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  • February 8, 2011 |

    Slaughters and Paul Hastings lead on $900m construction company buyout

    The London office of Paul Hastings Janofsky & Walker has picked up a role advising opposite Slaughter and May on Jacobs Engineering Group's $900m (£556m) acquisition of Oslo-listed Aker Solutions' construction business. London corporate partner Ronan O'Sullivan led a global team from Paul Hastings advising Jacobs Engineering on the deal, which closed last week (31 January). The City team included litigation partner Michelle Duncan and tax partner Arun Birla. In addition, Los Angeles partners Robert Miller (corporate) and Alexander Lee (tax), New York employment partner Erika Collins, Shanghai managing partner David Wang and China employment head Lesli Ligorner also advised.

    1 minute read

  • February 8, 2011 |

    What's in it for me? The benefits on offer at the UK's top 10 law firms

    With top law firms all clamouring to attract new recruits from the same limited pool of candidates, it is easy to judge the leading firms by headline figures such as pay - and there is clearly little distinction on that front. Yet putting aside the debate over which firm offers the most lucrative package, there is a new battleground emerging, with firms standing out due to marked differences in their benefits packages. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer head of human resources (HR) Kevin Hogarth comments: "Firms have become more savvy in recognising that they all have to remain competitive with each other in terms of what benefits are on offer. If there is a significant difference, it can make a difference to the talent a firm attracts.

    1 minute read

  • February 8, 2011 |

    BA shakes up in-house team as Iberia merger goes live

    British Airways (BA) has reshuffled its in-house legal team in the wake of its merger with Spanish airline Iberia, which went live last month (24 January), and its protracted cabin crew dispute. BA general counsel Maria da Cunha, who previously held a position as director of legal and government affairs, has taken up an expanded remit, which includes overseeing the company's human resources (HR) function. Her new title within BA is director of people, legal and government affairs.

    1 minute read

  • February 8, 2011 |

    LawSoc failing to gain traction with City firms but partners want to build links

    One in two commercial partners has a negative view of the Law Society while a clear majority feel Chancery Lane is of little or no relevance to City law firms. These are the key findings of Legal Week's latest Big Question survey, which found that 48% had a negative view of the work of the Law Society, including 23% that viewed its work as 'poor'. A further 30% said the body was 'OK', while 22% viewed its efforts as 'good' or 'excellent'.

    1 minute read

  • February 8, 2011 |

    A&O Belfast 'near shoring' deal shakes up template for reforming back-office functions

    Allen & Overy (A&O) hopes to set a precedent for law firm offshoring with its plans to launch a 300-strong support centre in Belfast. While the firm is not the first to relocate support staff to lower-cost locations, it has taken a different tack to its rivals. A&O's decision means it avoids going as far as Clifford Chance, which has a service centre in India, or CMS Cameron McKenna, which is to outsource virtually its entire back office, but goes further than the likes of Linklaters, which has a small support office in Colchester.

    1 minute read

  • February 1, 2011 |

    SRA adds five members to education and training committee ahead of review

    The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) has appointed five external members to its education and training committee as the body gears up for the imminent wide-ranging review of the sector. The new appointments include Slaughter and May HR head Louise Meikle, the General Pharmaceutical Council's head of education and quality assurance Damian Day, and Chitra Karve, director of performance and development at the Parole Board.

    1 minute read

  • January 31, 2011 |

    Linklaters secures lead role for Carlyle on £450m buyout

    Linklaters has secured a lead corporate role for The Carlyle Group on the buyout giant's £450m acquisition of Integrated Dental Holdings (IDH). The City law firm was instructed to advise Carlyle on the acquisition of IDH from the buyout division of Bank of America Merrill Lynch. Linklaters fielded a team under private equity head Ian Bagshaw, finance partner Brian Gray and competition specialist Nicole Kar.

    1 minute read

  • January 25, 2011 | International Edition

    Government legal spending - many names, same old problems

    No matter what awful name the Government's centralised panel for external legal services is currently going by, complaints about it from those on the roster have for years remained awfully consistent: it's far too unwieldy and work is not handed out evenly. Even so, the latest figures make for startling reading, demonstrating that criticism levelled by panel firms is in many instances justified. In addition to highlighting the huge discrepancy between what individual firms are receiving from the panel, the data - covered in more depth on page 6 - demonstrates the extent to which large City firms have been moving into territory that would previously have been the preserve of smaller London and regional rivals.

    1 minute read

  • January 25, 2011 |

    Government legal spending - many names, same old problems

    No matter what awful name the Government's centralised panel for external legal services is currently going by, complaints about it from those on the roster have for years remained awfully consistent: it's far too unwieldy and work is not handed out evenly. Even so, the latest figures make for startling reading, demonstrating that criticism levelled by panel firms is in many instances justified. In addition to highlighting the huge discrepancy between what individual firms are receiving from the panel, the data - covered in more depth on page 6 - demonstrates the extent to which large City firms have been moving into territory that would previously have been the preserve of smaller London and regional rivals.

    1 minute read

  • January 25, 2011 |

    Russia and Ukraine: Happily single?

    It was a grim morning in November 2008 when Andrey Goltsblat, managing partner of leading Russian law firm Pepeliaev Goltsblat & Partners (PGP), set out for one of the most difficult meetings of his 20-year career. Moscow was already deep in the grip of winter, the streets buried beneath inches of snow. But it wasn't the weather that troubled Goltsblat as he arrived at the firm's premises and headed to the office he shared with Sergey Pepeliaev, the firm's senior partner. Goltsblat had a dramatic announcement to make: he was leaving the business they'd spent the last two decades building together. And he was taking half the firm with him. Neither man will talk about exactly what was said in that meeting - Pepeliaev would only describe his reaction as "appropriate" - but it's safe to say that Goltsblat's news didn't go down well. In one fell swoop, nine partners and a full 70 lawyers - PGP's entire corporate practice and the firm's heads of real estate, dispute resolution and employment - left to join UK firm Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP).

    1 minute read