Kickstarting a legal career is an arduous journey that is likely to leave you saddled with debt. Firms and their clients are acutely aware of this, which is why buzz about solicitor apprenticeship programmes has amplified in recent years. City Century, established by the City of London Law Society, is the manifestation of that momentum. […]
Big-ticket disputes are fuelling headcount growth among the UK’s largest litigation firms. According to The Lawyer’s UK Litigation 50 report, five firms are now home to more than 150 disputes partners in the UK – four of which (DAC Beachcroft, Clyde & Co, Kennedys and Keoghs) have strong insurance roots. These firms are hunting for […]
The evolution of Leeds’ legal scene is representative of how the UK legal market is changing shape. Just 18 months ago, Leeds was dominated by five firms, including local stalwart (Walker Morris with 57 partners) and a group of national firms with regional roots: Addleshaw Goddard (44), Eversheds Sutherland (35), Pinsent Masons (34) and DLA […]
Has Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) turned a corner? Its new partners presumably think so. Certainly, for the six Londoners and 18 other senior lawyers around its international network who were yesterday unveiled as the firm’s newest partners, a personal milestone has been reached. Congratulations to all of the 24 lawyers in the partnership promotions […]
The world’s climate ambitions took a serious hit last week. With Donald Trump poised to return to the White House, there’s a strong chance the US will once again pull out of the Paris Agreement. This would leave the goal of limiting global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius in jeopardy as the world’s largest economy […]
The magic circle has an aversion to first-time partner hires
What do you mean you don’t remember our Horizon email of two years ago about the Shropshire legal market? It had plenty of rambling whimsy, some irrelevant historical facts and the advice at the end that two distantly-related firms, FBC Manby Bowdler and Lanyon Bowdler, should come together to create a West Midlands superpower. That prediction […]
With budgets under pressure as investment costs rise, firms are focused on the bottom line. Evidence of this can be found in The Lawyer UK 200, where the Top 50 firms raised revenue by 8.7 per cent to £33.47bn in 2024 but delivered a higher rate of growth for net profit – up 11.9 per […]
The iron law of the legal market is that the accountants don’t know how to grow a legal business. In 2002, three accountancy-tied law firms – K-Legal (KPMG), Garretts (Andersen Legal) and Landwell (PwC) collectively turned over £82.1m. That represented just 1 per cent of the entire revenues of the top UK100 firms, but at […]
London and New York formed but a small part of White & Case’s most recent promotions round, with three lawyers making partner in each. Instead, the firm’s global outlook was emphasised with elevations in five of its other US offices and nine cities across Continental Europe. Promotions are a sure-fire way of making everyone from […]
Market frustration with the SRA reached a new high this week after the Legal Services Board finally published its independent review of the handling of Axiom Ince’s collapse. The headlines made tough reading for the SRA. Enforcement action was promised with the LSB accusing the SRA of not acting “adequately, effectively, and efficiently” to prevent […]
Here’s something obvious: scale really matters. Net profit, which is at least in part a function of scale, matters even more. With the battle for the top talent in the world’s legal hotspots never having been fiercer, firms’ financial metrics such as PEP, net and margin are simply shorthand for buying power. So, jump forward […]