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.
How do you put a price on a job that is done by a robot? That is the nub of one big issue firms are wrestling with as GenAI handles ever larger parts of a lawyer’s current role. And next year, as the use of GenAI becomes ubiquitous, it’ll only get worse. Publicly, and rather […]
Winston & Strawn is targeting significant growth outside of the US, with its new leadership team – for the first time ever – now including a lawyer tasked specifically with non-US expansion. In September, Winston confirmed that current chair Tom Fitzgerald would be stepping down next year and will be replaced by litigation group co-head […]
Today would have been deadline day for Allen & Overy (A&O). You’ll recall that earlier this month (9 November), the firm was targeted by a cyber-attack. This, it said, was “a data incident impacting a small number of storage servers”. In contrast, the Russian LockBit ransomware group that claimed responsibility, and which is understood to […]
Is now the moment to invest in generative artificial intelligence (GenAI)? Certainly, all of the Big Four accountants – Deloitte, EY, KPMG and PwC – have made their intention to invest significant sums in the new technology. All have the financial muscle to do so. And in Big Four world, “significant” is measured in billions. […]
Canadian pension fund investor CDPQ’s location in London’s West End just by Carnaby Street is a deliberate part of the world’s second-largest infrastructure investor’s allure. The firm first launched in London in 2016 but moved to its new, swankily-located, concrete-ceilinged headquarters in January this year as part of a wider image overhaul. “We’ve been present […]
Last week’s artificial intelligence (AI) summit at Bletchley Park perfectly highlighted just how rapidly the landscape around this technology is morphing. The headline from the conference was the first-ever international declaration on AI safety, aimed at heading off the risk of “catastrophic harm” caused by AI. The sub-text is that the world, never mind the […]
Where are you from? Anybody who has ever watched the TV genealogy show Who Do You Think You Are? will be aware that this is not always as straightforward a question to answer as it might first seem. And anyone who has ever worked in a law firm will know that it is not always […]
Now the dust has settled on UK firms’ financial results season it should be obvious who the winners and losers were in 2022/23, right? Firms with the highest PEP or revenue are nestling snugly in the former camp, those lower down are populating the latter. But ask any law firm leader and they’ll most likely […]
Few firms have had their finances scrutinised more publicly over the past five years than DWF. Indeed, not that many have seen more change either. Back in March 2019, the firm raised nearly £100m in the largest legal market IPO to date. This month, private equity business Inflexion Private Equity Partners completed its take-private of […]
Osborne Clarke is considering increasing partner capital to help fund the accelerated tax payments necessitated by HMRC’s basis period reforms. The firm is understood to be reviewing the level of partner capital it currently has in its UK LLP to assess if it is sufficient both for tax payment purposes and to help fund investments […]
Clients could soon demand a share of the financial benefits brought about by generative artificial intelligence, with so-called ‘gainshare’ deals that include discounts in bills likely to become more prominent across the legal sector. Gainshare arrangements are best known in the technology industry where the software underpinning deals can improve markedly during the lifetime of […]
Nothing could have emphasised the continuing relevance of London to the global legal market more than the events of this summer at Kirkland & Ellis and Paul Weiss. The gargantuan level of investment that New York elite firm Paul Weiss ploughed into its tiny (until now) City outpost is the biggest vote in favour of […]