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  • December 19, 2012 |

    Legal Week news round-up: the best of 2012

    Legal Week's most-read stories of the last twelve months, including major international mergers such as the tie-up of Australia's Freehills with Herbert Smith, and the news that A&O had asked Hong Kong partners to leave the firm...

    1 minute read

  • December 13, 2012 |

    Editor's Award - Law Firm Leader of the Year: Peter Martyr

    You have to cast your mind back a long way to remember how far Norton Rose had fallen when Peter Martyr (pictured) first took over as the firm's head in 2002. The firm, which had suffered major damage in the early 1990s due to two IRA bomb blasts, was at the time wrestling with strategic discord, a large loss-making international network and falling profits.

    1 minute read

  • December 13, 2012 |

    Tell your own story – the profession should sell its success

    As we put the full write-up of the British Legal Awards to bed for the final issue of 2012, it seems an apt moment to reflect on the achievements of the legal profession in what proved yet another challenging year. And they are considerable. Law is a startling success story for British business, contributing over £20bn to the domestic economy annually and in the region of £3bn in exports – a figure that has nearly tripled against a decade ago. And this a material underestimate, since such official figures focus on private practice and fail to capture the huge expansion of in-house legal departments over the past 20 years. Well over 250,000 are employed in the law and directly-related fields in the UK.

    1 minute read

  • December 7, 2012 |

    Bond Pearce and Dickie Dees seal merger to create Bond Dickinson

    Partners from Bond Pearce and Dickinson Dees have voted through a merger under the name Bond Dickinson, creating a £95m firm with offices in eight UK locations. The tie-up, which will go live on 1 May next year, will create a firm with 136 partners and a total of around 1,200 staff, with their combined revenues placing the new firm inside the UK top 40.

    1 minute read

  • December 6, 2012 | International Edition

    Friends with benefits – can Linklaters go a third way to globalisation?

    Linklaters & Alliance has long since been consigned to history. But as firms of all sizes try to reposition themselves in today's marketplace, Links seems to be making its best efforts to create a second version, albeit with a very different vision. Its forthcoming alliance with South Africa's Webber Wentzel – just months after a similar tie-up with Australian leader Allens – means it has this year gained access to 1,000 lawyers in strategically touted markets with no financial outlay and no appreciable risk. And if the passing years show Linklaters needs more from the relationship than just an alliance, then it is well-positioned to turn it into something more (or perhaps cherry-pick choice individuals).

    1 minute read

  • December 6, 2012 |

    Friends with benefits – can Linklaters go a third way to globalisation?

    Linklaters & Alliance has long since been consigned to history. But as firms of all sizes try to reposition themselves in today's marketplace, Links seems to be making its best efforts to create a second version, albeit with a very different vision. Its forthcoming alliance with South Africa's Webber Wentzel – just months after a similar tie-up with Australian leader Allens – means it has this year gained access to 1,000 lawyers in strategically touted markets with no financial outlay and no appreciable risk. And if the passing years show Linklaters needs more from the relationship than just an alliance, then it is well-positioned to turn it into something more (or perhaps cherry-pick choice individuals).

    1 minute read

  • December 4, 2012 |

    Norton Rose takes on PwC general counsel for top-level advisory role

    Norton Rose has appointed former PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) UK general counsel Owen Jonathan to a newly-created role of senior adviser to the firm's global executive committee. The new role, which will commence from January 2013, will see Jonathan advising the committee on global structure and risk management issues as well as on the future development of Norton Rose.

    1 minute read

  • November 30, 2012 |

    Norton Rose bulks up in Beijing with hire of King & Wood banking partner

    Norton Rose has secured a key hire for its Beijing office with the addition of banking partner Li Jinnan from King & Wood Mallesons. Jinnan, who has extensive experience of representing Chinese banks, will be the first native speaker and PRC-qualified partner on the team.

    1 minute read

  • November 29, 2012 |

    The view from 9th Avenue – the emerging challenges facing New York's elite

    "Who we are hasn't changed at all in some ways over the years. At a partners' meeting recently someone showed me a letter written by Paul Cravath in 1920 and it was almost the same format that we use today," reflects Cravath Swaine & Moore incoming presiding partner Allen Parker. "Really, it was almost identical." Welcome to Manhattan, the most singular, individualistic, contradictory and competitive legal market in the world. As the rest of the global legal profession changes to reflect the impact of the post-Lehman Brothers world and the rise of finance hubs and economies in the east, it seems that many lawyers in Manhattan's hermetically sealed environment carry on as if little has changed.

    1 minute read

  • November 22, 2012 | International Edition

    Rage against the machine – can Linklaters still do the vision thing?

    Lauded as a world-beater during the boom, Linklaters found itself in 2012 dogged by controversy and discord after its latest restructuring. Georgina Stanley asks if the City icon can still do the vision thing

    1 minute read