Matt is The Lawyer’s deputy editor. He has a particular focus on the US legal market. He also leads many of The Lawyer’s market reports, including the UK 200.
Simpson Thacher & Bartlett has unveiled a new five-year plan for London that puts continued growth squarely at the centre of the US firm’s agenda. The revamped strategy coincides with the release of the US firm’s half-year financial results for 2024. These show that City revenue rose by 21.6 per cent over the past six […]
Scottish Independent Anderson Strathern is planning to move its financial year-end from its current 31 August to 31 March, a shift that will result in a seven-month fiscal period for 2024/25. The move is the firm’s response to HMRC’s basis period reforms and is aimed at reducing the admin burden on business services staff and […]
Scottish firm Burness Paull has posted a 28 per cent drop in revenue from £83.2m to £60.1m, following a change in its financial year-end that cut four months from its trading period. The year-end change at Burness Paull, prompted by HMRC’s basis period reforms, is one of the most significant among UK 200 firms. Unlike […]
Latham & Watkins is preparing to turbocharge the amount it can pay its highest revenue-generating partners, with a vote on the introduction of super points expected over the summer. The key change would be the introduction of a new 1,600-unit tier for star performers who not only generate significant fee income, thought to be at […]
To be in the global law market requires a strong City presence, of that there can be no doubt. The Lawyer’s US 50 report underscores just how vital London is; the multimillion-pound investments being made by US titans shows that growing in the City is not only advantageous, but essential. And yet. You might be surprised […]
Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton has prepared the groundwork for its first $20m partner lateral hire, if it “can find that special person”, The Lawyer can reveal. The move comes as Cleary looks to build on an unprecedented growth spurt in the City over the past few years, which has seen partner headcount increase by […]
Scottish firm Dickson Minto’s revenue is understood to have risen by 20 per cent in its first financial year since the firm effectively split in two, with the bulk of its London office decamping for Milbank. The firm has also converted to LLP status, a particularly significant development in the context of Dickson Minto in […]
Military historians know all about the idea of a war on two fronts but they’re not the only specialists familiar with the concept. Over the past decade, more than a few leaders of UK law firms may also have felt doubly embattled, tasked with defending their home patch from overseas-headquartered firms that also regularly pinch […]
Competition lawyers at UK firms can look away now. Of the 17 Competition & Markets Authority (CMA) Phase 2 merger investigations that were active in 2023, one firm’s London antitrust team advised on seven. Basic maths suggests it shouldn’t be a surprise that this is significantly more than any other firm. What is less obvious […]
Last week’s move of Cahill leveraged finance partner Jonathan Brownson along with two of his colleagues to Latham & Watkins highlights an issue facing several US 50 firms: How to grow. Helpfully, possibly even serendipitously, it comes courtesy of a firm that isn’t even in the US 50. And therein lies the point. Cahill at […]
Some US firms in London tend to get all the headlines, and as you know who they are, we won’t bother namechecking them again. But there are others, a tad more under the radar, that have had a barnstorming year in 2023 and whose time in the limelight is now. Such as Willkie Farr & […]
The significance of the unstoppable growth of US-headquartered firms in London isn’t solely about jaw-dropping scale, although the size of headcount and revenue at some of these big City beasts is truly head-turning. Notably, several US firms have doubled down on their investment in London of late, and not just Paul Weiss. While the New […]