-Q3 2008. Only three UK law firms feature in the US M&A rankings, with Allen & Overy climbing from number 21 to 17 and Clifford Chance (CC) from 27 to 18. Skadden is in first place for 2008 swapping places with Sullivan & Cromwell. CC was the only UK firm to feature in the US M&A table by volume, with the firm coming in at number 16 - down from 12th place at the end of 2007.

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  • October 8, 2008 |

    Bank turmoil helps elite firms to tighten grip on M&A market

    Top UK and US law firms dominate the latest European M&A rankings for Q3 2008 - a period in which global deal volume fell by 36% compared with the same quarter the previous year. The latest research from Legal Week's data provider, Mergermarket, shows the magic circle taking the top positions by value and volume for European M&A, with New York leaders also featuring highly.

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  • October 6, 2008 |

    Ex-Dechert lawyer sues firm for discrimination

    Can a company be held liable for failing to deliver on promises made during a job interview?One former Dechert associate thinks so and has filed suit against the firm claiming it exaggerated the extent of its corporate work in order to woo him, did not provide the touted opportunities, and then fired him in part because he is an Orthodox Jew.In his complaint - filed in New York trial court by attorney Neil Brickman - the ex-Dechert associate, Marc Lubin, says he has worked at four top 100 US law firms since graduating from Columbia Law School in 1994. Dechert was the last of those firms; Lubin jumped there from Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom in October 2002 because, according to the complaint, he felt "he should be gaining greater experience in a wider variety of structured finance deals".

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  • October 2, 2008 |

    Linklaters beats rivals to top of global M&A rankings for Q3 2008

    Linklaters has stormed to the top of the latest M&A rankings as clients continue their flight to quality for big-ticket mandates.Mergermarket tables for the first three-quarters of 2008, which are provided exclusively to Legal Week, put the magic circle law firm far ahead of its rivals by value for global, European and UK M&A, with Linklaters advising on 184 deals to date worth $602.3bn (£335bn). Over Q3 the firm has seen a stream of mandates coming from the credit crunch - winning roles on deals including the proposed takeover of HBOS by Lloyds TSB and Bank of America's takeover of Merrill Lynch. It is also advising on the largest deal of the quarter - InBev's unsolicited bid for rival drinks company Anheuser-Busch.The mandates mean Linklaters' quarterly tally has a higher value at $238.3bn (£134bn) than in both Q2 2008 and Q3 2007.Linklaters corporate partner Matthew Middleditch told Legal Week: "We have been lucky that our broad base of clients has been active this year. Given the uncertain climate, quite how much longer activity will continue is uncertain for everyone."The rankings demonstrate clients turning to top-tier law firms during the economic crisis. By value the rankings are dominated by leading international players such as the magic circle, Sullivan & Cromwell, Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton. All have significantly outperformed the wider M&A market. Q2 saw 3,407 deals announced globally worth $686.6bn (£380bn) while Q3 fell to 2,352 worth $735.3bn (£408bn).With the credit crunch already claiming global banking institutions such as Lehman Brothers, Merrill Lynch and Washington Mutual as well as HBOS and Bradford & Bingley in the UK, firms are preparing for a further flurry of bank-related M&A activity. Freshfields head of corporate Barry O'Brien said: "There is no question we will see more work arising from financial institutions. The regulated balance sheets have not been as robust as people assumed and I would expect to see further financial services consolidation in the future."

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  • October 2, 2008 |

    Nomura finalises closely-watched Euro line-up as Lehman deal goes through

    Japanese investment bank Nomura has finalised its new European legal panel.Allen & Overy, Linklaters, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, SJ Berwin, Ashurst and Osborne Clarke are all understood to have been re-appointed to the panel following a review led by European general counsel Mark Chapman. Norton Rose has been cited as a new addition to the roster, with the panel appointment coming within weeks of the London law firm also securing a new appointment to the panel of insurer Ace European Group. Nomura last reviewed its preferred adviser list three years ago when former Linklaters managing partner Terence Kyle, then the bank's European general counsel, led the process. Kyle retired from the bank last year to join mentoring consulting group IDDAS with Chapman appointed as his replacement late in 2007. Chapman, previously a lawyer with Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, joined Nomura's legal department in 2000.News of the panel review comes after Nomura sealed a deal to take on fallen investment bank Lehman Brothers' Asia-Pacific operations as well its European and Middle Eastern equities and investment banking businesses.The deal, which generated roles for law firms including Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and Freshfields for Nomura, is expected to save thousands of jobs at the defunct bank. It had initially been feared that the entire Lehman legal team in the UK could lose their jobs but last month's rescue deal by Nomura is expected to save many of the 2,500 jobs across those divisions. Details are still to be finalised but a number of London legal staff are already understood to have been granted a temporary reprieve - including as many as 14 members of staff from the bank's Canary Wharf-based documentation team, who had initially been thought likely to leave the bank last week. In addition, the future of the bank's equity derivatives and structured products legal team, headed up by Bhavesh Dattani, also looks more certain, with both legal teams likely to remain in place at least until the end of October. Nomura declined to comment on either the panel or the number of legal staff likely to join from Lehman.

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