Osborne Clarke has appointed litigation partner Ashley Hurst to head the firm’s digital business sector after Adrian Bott left the role to support the firm’s Hong Kong presence earlier this month.

Hurst joined Osborne Clarke in 2016 as a commercial litigation partner after spending 10 years at Olswang. Hurst trained at Hogan Lovells.

In contrast to predecessor Bott, Hurst is relatively new to Osborne Clarke. Bott joined the firm in 2002 and became head of the digital business sector in 2012. Bott also came to Osborne Clarke from Olswang and came into the role after already having been at Osborne Clarke for 12 years.

“I think it will be seen as bold choice given the relatively short time that I’ve been with the firm,” Hurst told The Lawyer. 

Adrian Bott headed up the sector for six years and relocated to Hong Kong at the start of April to support Osborne Clarke’s associated firm Koh Vass and Co. with recruitment and business development.

Osborne Clarke international CEO Simon Beswick said in a statement that Hurst would “help to grow our current client relationships, reinforce our reputation as international sector leaders and position Osborne Clarke as the go-to law firm”.

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Slaughter and May and Allen & Overy (A&O) have advised in a £5.3bn asset sale from UK Asset Resolution Limited (UKAR) to a consortium of investors, including bond fund Pacific Investment Management Co (Pimco).

Slaughters corporate partner Guy O’Keefe and finance partner Oliver Storey instructed UKAR, which was formed by the UK government at the peak of the financial crisis in 2010, to shoulder the loans of collapsed banks Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. O’Keefe previously advised UKAR in 2015, in the sale of Northern Rocks’s £13bn asset portfolio to Cerberus Capital Management.

Partners Gareth Miles and Ben Kingsley assisted UKAR in tax and financial matters.

A&O finance partners Tom Constance and Lucy Oddy helped seal the deal for US bond giant Pimco, which provided equity funding for the multi-billion pound acquisition.

Barclays, which led the investor consortium that purchased the £5bn portfolio of mortgages from UKAR, was backed by Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft. Other banks in the consortium include HSBC, Lloyds and Natwest.

Bradford & Bingley was bailed out a decade ago with a £15.7 billion loan and its assets were placed into state-owned UKAR. Now that Pimco has acquired the crisis-era mortgages from the government, the outstanding taxpayer loan will is expected to be paid off once the deal is complete.

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“I’m a general counsel and our external lawyers are big on entertainment. Over the years I’ve been to Wimbledon, Glyndebourne and rugby internationals, and a couple of years ago even got taken on a ski trip. But I’m starting to resent the amount of money this is costing since indirectly the costs get passed to me as a client in the end. Having been the recipient of some of this hospitality I don’t want to seem churlish.

How do I get my point across?”

Michael Chissick, managing partner, Fieldfisher

Like many other areas of business, law is very much about relationship-building. So it is not surprising that in a competitive environment, law firms seek to spend time with busy GCs. Some feel the best way to do this is to invite key contacts to marquee events. In my experience these costs are absorbed by the law firm and do not lead to higher costs for a client, just lower profits for the firm. You do not need to accept the invitations.

If your concerns are with the level of fees being charged, the best approach is to have a discussion with your relationship manager about the fee levels and even suggest that if you forego any valued-added services you should have a discount on the fees

“Focus on getting the right pricing structure rather than the costs of entertaining”

Getting the pricing structure that clients are happy with is an increasing complex matter, with a variety of ways of charging such as fixed fees, retainers, capped fees and, of course, the
traditional time and materials rate card. I suggest you focus on getting the right pricing structure and not get too concerned about the costs of client entertaining.

Isabelle Meyer: General counsel Europe, Russia, CIS & Turkey, Moët Hennessy

Law firms should be encouraged to entertain their clients with a view to fostering good relationships and getting to know the in-house lawyers who instruct them better.

They should not, however, allow themselves to charge the time spent entertaining their clients to such clients.

Assuming that you want to keep working with the same law firm, a good way round this is the Bribery Act 2010. Indeed, since the entry into force of the act, companies should have policies and procedures dealing with any form of corruption in place. Under the act, excessive entertainment may amount to corruption or bribery.

I would therefore recommend that you look at your anti-bribery policy (assuming there is one), amend it (if needed) or develop one with no further delay. You could also have a look at multinationals, which are often proud to make their anti-bribery policies available to the public through their website.

GCs in general should only be able to accept entertainment if it is exceptional and if the party offering such entertainment does not expect anything in return.

With a well-balanced policy in place, the GC should be able to refuse entertainment or only accept invitations to go to a few events in a polite way.

Although it is probably not what should be implemented if we want to stick to the spirit of the act, it is my understanding that UK subsidiaries of US-listed companies have strict policies under which they cannot event accept lunch from their suppliers. If lunch or food is provided during a meeting they must ask for an invoice and pay the price for the food and drinks, even at executive level.

In conclusion, I believe that with a well-drafted policy you will be able to keep a good relationship with the law firm you instruct and manage the legal budget in a more efficient way.

Kathy Atkinson, legal director, Kettle Foods

Attitudes to corporate hospitality have been changing over the past few years and it is healthy to scrutinise all invitations carefully, taking into account your company’s policy on anti-bribery and corruption. Law firms will be used to clients refusing entertainment as some companies have extremely strict policies now.

I have dealt with companies that will not even allow their employees to accept a cup of coffee from our on-site facilities, or to use a hotel that we as a supplier have recommended (even though they are paying their own bill).

“Perhaps the firm could offer some bespoke training for your team instead of entertaining you”

You could explain that you are tightening your company’s policy to ensure that only those types of entertainment that truly assist with furthering business aims, such as fostering better relationships and networking, will be acceptable in future, and that doing so is a good idea for financial reasons too. Budgets are always being squeezed and it is understandable that you would rather your external law firms spend the money they would normally allocate to client
entertainment for your benefit on something that you can see more value from – for example, could they offer some bespoke training for your team instead? 

With a reasoned and sensible approach to the subject there is no cause for firms to think you are being churlish.

Elaine Hutton, EU general counsel, Shiseido Group

You sound like you need to lighten up. Law firms have a separate budget for client entertainment – you should think of it as a thank you and not as a cost which is being passed on to you.

Business is all about relationships and you will get more satisfaction and better value if you cultivate these but, of course, if you do not want to attend, just politely decline. Remember though that corporate hospitality is a great way for junior lawyers to get out of the daily grind and raise their profile, so you could suggest that invitations be extended beyond partner level.

Sally Davies, London managing partner, Mayer Brown

We are seeing a shift away from this type of client hospitality and a move towards joint CSR events with clients and lawyers. I would simply ask your external providers to come up with some options for joint CSR events, perhaps related to that firm’s charity of the year or community initiatives. That way you get to know your lawyers better but you are also giving back to the community and having an enjoyable time.

Ruth Fenton: solicitor and executive leadership coach

It’s true that some firms spend way too much on their marketing budgets each year on activities which could be seen as bribery in some cases. Anti-bribery is a hot topic. Your company should have an anti-bribery policy with a limit to what is an acceptable gift. You could use this as a reference point.”F

Relationships between lawyers, responsiveness and quality of work are much more important than going to expensive sporting events. Firms that offer added value in other ways are the ones you should be considering. For example, in addition to basic legal work they may provide free in-house training to keep you up to date with developments in your sector, introduce you to useful business contacts, offer lawyers as secondees etc.

“Firms that offer added value in other ways are the ones you should be considering”

There are many lawyers who could do your work. Setting minimum criteria will help you weed out the firms that flash the cash and help you discover a better alliance. Be open to approaching firms yourself using word-of-mouth. Many lawyers don’t like marketing so approaching someone you have heard is good will avoid the hard sell of a firm that has a large marketing budget.

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The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) has appointed Eversheds Sutherland, Linklaters, Pinsent Masons, and Gowling WLG to its reviewed legal panel, The Lawyer can reveal.

All of the firms on the present lineup have advised the NDA on previous panels according to data from The Lawyer, except Gowling WLG, which is a new addition. The only firm on the old lineup to not gain a place was Burges Salmon.

One source told The Lawyer said they were “surprised Burges Salmon was not reappointed to the new lineup as the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority is a sizeable client”.

Burges Salmon declined to comment.

The new panel is understood to be running for the next three to four years and is effective from the beginning of this month. The last panel review was in October 2014 according to The Lawyer‘s records.

Eversheds energy partner Robert Pitcher told The Lawyer: “We’re very pleased to be doing work for them.”

A spokesperson for the NDA said: “Following a competitive tender process, the Nuclear Decommissioning Authority has appointed four firms to its new legal panel as of 1 April 2018. The four firms appointed are: Eversheds Sutherland, Linklaters, Pinsent Masons and Gowling WLG.”

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Weightmans has elected a new senior partner, appointing partner David Lewis to replace Dan Cutts, who is retiring from the firm at the end of this month.

Cutts was first appointed senior partner in 2013, having joined the firm’s board in 2002. Working alongside Weightmans’ managing partner John Schorah, Cutts has overseen two acquisitions and the opening of three new offices, with the firms overall revenue rising from £80m to almost £100m three years later.

Lewis is the firm’s current head of regulatory services, and has been at the firm since 1985, when he joined as an article clerk. He was made up to partner in 1992, and founded the practice he now runs in 2004.

Insurance head Kieran Jones will take on the role of director of client relations at the firm, a role that was also previously filled by Cutts. Jones is currently involved in managing relationships with the firm’s biggest clients. When he takes on the new role, Jones will be replaced as head of insurance by partner Rob Williams.

Other appointments include partner Dewi Ap-Thomas, who was appointed as the new head of regulatory, and partner Helen Brown chosen for the role of head of the Leeds office.

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CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang has promoted eighteen women to partnership in the firm’s first promotions round since the three-way merger last year.

Women represented 38 per cent of the entire cohort, with new additions in 11 of the firm’s 23 offices.

The firm’s 47-strong promotions round strengthened 11 different practice areas, with corporate and commercial benefiting the most. Corporate was the only practice that received a double-digit amount of new partners, with more than a fifth of all new partners.

London has received the most new new partners (11) of the entire organisation, totalling 23 per cent of the new group.

They are Anne Chitan and Katie Duffield in banking and finance; Narinder Jugpal in corporate and commercial; Robbie Leckie in energy and projects; Tamsin Blow in dispute resolution, Colin Brett, Hugh Picton Phillipps and Leilah Rawle in real estate; and Hannah Curtis, Laurence Kalman and Loretta Pugh in TMT.

In London, five legacy CMS associates were promoted: Duffield, Rawle, Curtis, Pugh and Jugpal. Four of the 11 made up had been at Olswang: Blow, Brett, Chitan and Kalman. Picton Phillipps had been at Nabarro and Leckie arrived at CMS in the Dundas & Wilson merger.

CMS UK senior partner Penelope Warne said: “As we approach 1 May, marking the first anniversary of our ground-breaking merger, it is an important time to recognise the great talent we have across the firm. We have achieved a great deal in the past year, owing much to the excellence, dedication and enthusiasm of our people.

“We are thrilled to see the calibre of individuals rising through the ranks and would like to congratulate our new partners on their well-deserved promotions.”

CMS Cameron McKenna merged with both Nabarro and Olswang last year, with the current iteration of the firm celebrating its first anniversary on Tuesday (1 May).

CMS executive chairman Cornelius Brandi said: “All of our newly-appointed partners are members of our international teams, and have deep local roots and expert knowledge of their own markets. This is what sets CMS apart and allows us to offer our clients a depth and quality of advice that few others can – whether in local or cross-border projects.

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Chambers are appointing ‘pro bono champions’ as part of a new initiative to encourage barristers to take on not-for-profit work.

The move is a result of the Bar Pro Bono Unit’s ‘FABFeb’ campaign which ran over the course of February. The Unit contacted all heads of chambers, senior clerks and chambers directors, at sets with over 20 members, in mid-April and asked them to appoint a pro bono champion.

To date, 14 chambers have responded. Among the commercial sets that have already named barristers as champions are 7KBW, which has appointed John Bignall, and Littleton Chambers, which has chosen Benjamin Gray. Landmark Chambers, meanwhile, has handed the duties to practice manager Richard Bolton and HR head Carolyn Entwistle.

As yet, the only silk to be named a champion is Katie Gollop QC of Serjeants’ Inn Chambers. Gollop led Great Ormond Street’s legal team in the high-profile Charlie Gard case last year.

“The Bar Pro Bono Unit is an oasis of high quality advice and representation in a widening legal aid desert,” Golop told The Lawyer. “Many barristers just can’t afford to do any more unpaid work and the Unit must not be seen as a substitute for proper legal aid. But those cats who can should and I’m proud to be Serjeants’ Inn Chambers’ first Pro Bono Champ.  A single point of contact in each set is a great new initiative and will make it easier for those in need to get the advocacy at inquest, and in employment and regulatory tribunals, that they deserve.”

In addition to championing pro bono work within chambers, responsibilities include explaining ways that pro bono work can be of benefit in practice development; knowing pro bono cases that are being undertaken by members of chambers through the Unit; helping members of chambers register to do pro bono work; and ensuring pro bono stories are shared with the wider world.

Speaking to The Lawyer, the Bar Pro Bono Unit’s head of fundraising and communications Mary Dobson said: “The FAB February initiative we ran to try and find pro bono counsel for as many cases as possible, while demonstrating the deeply-held commitment of the Bar to helping people in need, also highlighted a few current issues. Prime among these is a presumption across the Bar that pro bono is taken care of, and that we manage to find a barrister for the majority of people who come to us for legal help. This is in fact not the case, and lots of barristers are not aware of the many reasons to do pro bono, including that it can be hugely beneficial in terms of personal practice development.”

She added: “The Pro Bono Champions initiative seeks to refresh the Unit’s pro bono offering and re-engage the Bar at all levels. We are delighted that 14 sets have already stepped up to nominate their Champions, and we look forward to launching the scheme officially in June at a special event hosted by our new corporate partner, Child & Co. The Unit helps hundreds of people every year with an incredible range of legal issues, and we need the Bar to be part of that work now more than ever.”

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Over the last two decades London has seen an American invasion.

In addition to the transatlantic mergers of some of the City’s largest players – Lovells with Hogan & Hartson and Norton Rose with Fulbright & Jaworski – there have been numerous other smaller UK firms whose names have disappeared as they have been essentially swallowed up by a larger American outfit.

Titmuss Sainer. Nicholson Graham & Jones. Gouldens. Rowe & Maw. Hammonds. Their names may be gone but much of their legacy remains, in their personnel, their offices, their practice strengths, their cultural quirks.

But have their mergers been everything they hoped for when the documents were signed and the joyous press releases sent out? Now the ink is long dry… was it all worth it?

In The Lawyer Global 200 2017 rankings, Mayer Brown (formerly Rowe & Maw) is the 25th largest firm in the world, with £1.2bn in turnover, just behind Weil Gotshal & Manges. Dentons is rated sixth, with £2.1bn, Jones Day (formerly Gouldens) is ninth with £1.97bn, sandwiched by Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Linklaters, Reed Smith (formerly Richards Butler) is 32nd with £1.08bn, K&L Gates 29th with £1.18bn, Squire Patton Boggs (formerly Hammonds) 35th with £983m, and Dechert (formerly Titmuss Sainer) is 42nd with £912m.

Some of the firms’ growth trajectory in the UK can hardly be described as steep

Those firms together turned over £692.2m in the UK in the Global London Index 2017 compared with £593.9m three years before. Yet their impact on the City has been patchy since their mergers, partly because the chase for UK clients abated in favour of servicing clients from around the network. It is no coincidence that, with the exception of Dentons, the UK brand names were ditched in short order.

Furthermore, because some of these firms were not major players in London – and also because of the intervening financial crisis, which exposed the fragility of their businesses – their growth trajectory in the UK can hardly be described as steep.

Every year, The Lawyer’s Global London Index compares UK-only revenues of firms with offices in London. Of the seven US law firms in the top 30 by total UK revenues, only two – Dentons and Reed Smith – are of UK heritage. In contrast, five are global leviathans that have consolidated in London over the past three years. White & Case, Latham & Watkins, Baker McKenzie, Kirkland & Ellis and Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom together turn over £1bn in the UK and all but White & Case were in the top five of the world’s biggest law firms in The Lawyer Global 200 2017 report. Global weight continues to entrench their UK position. Even Sidley Austin and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, which have both grown revenues rapidly in the past couple of years (Sidley £75.4m and Gibson Dunn £61.4m) are nowhere near their US rivals.

US firms still looking to create a substantial London presence may have missed the boat

As a side observation, US firms still looking to create a substantial London presence may have missed the boat unless they approach firms that are in the market for a deal, such as Ashurst, Simmons & Simmons and Addleshaw Goddard, or those still proclaiming their independence (Bird & Bird, RPC, Osborne Clarke, Taylor Wessing and Stephenson Harwood).

The UK-heritage law firms

For those firms that merged in the 2000s, then, revenues cannot be used as a metric of success. Of the five UK-heritage firms we examine in this feature, the mergers have broadly made no difference to their relative placings in the UK revenue tables. Indeed, the latest figures from the Global London Index show how little they have moved the dial over four years. In the 2014 table, Mayer Brown was 33rd; it is now 39th, though even that position is slightly higher than its low point in 2015 when it was 41st. In the 2014 table the firm was keeping pace with Skadden; now, Skadden has £140.6m compared with Mayer Brown’s £119.2m. Reed Smith, which has struggled for decades to grow UK revenues, has slipped down the placings from 26th to 30th in 2017.

Only Jones Day has jumped up the table, from 59th to 48th. On this basis, Jones Day’s takeover of Gouldens worked in that it has an office in the UK through which to funnel global work – and it has been successful in importing clients to London to be serviced. And yet Jones Day has possibly the most notoriously challenging culture of US firms in London; as our analysis shows, the firm has one of the fastest-revolving doors in the City so the London office to which the rest of the firm refers work is a more unstable beast than that of many of its peers.

The takeovers have been complete. But with Mayer Brown’s election of a London partner to the top leadership job, could it be that we are seeing the resurgence of the UK legacy firms?

Mayer Brown

Finally, a UK partner gets the top job

In April, Mayer Brown made history. Over 16 years after the Rowe & Maw merger that he helped to broker, London-based heavyweight Jeremy Clay has finally reached the position of global managing partner.

This is an unprecedented move within the ranks of legacy firms that sacrificed their UK credentials to become part of a larger US-headquartered machine. Of the five firms in this feature, only legacy Rowe & Maw has managed to push one of its own into the firm’s top echelon.

It was about time. Clay is heavily relied on as the steady hand helping the London strategy. He just had to wait almost a decade for the firm to prove it had noticed.

And before Clay there was only one close enough to getting the top job at Mayer Brown: vice-chair Paul Maher, who was overlooked for the top role in 2009 in favour of Bert Krueger and promptly left to launch Greenberg Traurig’s first London base.

The fact that partners in London have vehemently but unsuccessfully pitched Mayer Brown as a global rather than a US firm shows how much it struggles with its own perceived market identity.

The fact that partners in London have vehemently but unsuccessfully pitched Mayer Brown as a global rather than a US firm shows how much it struggles with its own perceived market identity. Despite the US merger, the London contingent wants to be known as a proudly independent outfit run by UK lawyers, while conforming to a structure that involves kow-towing to global management in Chicago.

Since the merger at least one London partner has held a spot on the 10-strong management committee of the firm and two on the 15-strong partnership board. But Hong Kong, Paris and Germany feature just as strongly. The majority has always been made up by the US contingent and, until now, the global chair and global managing partner positions have always been held by US partners.

US top management is described by one insider as “obsessively collaborative” and “like a friendly big brother” to the London office. This welcome attitude, often cited by UK-based partners as a selling point, has always seemed to go only one way. Chicago needed help from no one. Until now.

Clay has inherited a $1.3bn (£910m) revenue firm, according to the latest financial results. Global profit per equity partner increased last year by almost 9 per cent, to $1.58m.

The Rowe & Maw-Mayer Brown merger

A full year before the merger of legacy Rowe & Maw with Chicago-based Mayer Brown, The Lawyer was already touting the former as a potential UK merger suitor.

At last Rowe & Maw had made strides in terms of figures, with gross fees increasing from £46m to £55.6m at the millennium. The firm was performing well in medium-sized corporate finance work, pensions and pension litigation, partnership, construction-based professional negligence work and administrative and public law.

“Rowe & Maw is one of the best bets for a US merger,” The Lawyer’s UK 100 report declared in 2001. And we were right. At the time, the firm had a series of best friend
relationships on both the East and West coasts in the US and a hefty 17 per cent of work that year came from overseas, of which 10 per cent was from those relationships. It was not enough to put off a merger, but it was enough to whet the appetite of the then-Rowe & Maw leaders, Paul Maher, Jeremy Clay, Stuart James and Sean Connolly.

In that year, Rowe & Maw got parsimonious with the equity, making up no new partners – a potentially difficult balancing act to say the least, especially given the team’s increasing number of lateral hires.

Against this background, Maher, Connolly, James and Clay were turning the gears within the firm, working on putting pen to paper on a deal that would change the course of the firm’s history.

In that year, Rowe & Maw got parsimonious with the equity, making up no new partners – a potentially difficult balancing act to say the least, especially given the team’s increasing number of lateral hires.

Against this background, Maher, Connolly, James and Clay were turning the gears within the firm, working on putting pen to paper on a deal that would change the course of the firm’s history.

But it was not Mayer Brown they were initially after.

Before the firm found its merger match it entered talks with New York powerhouse White & Case, at the time run by managing partner Duane Wall. These quickly fell through, leaving Rowe & Maw looking for another firm to sell to its partnership. A non-merger was not an option.

“Our sense was that there was an overcrowded mid-market. We wanted to stand out from that group and move ourselves further up the London market.
Jeremy Clay, Mayer Brown

“Our sense was that there was an overcrowded mid-market, with a lot of firms competing in that space,” Clay explains.

“We wanted to stand out from that group and move ourselves further up the London market. We considered mergers with other London-based firms but that didn’t look very attractive.”

At the time of the merger Rowe & Maw was sandwiched between legacy Barlow Lyde & Gilbert (now Clyde & Co) and Stephenson Harwood with a turnover of £55.6m. The firm had a total of 274 fee-earners, of whom 78 were partners. Top of equity stood at £730,000, one of the highest in the Top 100 that year, coming in directly above legacy Lovells (£708,000) and below Slaughter and May (£1.3m).

After the White & Case talks fell through, Mayer Brown and Rowe & Maw were introduced by a mutual client, the then-general counsel at Marconi Jeff Gordon. They soon discovered that it was not the only client they had in common, with both firms acting for the likes of Bank of America on either side of the Atlantic.

A firm insider says that the fact that Mayer Brown was Chicago based – not New York – was a big selling point at the time.

“Culturally, they are much less hard-edged,” the insider said.

The two outfits hit it off and the deal was sealed. The firm that once boasted Mr Blobby as a client and had been nicknamed ‘Slow & Bore’ by the market was finally international.

Then-senior partner James was in charge of selling the merger to the partnership. Ironically, the biggest buy-in had to come from one of the men driving the negotiations, Maher.

“It was very important that Paul was in favour of this and that he was part of the sales pitch,” Clay says.

He was.

Current Mayer Brown London senior partner Sally Davies was a junior partner at the time of the merger, which she described as “wanting to grow Rowe & Maw and take it to the next level”.

“It was inspirational,” she says. “No one else had done a big transatlantic merger like that and it was probably down to their personalities. They wanted to push us into the future.

“It was presented to the partnership in a really positive way. They had a similar client base and they didn’t come in and say ‘We’d like to change you overnight.’”

In 2002 Maher, Connolly, James and Clay permanently united Rowe & Maw and Mayer Brown (which was then Mayer Brown & Platt). Despite no lock-in for partners, there were not many exits following the announcement, save the Dentons litigation team that departed for Hunton & Williams in 2002.

The fact that the firm retained its old clientele and grew its new client book thanks to being able to offer cross-border capabilities probably helped. Clients have also stayed – British Land, QBE and Unilever were big legacy Rowe & Maw clients and continue to be prominent at the firm. They have now been joined by HSBC as one of the firm’s top mandates. But there have been a lot more client wins – Deutsche Bank, SocGen, Barclays, ARM, PPF and Citi have joined the ranks thanks to Maher’s original strategy.

By 2005 the firms had a single profit pool, although the organisation remained a combination of two limited liability partnerships, one in Illinois and the other in England. In the four years following the merger, the firm’s UK arm moved away from a traditional lockstep to a merit-based partnership compensation system.

It was the right change for us, and the change a lot of firms – even the magic circle – are having to make now”

Jeremy Clay, Mayer Brown

“It was the right change for us, and the change that a lot of firms – even the magic circle – are having to make now,” Clay argues. “We settled into a different type of compensation structure that was designed to support an international law firm business; not an eat-what-you-kill at all. That was important.”

In 2006 The Lawyer’s UK 100 report stated that Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw “remains the undisputed success story of the transatlantic mergers, retaining its second-place ranking with a UK turnover of $145m, which is £83m”. The firm was an exception to the rule as it retained an independent UK presence.

In 2007 the firm’s direction of travel turned to finance, a practice that has helped to differentiate it globally and in London ever since. This strategy, put into place in London by Maher, enabled the firm to win clients such as Macquarie Bank and Starwood, joining existing clients Lehman Brothers, JP Morgan, ABN Amro, ING Group and Nationwide.

But in the background not all was rosy. Strong personalities in London were looking to position themselves strategically to take on global power. The obvious front-runner was Maher, who sought the global managing partner role in 2009. His prompt departure
to Greenberg Traurig – described as an “ego exit” by an insider –proved to be a ‘before and after’ for the London management.

“Paul is all about Paul,” the source said. “There was a perception that it was a bit too early and that he wasn’t ready. A lot of people felt released – it was Paul’s way or the highway.”

“I was sorry to see him go, personally,” Clay says about that time. But was he afraid of a partnership fallout? “I didn’t think that was a risk at the time.”

2010: merger on the mind again

After the exit the quiet and “less mercurial” Clay took on a more prominent role at the firm, and joined the management committee in 2012. Despite this measured financial success Clay soon entered into merger discussions with mid-tier player Simmons & Simmons in 2010. The objective was, again, a finance push.

At the time, Mayer Brown was posting a revenue of $169m and revenue per lawyer (RPL) of $667,000. Simmons stood at £243m revenue and £363,000 RPL.

The unofficial history gives profitability as the reason for the death of these discussions. But Clay, after eight years, will not be drawn.

“We were approached by Simmons & Simmons,” he says. “To my mind they are a good law firm with great clients. We had around four meetings but they didn’t proceed and they became public knowledge. We decided it wasn’t right for us.”

Whatever happened behind closed doors resulted in both firms calling off discussions with a collegiate joint statement: “Simmons & Simmons and Mayer Brown have held preliminary discussions with regard to the potential for a merger. Mergers are complex and present a number of issues that need to be resolved before discussions can proceed.

“We have concluded that a combination between our firms is not the right option. There is, however, considerable goodwill and continuing respect on both sides.”

Mayer Brown London office

Under the Connolly-Clay partnership, the London office has largely thrived. Looking at revenue figures alone, it managed to overcome a two-year dip that saw revenue drop from $169.2m in 2010 to $145m in 2012. At the end of Connolly’s tenure in 2016, revenue stood at $169.4m. This revenue growth was not accompanied by a large number of lateral hires either. Despite entering the fray during the King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) Europe collapse, the firm walked away with far fewer laterals than fellow UK legacy firm Reed Smith. Reed Smith partner Perry Yam continues to be the firm’s latest high-profile hire, brought on board to grow the firm’s European capability.

In London, Davies is allowed considerable free rein. “Part of that may be Jeremy [Clay], who is on the management committee and is based in London, saying ‘Just get on with it,’” she says. “If he wasn’t in that role, I don’t know if things would be different.”

Davies, who has already shaved off the insurance practice in London to make way for top-tier work, knows she has to deliver laterals (or, more importantly, mandates) for the market to truly believe the strategic change has worked. Otherwise, questions will need to be asked about the power of the Mayer Brown brand after 15 years in London.

Jones Day

Laterals aplenty but a revolving door

It does not take too much digging to spot the problem with Jones Day’s London office: the giant US firm’s UK outpost appears to be simply terrible at hanging on to lateral hires.

Since 2003 the office has made 29 lateral partner hires (according to The Lawyer’s data). Of these, just 10 are still with the firm. And of those 10, more than half (six) joined the firm only within the past four years. So much for longevity.

Even worse, two of the batch of five lawyers that joined four years ago in 2014, corporate partner Benedict O’Halloran and capital markets specialist Neil Hamilton, have left. O’Halloran lasted only a year before joining security company Verisure Securitas as its first chief legal officer, while Hamilton moved across to CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang as a partner in December 2017.

Their retention of laterals has been atrocious, one of the worst in the City.

As one person interviewed for this article, who asked not to be named, says: “Their retention of laterals has been atrocious, one of the worst in the City.”

The most recent exits include banking partner Amy Kho, formerly of both Goldman Sachs and Clifford Chance, who became a partner in January 2013 but left at around the same time this year; and Paul Simcock, who joined from legacy Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) in 2014 and had been a counsel at Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom but exited Jones Day (along with two associates) for Vinson & Elkins, also in January 2018.

At the time Simcock’s exit was the first partner loss for Jones Day London for two years, since September 2016 to be precise, when it lost disputes partner Christopher Braithwaite. Braithwaite had joined as a partner from Simmons & Simmons along with Baiju Vasani (Vasani remains with Jones Day) in June 2012 but left for London disputes boutique Humphries Kerstetter two years ago.

Also saying goodbye to Jones Day that year was real estate specialist Iain Hindhaugh, who had been promoted to partner in 2011 and left for Addleshaw Goddard in March 2016, and capital markets partner Weyinmi Popo, who joined Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe in February.

Jones Day salary – the black box problem

But it is the start of 2018 that has really seen a flurry of activity at Jones Day. As well as Kho and Simcock, Jones Day’s London office has parted company with financial institutions regulatory partner John Ahern, who had joined the firm in 2011 from Addleshaw Goddard and left for Katten Muchin Rosenman, and private equity partner Mike Weir, who joined White & Case some five years after he joined Jones Day from BLP.

Why are so many senior lawyers leaving Jones Day? It would be too easy to point to one of the obvious sources of contention for many, its notorious and unusual ‘black box’ remuneration system, as the primary culprit. This system certainly irks some but it works for others. On its own it is rarely enough of a reason for a partner to go through the upheaval of a move.

A more significant reason appears to be a much more localised issue than the firm’s comp system, which is global and is hardly likely to come as a surprise to any new joiners. In short, Jones Day’s London office just seems to be rubbish at bedding in new people. It is, to put it mildly, light on formal integration.

“There is no effort made to integrate new partners,” claims one source. “You’re told ‘There’s your phone, there’s your computer, off you go.’ The MO is largely to sit and wait for work. That’s not a good strategy.”

Trainees are expected to knock on partners’ doors to get work, rather than wait to get handed some by a supervisor.

This is true even at junior level: trainees are expected to knock on partners’ doors to get work, rather than wait to get handed some by a supervisor.

According to the source, the reason for this apparent lack of internal processes is the sheer size of the firm, which all but guarantees a certain level of work each year (indeed, Jones Day has ranked number one in both the Thomson Reuters and Bloomberg M&A league tables for the number of deals worldwide every quarter since year-end 2000).

“They live in this fantasy land that it’s all going to be all right,” insists the source. “I think it comes from a naïve arrogance that because it’s such a big firm in the US it follows that it is, by definition, a big firm everywhere; that this will be enough to carry it. And it’s not.”

To be fair, the London office has picked up some of the meaty deals over the past couple of years, including the acquisition of a €1.3bn (£1.1bn) portfolio of non-performing loans from Attica Bank, a $703m acquisition for CVC from Teva Pharmaceuticals, the £323.3m sale of Pinewood Studios and the $1.9bn acquisition of Synergy Health by Steris Corporation.

Several people familiar with Jones Day also say the firm is very lightly managed, which again suits some but not everyone.

“Partners don’t meet regularly, there isn’t that much monitoring,” insists one former insider. “But to integrate laterals properly you do need a lot of monitoring, making sure the new arrivals are meeting the right people, the right clients, have the right people put in front of them. It takes work and process. But there really isn’t a formal process at Jones Day.

“It’s probably easier at a firm that’s more originations focused, where it’s easier to track client relationships. At Jones Day it’s much more about your holistic contribution to the firm and that’s a fairly nebulous concept. It’s how you’re regarded by your fellow partners. That also makes it more difficult for a lateral. You need to know how the system works and that takes time.”

“Jones Day’s London office is still a Gouldens office, even today”

But while this may seem to be simply a failure of internal processes, numerous sources say it masks a deeper malaise.

“Jones Day’s London office is still a Gouldens office, even today,” claims one lawyer familiar with the firm. “There’s a very uneasy culture there. It’s extremely cliquey, laterals have no say in anything. You don’t get into the clique.”

There is a lot to unpick there, not a lot of it good. First, the claim that Jones Day has failed to develop its City launchpad. There is not much doubt, even among its detractors, that the firm that was formerly Gouldens is handling work for clients it was never likely to touch in its former incarnation.

Among its client roster you will find the likes of Greystar, Goldman Sach, Wells Fargo, Blackstone, Macquarie and CVC. Many clients (such as BNP Paribas, GE and LetterOne) have found their way to Jones Day London via the international network but then, that was kind of the idea.

Equally, several others, including British Land, CBRE, Riverside, Delancey Estates and Owens Corning (a new client that made a $1bn acquisition in February 2018, that of Paroc Group, and provided the London office with first-time work), fit more snugly into the mould of the former Gouldens client base.

However, a key related issue here focuses less on clients and more on the firm’s personnel and, indeed, personality. Many of its top managers in London, notably managing partner John Philips, are legacy Gouldens. The so-called ‘clique’ is understood to contain a mix of legacy Gouldens lawyers and long-time laterals (of whom there are still a handful).

Along with Philips, members of the clique include Giles Elliott, the co-leader of the banking, finance and securities practice and also head of the London corporate group, corporate partner Leon Ferera, finance partner and one-time head of banking Michael Pabst, and litigation partners Barnaby Stueck and Sion Richards. Stueck trained at Jones Day before working in the Cayman Islands with Maples and Calder, returning as a partner in 2010, while all the others are ex-Gouldens.

The Gouldens-Jones day merger

Back in 2002, when the UK market first got wind of a potential merger, the 39-partner mid-market corporate and real estate outfit Gouldens dwarfed the London office of Jones Day Reavis & Pogue. The former was a 145-lawyer London firm with pretentions of being Travers Smith. Jones Day had just 60 lawyers in the UK although internationally it was already also a US giant, described by The Lawyer that year as “a beast of a firm which boasts 24 offices”.

The merger went live on 8 February 2003, with the US firm’s managing partner, then and now, Steve Brogan describing it as “desirable for Jones Day to combine with Gouldens, an
established and successful London law firm that shares our vision and values”.

True, not everyone in the London market was convinced. One source contacted by The Lawyer described it as “like trying to merge a Lear jet with a donkey”. In reality, that verdict was probably harsh on both Lear jets and mules.

Although some 45 per cent of legacy Gouldens’ turnover came from corporate, it was never very likely to rival Travers in the ascent to a premier London M&A and private equity boutique. Client relationships with mid-tier brokers such as Beeson Gregory or property companies like Pillar Properties (bought by British Land in 2005) brought in the occasional £50m-£100m deal but generally Gouldens’ deals tended to flutter around the £30m mark. That might have seen it continue to do well in the mid-market but it was unlikely to see it trouble the lofty peaks of the City elite.

The other key issue, as always, was scale. Russell Carmedy, joint managing partner of Gouldens, who became partner-in-charge of the London office, said at the time: “Client needs are increasingly international. The merger significantly enhances Jones Day’s ability to meet those client needs.”

Transatlantic deals around the turn of the millennium were still a relative rarity. The current, steroids-style growth was only a twinkle in the global market’s eye. Since then, of course, deals like the Gouldens and Jones Day merger have become almost the norm. Last month’s tie-up between BLP and Bryan Cave confirms that the appetite for increased scale and international coverage remains strong.

Since the Gouldens merger, Jones Day has kept on growing globally. These days it has around 2,500 lawyers in 43 offices covering 18 countries on five continents.

And its UK arm? According to The Lawyer’s data back in 2008, five years after the merger, there were a total of 190 lawyers and 47 partners generating a total revenue of $85.5m. Last year total revenue is estimated to have grown by 46 per cent to around $125m while the total numbers of lawyers and partners now stand at 155 and 62 respectively. But for how long?

Model for the one-firm culture

The end of any firm’s financial year is traditionally a time when partners move on so, in that context, the spate of departures at the start of 2018 may be seen as less extraordinary.

But there is another potential, and imminent, cloud on the horizon for Jones Day. While not much is known publicly about the firm’s black box remuneration system, one thing is apparently true. While partners receive a profits draw throughout the year, a significant chunk of their remuneration is always held over until the following year. There is a payout each January and then the firm’s largest partner profits distribution of the entire year is thought to take place in mid-April.

“After that, you’ll see some more exits,” says a person familiar with the firm.

Of course, there are ways to build a business other than buying people in. In 2017 Jones Day made up five London lawyers to partner, including three that were lateral associates, while since 2011 it has made 25 London partner promotions.

Insiders at the firm are also likely to counter the criticisms levelled against its approach to bedding in new hires by pointing to its one-firm culture in positive rather than negative terms. Indeed, they argue that the fact that Jones Day “doesn’t do” origination credits and has a “defined culture of co-operation aimed at putting the best lawyer in front of clients, wherever they are” suggests there are “no barriers to integration”. Then again, this does smack somewhat of the ‘party line’.

But it is also fair to say that there are those rare laterals that have worked, with numerous sources pointing to BLP’s former head of restructuring and insolvency, Ben Larkin, as a genuine success story.

But then again few people, insiders included, would argue with the criticisms.

Dechert

Ferociously restructured – and two lucky breaks

Dechert’s entry into the UK was unlike that of any of its rivals. The firm has had an outpost here since the early 1970s but it was not until its 2000 merger with a London mid-market player (the deal being the logical conclusion of a six-year alliance between what, back then, was Dechert Price & Rhoads and Titmuss Sainer, a UK firm best known for property and a handful of lower-margin areas such as employment and immigration) that it entered the market proper.

And even then, for years it flew largely under the radar. At the time of the merger the firm’s total City turnover was less than £30m. Dechert does not officially report individual office revenue but sources suggest the present (2017) level of fee income nestles at a hefty £92m.

The 1990s joint venture route is described by Dechert’s CEO, Henry Nassau, as “a relatively low-risk way of being part of a larger platform”. But since those days Dechert has transformed its London offering primarily off the back of a series of laterals, a riskier play but one that seems to be paying dividends. Indeed, as one London recruitment consultant puts it, Dechert’s London office is a place where “the laterals have taken over”.

It took time for the US firm to recognise the importance of its overseas offices mirroring the home jurisdiction strengths and capabilities.

But even Dechert’s top brass would admit that the firm’s London office did not take off at first. Indeed, it is over only the past five or six years that the office has been on something of a laterals-propelled roll. Part of the reason for this is that it took time for the US firm to recognise the importance of its overseas offices mirroring the home jurisdiction strengths and capabilities.

As Nassau admits, back at the time of the merger the firm had not focused enough on how important it was that “we did the same thing in both places”.

US clients in the primarily geo-centric private equity practice that had business in the UK, adds Nassau, would tell the firm ‘I’m sure your partners are great but we use Slaughters.’

“We misunderstood that; there was no deluge of work initially,” he admits.

Business benefits from the fall of KWM and Dewey

What was needed was the thing that all firms need: a lucky break. And Dechert has had at least two, benefiting from the collapses of both KWM (with hires such as Dubai partner Hamish Walton, although the lawyer joined Dentons a year later when he relocated to Melbourne) and, in particular, Dewey & LeBoeuf.

When Dewey blew there’s no doubt it created a huge break for us

Henry Nassau, Dechert

“When Dewey blew there’s no doubt it created a huge break for us,” says Nassau. “It got us into the Middle East, increased the sophistication of our London clients and added a capital markets capability thanks to the arrival of Camille [Abousleiman], who brought with him a lot of energy.”

The joining of former Dewey partner Abousleiman in 2012 was a pivotal moment in Dechert’s London office’s evolution. Abousleiman, who also now serves as chair of Dechert’s four-person London office leadership (which includes former London
managing partner Jason Butwick, financial services partner Gus Black and Miriam Gonzalez, the co-chair of the international trade and government regulation practice), has been described as an occasionally idiosyncratic force of nature, not shy of expressing himself very clearly when required.

Certainly, his new management role does not appear to have slowed him down. Abousleiman’s fee-earning efforts continue apace, with the head of Dechert’s international capital markets group overseeing Egypt’s issuance of a total of $11bn in bonds last year, including the country’s largest bond issue ever, and the first triple-tranche bond to emerge from the African continent. The deals helped Egypt’s foreign currency reserves (which had stood at $36bn) bounce back from just $14.9bn to $36.7bn.

Abousleiman also advised Barclays, Byblos Bank, JP Morgan and Société Générale de Banque au Liban on the Lebanese Republic’s issuance of a $3bn triple-tranche bond in March 2017.

But, of course, Dechert London is about more than one man. In other major deals a team led by London corporate partner Jonathan Angell, a specialist in energy-related M&A, represented UK-based oil and gas independent Chrysaor on its $3bn acquisition of Shell’s interests in 15 oilfields and various pipeline assets in the North Sea.

Angell was a lateral hire from Ashurst back in 2010, where he had been a corporate partner and, from May 2009, the firm’s head of knowledge and learning. At the time his appointment was Dechert’s first London lateral for two years, after it hired corporate partner Corinna Mitchell from Baker McKenzie (Mitchell subsequently joined asset management group Pemberton as general counsel) and litigator and arbitration specialist Daniel Gal from legacy Dewey (Gal joined the London office of Skadden as a partner in December 2014).

Dechert lateral hires

Later hires have also shifted the dial for Dechert in the City, notably in the area of private equity, with the firm benefiting from the move of firms such as Kirkland & Ellis away from mid-market deals to the mega-transactions handled by the likes of Blackstone and KKR that have created what Nassau calls “a marginalised mid-market”.

Indeed, Dechert has built itself something of a Kirkland ex-pat community, with hires including corporate partner Christopher Field, tax partner Jane Scobie, banking partner Rob Bradshaw and debt finance partner John Markland as well as former Kirkland private equity partner Ross Allardice, joining from White & Case. “It has worked out,” deadpans Nassau.

According to one person familiar with the firm, the “architect” of Dechert’s London private equity practice is the New York-based chair of the firm’s corporate and securities group Mark Thierfelder, himself a lateral (Thierfelder joined the firm in October 2006 along with and tax specialist Daniel Dunn and a year or so later fellow corporate partner Drake Tempest, all from O’Melveny & Myers).

“Private equity has become a big part of their London transition strategy,” adds the source.

Bringing in an investigatory practice has also generally worked out, although occasionally it has also generated more headlines than the firm would like. The hire of former DLA Piper litigation co-head Neil Gerrard (once the spat between his old and new firms over his recruitment was resolved) in 2011 when led to Dechert getting more than a little stick for allegedly over-charging its client Eurasian Natural Resources Corporation (ENRC) with regard to an internal investigation.

On the other hand Gerrard’s arrival also resulted in Dechert picking up the Airbus investigation, with the lawyer advising the company on bribery and corruptions allegations in a matter thought to be generating millions in fee income.

Other notable recent hires include litigation partner Stephen Surgeoner who joined last year from Clifford Chance and Ropes & Gray finance partner Monica Gogna, who also joined towards the end of 2017.

And all the while Dechert’s funds practice has continued to grow, with increasing levels of work for clients such as Apollo.

“We represent 19 of the 20 largest mutual funds,” adds Nassau. “Registered funds and private funds is where the action is, and we can combine our offering with our office in Luxembourg and Dublin. I think that makes us unique.”

“A great London success story”

Nassau calls London “a great success story” and its performance over the past few years makes it hard to disagree. Along with the considerably smaller offices in Hong Kong and Singapore it was one of the firm’s fastest growing offices in 2017. Indeed, London is now Dechert’s third-largest office behind New York and Philadelphia, and the indications are that within 18 months it will overtake the latter.

Abousleiman insists that for laterals the attraction is not first and foremost the money, although with Dechert’s average profit per partner reaching $2.7m in 2017 it’s not too shabby a deal.

“Guarantees? We don’t give them, period,” confirms Abousleiman. “We slot in an equity partner at a particular level.”

Culturally, Dechert’s London office is transformed from the sleepy British firm it took over, say those familiar with the firm.

“It has transformed, it’s a more or less complete change,” says one London recruitment consultant who has worked  with Dechert regularly. “The whole feel of the place mirrors what they do in the US, things like hedge funds, emerging markets capital markets deals, private funds and M&A. It seems completely transformed form the Titmuss Sainer days. The firm has definitely moved up the value chain.”

The plan for 2018 and beyond is to maintain that trajectory, confirms Abousleiman.

“We can develop corporate further, in PE we could do more, also in traditional corporate, and we want to continue to build litigation and arbitration,” says Abousleiman.

“We’ve targeted white-collar crime so we also need to add another partner there. And in financial services, we’re always on the lookout because of the increasing regulatory burden. We think we’re particularly well-positioned in the latter area because of our offices in Dublin and Luxembourg.”

Abousleiman will not confirm it but there could be as many as 10 laterals in Dechert’s pipeline, although the chances of them all coming off are slim to none. And indeed, the firm has just said goodbye to three partners including a pair in London (corporate partners Graeme Defries and Andrew Harrow), with four senior lawyers in total jumping ship to Goodwin Procter as it launches a European life sciences practice.

But the firm’s head man in London does not shy away from the fact that additional and imminent growth is very much on the cards.

“We need to expand more here,” confirms Abousleiman. “This firm is ambitious but financially prudent. Wildness doesn’t feature in our hiring. We take calculated bets but we’re generally thoughtful. I just interviewed a guy today. I told him ‘be reasonable and the firm will take care of you – the firm generally outperforms and if you outperform you’ll make a lot of money’.”

That couldn’t be clearer.

Squire Patton Boggs

International rescue, but domestic anonymity

On 3 September 2010 John Quinn, the founder and managing partner of litigation giant Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, tapped out a tweet: “Two rocks that think if they hug each other tight enough they won’t sink,” adding a link to the news that merger talks were taking place between US firm Squire Sanders & Dempsey and the UK’s Hammonds.

It was a pithy little quote, if a rude one, and at the time it seemed to sum up the state of play at a lot of law firms. This was the post-financial crisis era when consolidation was at its height and Hammonds in particular had been buffeted by bad news stories even before the credit crunch. It is worth taking a moment to recall the turbulence the firm went through. It had forged ahead in the 1990s and early 2000s, merging with Edge Ellison of Birmingham and hoovering up niche practices. Hammonds gained a reputation for being bullish, no-nonsense and ambitious.

But it grew too fast. Within four years the firm was not just in the UK, but France, Germany, Spain and Hong Kong, to name but a few. That was simply too much expansion for a small outfit such as Hammonds to take. In 2005 things started to turn ugly. Profits fell 25 per cent in 2005, a multimillion-pound hole was discovered in the accounts, it emerged that the firm had overpaid partners by a total of £3m in drawings and a £25m overdraft became public knowledge.

Managing partner Peter Crossley was brought in to steady the ship and it is widely acknowledged that he did a fantastic job. The process was not without pain, however. A cost-cutting exercise saw 60 employees made redundant and, while a 14-month lock-in stemmed the exodus of partners for a time, there were further departures when it expired in 2006.

Profit and revenue levels gradually stabilised, though talk of Hammonds rivalling DLA Piper or even aspiring to be the next Macfarlanes – seriously discussed in the 1990s – was consigned to the bin. The firm was left with another problem: it had no unique selling point. No single practice was more important than any other.

But, say sources, Hammonds was in a fundamentally decent position.

“The firm came out in 2007 with a stronger balance sheet,” says one ex-partner, “and though the country went into recession in 2008 Hammonds had taken its medicine already so there were no problems in the accounts to be exposed. The partners were strong and loyal enough to take the firm through the downturn, and there was the opportunity to grow the UK practice through the acquisition of other, less robust firms.”

It was into this situation that Ohio’s finest, Squire Sanders & Dempsey, stepped. The US merger went live on 1 January 2011, with the firm taking the name Squire Sanders Hammonds in those jurisdictions where Hammonds had a presence.

The Squire Sanders-Hammonds merger

Squire Patton Boggs’ financials tell an interesting story. The headline figures do show a gradual increase in UK offices revenue – from Hammonds’ £94m in the year immediately before the merger to £120m in 2017.

The revenue of the UK LLP, however – including both the English offices and the few overseas ones that remain within the UK’s remit – has remained flat. It was £123m in 2001, £123m in 2012, and it is £120m as of 2017. In its heyday, Hammonds ranked 15th in The Lawyer UK 200. As Squires, it has been moved to the ‘International Firms’ category, but if it was still included in the UK list today it would rank 37th, just behind Shoosmiths.

It is true that there are fewer lawyers generating the same amount of revenue – but not that many. In fact, Hammonds did most of its culling in its difficult pre-merger period. It reduced lawyer numbers by 244 between 2002 and 2010 and has only trimmed by another 79 since then.

The partnership has been reduced by 30 since 2010, which will have helped with partner profits, but at $1.19m the firm’s UK revenue generated per partner is the lowest in the International Top 50 rankings – and it has been on a downward trajectory since the merger. Likewise, Squires’ RPL puts it rock bottom of the International Top 50 table, at $430,000.

Squire Patton Boggs clients and deals

Deals Hammonds was working on a decade ago included: a £758m private equity port­folio sale for Abbey National Treasury Services; Rensburg’s £150m acquisition of Carr Sheppards Crossthwaite; and Aston Villa FC’s takeover by Americans. Who was Hammonds acting for in the mid-2000s? Trinity Mirror, Marriott, National Grid, Chelsea FC, Yorkshire Bank, Tesco, RBS, Royal Mail and London Underground.

Who is Squires acting for now? It still takes on many deals that are firmly in the London mid-market. Recent transactions the firm has advised on include Tus-Holdings’ £200m joint venture with Trinity College, Cambridge and Lloyds Register’s acquisition of cyber security business Nettitude (headquarters: Leamington Spa).

However, larger transactions are also in evidence, such as work for the government of Dubai on its $2.5bn financing for the Route 2020 project. This instruction spanned seven of the firm’s offices, including London, in four countries. As further evidence of cross-border collaboration the firm cites its successful pitch for a place on the Vodafone panel at the start of 2018 which involved partners globally from Europe, the US and Asia. City of Wolverhampton Council, Molson Coors, YUM! Brands, Arriva, Carillion and Lotus F1 are among the firm’s other clients.

Squires also says that 42 per cent of its work in 2017 was generated in one office and performed in one or more other offices, though, of course, that stat does not reveal whether the collaboration is, for example, Houston is working with Leeds or Houston working with Dallas. The key laterals have come in the firm’s energy and infrastructure practices, which have been significantly bulked up with hires including Neil Upton, Ian Wood, John Danahy and Rinku Bhadoria from KWM, Philippa Chadwick from legacy Berwin Leighton Paisner, and James Duckworth and Robin Baillie from legacy Nabarro.

Hammonds gets a global platform “in theory”

“Hammonds, prior to the Squire Sanders merger, was going nowhere in London,” says one market observer. “From that perspective, in theory the merger gave Hammonds access to a global platform it never would have been able to build on its own. Squire Sanders had a presence in central Europe and Central Asia. It has lots of quirky practice areas. In theory, it’s an interesting upscaling.”

‘In theory’ are the operative words. If the aphorism that Hammonds was proving wrong in the 2000s was ‘all publicity is good publicity’ then Squires has since had to deal with Oscar Wilde’s old adage that ‘the only thing in the world worse than being talked about is not being talked about’. Hammonds, despite its troubles, was a familiar brand and semi-beloved name in the UK. Squire Sanders, not a famous New York firm and had no meaningful prior London presence or name recognition in Britain. A further merger, changing the name to Squire Patton Boggs, has not helped in that respect. Talking to lawyers and other market sources around the City, it soon becomes clear that everyone thinks it is called Squire Sanders. Even some partners express surprise that the firm does so little on the marketing side.

Meanwhile, “the deal as is was initially presented to the partners and how it finally fell out are a million miles apart,” claims one former partner. “We were told there would be two separate entities with a branding connection but we would maintain control, there would be no loss of independence and we would gain in terms of lots of referrals coming from the US firm.

“In fact, what happened was they set up a verein structure and all management was devolved to the verein board, which consisted of nine US and four UK partners. All the decisions about hiring and firing, pay rises, and marketing spend were being made in the States. We handed over control of the UK partnership to the Americans in return for nothing.”

Another former partner agrees.

“At the time Hammonds felt it needed to merge and the deal that was done was very much one that suited the Americans,” says the partner. “It was a verein structure and the US had more control of the British and European side than vice versa.”

A global verein management board was set up but sources say that, with only four Brits on it out of a panel of 12, it essentially allowed the US part of the firm to outvote them and shape things to their own liking (as of 2018 there are three UK-based partners on the board: Manchester-based Susan Kelly, Leeds-based Jonathan Jones and European managing partner, the London-based Jane Haxby). As an example, sources say that the profitable German part of the firm was switched from the UK to the US LLP on 1 July 2012.

Squire Patton Boggs itself says the merger was one of equals. It points to the British lawyers on the global board as evidence of the region’s clout and says that four of the firm’s largest eight offices are in the UK. However, its management declined to speak to us for this feature and, from an optics perspective, it says a lot that the UK’s senior communications manager – a vastly experienced figure who has been at the firm nearly 20 years – took a back seat while the New York-based global director of comms explained to us that the Americans were definitely not running the show.

For its part, the firm says that many decisions “are made locally by office managing partners and practice group leaders who are closest to that market – when appropriate, this is done in consultation with Jane and global leadership”.

As we have grown we’ve maintained a tight-knit culture of collaboration and a clear vision

Jane Haxby, Squire Patton Boggs

A statement from Haxby provided to us reads: “Our 2011 combination was transformational and was built upon the shared values and cultures of our legacy firms. It served as the foundation for the firm we have become and as a catalyst for our continued growth in the UK and globally as a firm. We are stronger and able to accomplish more for clients now than ever before. What I’m most proud of is that as we have grown we’ve maintained a tight-knit culture of collaboration and a clear vision.”

What seems absolutely true is that Hammonds was Squire Sanders’ gateway to the world. It has since pushed on into Asia and the Patton Boggs merger of 2014 has given it an extra dimension, especially in the Middle East. Sources say that in the UK the firm has “settled down” somewhat, that finances are more robust and that uncertainty over the status of regional offices has been somewhat assuaged by the move in shiny new premises in Leeds and Manchester.

“I’m pleased people are happier and the finances are robust,” concludes a former partner, “but none of the UK partners are managing their business.”

K&L Gates

Unfashionable, but robust

It is now well over a decade since the last remnants of the once-proud name Nicholson Graham & Jones (NGJ) disappeared from London’s legal landscape.

NGJ was the definition of an ‘everyfirm’ – a nondescript balance of corporate, finance, litigation and real estate – or, if you were being more charitable, in the words of one partner, “a lawyers’ law firm: more well known within the profession than outside it.”

This was perhaps what made it so appealing to the Pittsburgh giant Kirkpatrick & Lockhart – a 50-partner no-drama member of the City establishment that was an ideal kicking off point for its London ambitions. Nice but dull.

What is clear is that joining forces with Americans was a significant leap for a firm that was all too often tagged as ‘sleepy’.

“They approached us – I don’t think we were particularly looking for that sort of merger at the time,” a partner recalls. “In those days not many [UK-US tie-ups] had been done.” Indeed, while Titmuss Sainer, Rowe & Maw and Gouldens had taken the leap with Dechert, Mayer Brown and Jones Day respectively, it was still early days for those three mergers – too early to tell if they had been successful or not.

The Nicholson Graham & Jones-K&L merger

To say the firm had not been in the market for a merger at all would be a falsity. The firm’s nice-but-nondescript persona was an encumbrance in an increasingly competitive market and profit per equity partner was down to £220,000 in 2005. A shot in the arm was clearly needed.

“NGJ had actually grown a lot in the 10 years prior to the merger, but was still a small to mid-size, corporate-led, City-based entity at that time,” says K&L Gates European managing partner Tony Griffiths, who was previously NGJ’s managing partner. “We and other practices of a similar stripe were finding it harder to recruit and to hang on to our talent so there were exploratory talks with a number of other firms.”

The comment I used to get most often was ‘K&L Gates who?’”

Tony Griffiths, K&L Gates

The early talks led to nothing but within a couple of months of Griffiths taking over in 2004 discussions were opened not only with Kirkpatrick & Lockhart but also with a number of other US and larger UK firms.

The Kirkpatrick & Lockhart proposition “stood out”, says Griffiths. “Their thought process was better developed: they had actually studied the London legal market pretty forensically in the context of their practices so they had really worked out what they were looking for as an entry point into the UK.

“Bear in mind that at that point they were a domestic US firm with 10 offices, mostly on the eastern seaboard. The UK was their first international venture. They saw London as a gateway to the rest of the world – but it was also the gateway to the US as far as K&L was concerned. They had been looking at Chicago, the West Coast, Texas, and not been able to break those markets; after merging with NGJ they were suddenly an international firm and became a much more attractive proposition.”

The injection of some tough American business sense was probably just the ticket for NGJ which, in the view of some, was too nice for its own good.

The subsequent merger with Seattle’s Preston Gates & Ellis, which created K&L Gates, is evidence of that.

The injection of some tough American business sense was probably just the ticket for NGJ which, in the view of some, was too nice for its own good. One immediate impact of the merger was that the trainee retention rate dropped: previously typically in the 90 per cent bracket, it dropped to 70 per cent for three years running after the merger – the result, it was said, of business needs finally trumping sentimentality.

The office suffered a significant hit in the recession, with revenue declining 28 per cent in 2009. After the financial crisis the firm re-evaluated what it was doing in London and came up with some areas of focus. The first was investment management. It is a key area firmwide for K&L Gates and London felt it could leverage that to attack alternative capital providers. The second was a reinvention of the corporate practice with an increased emphasis on energy work, and the transformation of a domestic infrastructure practice into an international one.

Griffiths tried to foster a multidisciplinary approach, helped in part by the 2011 move from Cannon Street to One New Change. The move saw silos broken down as lawyers from all departments were mixed in together.

“Within two months we’d landed the largest real estate mandate in the UK, largely because a real estate partner was now sitting next to a structured finance partner and they got talking to each other,” says Griffiths. “Having an exemplar like that really got peoples’ attention internally.”

The result of this was five straight years of revenue growth, with double-digit percentage growth in 2011, 2013 and 2014. In 2004 NGJ was turning over £26.5m. At last count, K&L Gates London was turning over $68m. That is around £48m at present exchange rates, or £37m based on the exchange rates when the merger went live in 2005.

Despite early noises about increasing the size of the office, K&L Gates has remained broadly the same in terms of lawyer numbers in London. In 2004, the year before the merger, The Lawyer’s UK 200 reported that NGJ had 106 lawyers, of whom 51 were partners. In our most recent survey of the market, K&L Gates’ City outpost had 116 lawyers, of whom 46 were partners. In short, although K&L Gates has doubled in size since its London merger, its UK office is essentially the same size in terms of headcount as it was 14 years ago.

Evidence that the merger was a takeover, if a friendly one, was there to be seen at the time: apparently, the London partners voted unanimously for the name change to Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Nicholson Graham, although one partner made the telling comment that they “chose from the names available to us”.

Still, as mergers go the cultural transition turned out not to be as bumpy as feared.

“There can be a perception with firms that there’s only one way of doing things but that was not the case here

“They were good folk, they brought us in gently,” says one partner. “There can be a perception with firms that there’s only one way of doing things but that was not the case when we did the merger. The Americans recognised there were different ways of doing work, recording time, issuing bills. They were sympathetic to that.”

As one example, during the merger discussions NGJ hung on to the 1,600-hour target for UK associates, compared with 2,080 in the US. That 1,600 mark remains to this day (in 2017 some consternation was caused when the K&L Gates hours target for all associates globally was increased to 2,088 a year but in London 1,600 hours remains the de facto threshold when it comes to associate bonuses).

There was also the potential for the two-year anniversary of the merger and the removal of guaranteed payments to London partners in 2007, along with the move from lockstep to a performance-related remuneration system, would lead to a swathe of departures from the firm. In fact, while there were certainly exits at that point (real estate partner Nicky Richmond, for example, left in January 2007) and there has been attrition since, a surprising amount of NGJ’s old partnership remains 13 years later.

Some 40 per cent of the current K&L Gates London partnership worked at NGJ pre-2005. They include the office’s longest serving lawyer, Richard Smith, resident since 1983 and his real estate colleagues Piers Coleman (joined 1993) and practice group leader Wayne Smith (2001). In litigation there are the likes of practice group head John Magnin (1985), Anne McCarthy (1993) and Peter Morton (1995). Corporate has John Elgar (1985) and Howard Kleiman (1995). Head of sports Warren Phelops has been at the firm since 1993 and Griffiths, NGJ’s managing partner, remains London’s administrative partner.

Recruitment and retention solved?

Is the office able to attract a better quality of partner than it did before? K&L Gates has certainly hired a number of respected names in the City, especially in the past couple of years. Former Clydes head of aviation finance Philip Perrotta arrived from Kaye Scholer in 2017 while the hire of Ince & Co’s global head of energy Jeremy Farr was something of a coup earlier this year. Hires have also come from top-end US firms such as Shearman & Sterling and Ropes & Gray, but ultimately this remains an office without a superstar culture.

“It’s not a chest-beating firm,” says one market source, “but it’s decent and [the merger is] almost certainly doing what they wanted. K&L always saw London as the first and most important development from being a US firm.”

There remains the question of the name. “The comment I used to get often was ‘K&L Gates who?’” says Griffiths. “We are one of the newer brands in the global legal market and the constituent parts have gone through significant transformation from their old brands into this newer one. My response is often: ‘I know it’s tough, I know you’re up against the magic circle and the white shoe firms with greater brand recognition, but actually that can be a real opportunity’.

“Being able to sit down in front of a client and describe what your approach is – not many established firms get to say ‘Let me tell you something new about us.’ There are other global brands who have a longer history who would love that opportunity.”

K&L Gates deals

The size of deals NGJ took on was not spectacular. The corporate department mainly acted for AIM-listed and FTSE 250 clients – its biggest M&A transaction of 2003, for example, was the £107m acquisition of mining finance and development company Shambhala Gold. A typical deal of 2005 saw the £30m acquisition of budget DVD supplier Music Box for Air Music and Media. Other clients of the era included HSBC, Lloyds TSB, brewer Young’s, Hanson and Laing O’Rourke.

Today, the matters are unquestionably larger. For example, the office has been able to transform what was essentially a domestic infrastructure practice into an international one, taking on projects in Africa and Asia, such as work for Malaysia’s MRT on the construction of a railway known as the Circle Line in that country.

Other international clients the London office now works for include the US’ Amazon, TripAdvisor and Beckman Coulter, India’s SpiceJet, Italian luxury brand Furla, the Kingdom of Spain and the Republic of France. It is hard to imagine the mid-sized British firm of 2004 attracting the attention of many of those names.

The firm is currently advising on big domestic projects too, such as the £1bn London development of 40 Leadenhall Street.

“The one thing that is common to every merged firm I have come across is that it has seen a move towards a more US-style of practice

Mark Brandon, Motive Legal 

To merge or not to merge?

While the firms covered in this feature have gone through their share of merger-related turbulence, one question unites them: what was the alternative? If they hadn’t merged, would NGJ have survived the 2008 crisis alone? Would Rowe & Maw have had the nous to reinvent itself as a more fashionable London independent à la Taylor Wessing? Would Gouldens or Titmuss Sainer have been savvy enough to compete in today’s legal landscape?

We’ll never know. But it’s a moot point, argues Motive Legal’s Mark Brandon. In fact, “if you have merged with a US firm, you have already won the game”.

He continues: “The one thing that is common to every merged firm I have come across is that it has seen a move towards a more US-style of practice.”

In other words, fee-earners have worked harder, leverage has decreased and PEP has increased as partners have to bill more. Firms have moved gradually, if not directly, towards a client origination model.

For some firms, the US has been a lifeline.

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US-UK mergers can be divided into two waves: pre- and post-Hogan Lovells. Since 2010 transatlantic tie-ups have been characterised in terms of equals, starting with the merger of Lovells and Hogan & Hartson in that year, a deal that reset the template. Following Hogan Lovells, Norton Rose Fulbright, BCLP, Eversheds Sutherland and Womble Bond Dickinson have carved out deals between equals. The retention of the UK names is not coincidental.

Compare the self-confidence of these mergers with those that took place in the noughties, when the UK firms were decidedly the supplicants. Richards Butler, which never reconciled the fissures between the fiefdoms of London and Hong Kong, found a way out of stasis with a transatlantic deal with Reed Smith in 2007. Squire Sanders’ merger with Hammonds (the firm subsequently combined with Patton Boggs) was a clear distress purchase; under Peter Crossley the national firm had just about survived the incompetent autocracy of the prior leadership team.

When Rowe & Maw merged with Mayer Brown in 2002 it was a fifth the size of the Chicago-headquartered firm and the power balance was clear. While the UK firm was not on its uppers, it was certainly a defensive play. It had plenty of relationships with major corporates, but being the perpetual second-string adviser was not a happy place, particularly when a number of its clients were being taken over.

For firms wanting to learn the lesson of transatlantic mergers, it’s this: keep an English accent

For all these firms, the challenge of getting up the client value chain was therefore devolved to the US, and results were mixed. Ferocity sometimes works as long as there is a clear vision for London, as seen in Dechert’s rapid filleting of Titmuss Sainer; UK revenues have tripled in 15 years.

But after all the pain of integration, the restructurings, was it worth it for the other legacy UK firms? Not if you take growth as a benchmark. Gouldens (now Jones Day) and Fieldfisher turned over £42m in 2002. Fieldfisher’s UK revenues are now £15m higher; while Jones Day plays in a different client field it still doesn’t get the same billings here, and also scores badly on the culture scale. Squire Patton Boggs – a set of names that most people struggle to remember in the right order – has succeeded in paving over Hammonds’ history, but with no corresponding investment in the UK business. The firm actually saw UK revenues shrink from £135m in 2002 to £120.6m in 2017. Compare that to Pinsents which, in 2002, turned over £84m and since then has grown in the UK by 150 per cent. The figures show that, for the UK legacy firms, global integration has slowed local growth; higher profits are simply shared between considerably fewer partners.

Yes, they are part of a global organisation but at the expense of a UK brand which, in turn, hurts the prospects in the lateral market. For firms wanting to learn the lesson of transatlantic mergers, it’s this: keep an English accent.

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The offshore world has had better years. When, in 2016, news broke of a massive leak of data from Panamanian firm Mossack Fonseca, the firms that feature in our annual Top 30 Offshore Law Firms did not rush to comment. In fact, most of them declined outright.

There was a palpable sense that they did not feel they could be associated with Mossack Fonseca. Better known as a company formation business rather than one that carried out big corporate deals, the Panamanian firm was a world away from the offshore magic circle.

The debate over whether individuals using offshore structures should have to make this public was already raging when the ‘Paradise Papers’ were published

And then, in November last year, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) released another huge batch of data sourced from offshore. Except this time the source of the data was Appleby – one of the world’s largest and most established offshore firms.

Appleby promptly swung into dam­age limitation mode, asserting in statements that the data published by the ICIJ and its media partners had been hacked – not leaked – and that there was “no evidence of wrongdoing, either on the part of ourselves or of our clients”.

It added: “We are an offshore law firm that advises clients on legitimate and lawful ways to conduct their business. We do not tolerate illegal behaviour. It is true that we are not infallible. Where we find that mistakes have happened, we act quickly to put things right and we make the necessary notifications to the relevant authorities.

“Having researched the ICIJ’s allegations, we believe they are unfounded and based on a lack of understanding of the legiti­mate and lawful structures used in the offshore sector.”

The debate over whether individuals using offshore structures should have to make this public was already raging when the ‘Paradise Papers’ were published, thanks to a requirement in the latest iteration of the EU’s directive on anti-money laundering for national trust registers.

The Paradise Papers leak broke just a month or so after the devastating Hurricane Irma hit the Caribbean. Of the major offshore centres, the British Virgin Islands (BVI) were worst hit and several firms were forced to close down their offices there and put business continuity plans in place.

Luckily for the majority, the nature of offshore means that those firms with offices elsewhere in the world had BVI lawyers outside the jurisdiction who were able to pick up the slack. The BVI Commercial Court temporarily relocated to St Lucia until January 2018 and firms such as Harneys sent litigators to ‘pop-up’ offices to handle hearings.

Meanwhile, the BVI Financial Services Commission opened up its online registry to users outside the islands for the first time, to enable business to keep moving.

Many of the firms operating in the BVI contributed to the Hurricane Irma relief fund, with the island’s biggest firm, Harneys, announcing it was donating $200,000 (£140,000) to reconstruction efforts.

The firms themselves and their staff all seem to have come through the hurricane relatively unscathed physically, and the BVI business community worked hard to reinforce an ‘open for business’ message in the days after the storm.

Appleby resets

So, after a year with two major negative news stories for offshore, how have the sector’s biggest firms fared?

The Paradise Papers allegations hit towards the end of 2017 and are unlikely to have had much impact, although Appleby has in fact slipped down the rankings of the Offshore Top 30 this year. Only a few years ago it was second by lawyer numbers, snapping at the heels of Maples and Calder.

With Maples now consolidated at the top of the rankings, fielding more than 300 lawyers worldwide, Appleby is in sixth place with fewer than 200.

Walkers and Mourant Ozannes retain the second and third positions they held last year, but Carey Olsen and Ogier move into fourth and fifth. This means that, for the first time since we have been compiling the Offshore Top 30, there are more Channel Islands-headquartered firms in the top five than Caribbean firms. Both have been hiring and Carey Olsen launched in Bermuda, its ninth jurisdiction, last year.

This growth has largely taken place in the past five years. In 2013 Mourant Ozannes was third but was surrounded in the top five by Caribbean firms.

Collas Crill is following hard in the footsteps of its larger Channel Islands rivals, adopting a similar strategy – a Guernsey-Jersey merger followed by international expansion. Last year Collas Crill launched in the BVI and opened a representative office in Hong Kong.

The firm is now consolidated as one of the largest 10 offshore firms worldwide – a remarkable growth story in just seven years since the merger between Collas Day and Crill Canavan that formed a 15-partner outfit. Collas Crill now has 35 partners and employs almost 300 people.

The top 10 firms employed 4,559 staff in total last year, up by just over 7 per cent from 4,250 the previous year. However, growth in partner numbers was smaller at just 3.8 per cent, with the top 10 collectively adding 23 partners year-on-year.

Stability among smaller offshore firms

Lower down the table the picture is different. While a couple of firms have seen quite large percentage rises in their lawyer numbers, generally the trend among the smaller offshore firms has been stable, with many firms either adding or losing one or two lawyers year-on-year. At a firm with only 15 or 16 lawyers, this can mean a 5 or 6 per cent increase or decrease in lawyer numbers.

The firms ranked from 11 to 30 collectively saw their lawyer numbers dip last year, from 472 to 463. Staff numbers for this group remained fairly stable, as did part­ner numbers.

Among these firms Wakefield Quin stands out for its growth in lawyer numbers. A small merger between the Bermuda firm and a local boutique meant it grew by 22 per cent, an addition of four lawyers. Bedell Cristin saw its lawyer numbers rise by 16 per cent as it added 10 lawyers to its roster. Staff numbers were largely unchanged at both firms.

The most dramatic ranking drop this year is for Hatstone Lawyers. The Jersey firm is also one of the newest in the rankings, having been founded in only 2011, but after climbing to a ranking high of 15 in 2017 it drops back to 21 this year with a 35 per cent fall in lawyer numbers, from 31 to 20.

It is noticeable that the gap between the largest 11 firms – including Bedell Cristin – and the rest is widening. Bedell Cristin now has nearly twice as many lawyers as Cayman firm Campbells and 50 more staff members.

While all of the five largest firms now have 200 lawyers or more, the smallest 10 all have 20 or fewer, highlighting the size gap in this market.

Further consolidation among the smaller players is likely as they seek to keep hold of a slice of this increasingly bifurcating sector.

Offshore trends

In all likelihood as a result of the Panama Papers furore but also as a wider acknow­ledgement of cyber security risk, a number of firms started looking at their information security in more detail last year.

Appleby hired a head of information security, Michael Hughes, and said it had “made a number of changes to our IT environment to make our data more secure”. Slightly cryptically, it added: “We have also done things which are way and above what any other firm is doing.”

Mourant Ozannes decided to gain ISO 27001 certification, which required the firm to demonstrate it had a rigorous information security management system programme. The process of getting the  certification included several senior hires.

Other firms that said they had made investments in cyber security included Cains and HSM, while several more said they had invested in technology.

In Gibraltar there was a distinct theme among firms – the development of fintech and blockchain. All the firms have been seeking to demonstrate their expertise in this developing area of law, contributing to regulatory developments in the territory.

In terms of deals, last year saw the usual mixture of large M&As with offshore structuring, a number of financings and refinancings, and a handful of IPOs.

Firms reported several sizeable deals with Asian clients, but clients also came from Latin America, the Middle East and Asia.

These growth markets will remain important in the coming year.

The Offshore Top 30 2018

Maples still leads, but Walkers closes the gap

Maples and Calder retains its position as the world’s largest offshore firm and the only one in the rankings with more than 300 lawyers. On a net basis the firm added two lawyers to its headcount but gained six partners last year.

Maples also employs a large number of non-fee-earning staff, with a total headcount in its legal business of 862. Combined with its 726-strong fiduciary operation, the firm therefore employs close to 1,600 people worldwide and last year had the biggest growth in absolute numbers of staff of any of the offshore firms.

Strategically, Maples’ biggest move was its push to extend its Irish offering into London

Strategically, Maples’ biggest move was its push to extend its Irish offering into London. It transferred European aviation head Donna Ager and investment funds partner Adam Donoghue to the City from Dublin, and recruited Davis Polk & Wardwell partner Nigel Wilson to bolster the team in a response to more demand for international work from UK clients and also Brexit.

In Hong Kong the firm recruited six lawyers including private equity partner Everton Robertson and corporate and funds partner Matt Roberts, who had both worked at Maples previously. In the BVI the firm recruited Three Stone barrister Adrian Francis as a partner.

MaplesFS gained an unlimited funds licence in Bermuda, which enables it to offer independent trustee services to funds.

With a net gain of 28 lawyers, Walkers closes the size gap on Maples and consolidates last year’s move into second place, which came courtesy of its Guernsey merger with AO Hall. Overall, the firm grew by 12 per cent, increasing staff numbers from 546 to 614.

The firm’s fiduciary business, relaunched after the 2012 sale of Walkers Management Services, now employs 70 staff.

Walkers said it had invested in technology and recruited a new chief marketing officer for the Americas.

With a net gain of 28 lawyers, Walkers closes the size gap on Maples

Although on a net basis partner numbers dropped from 93 to 92, Walkers reported several partner-level hires. In the BVI it recruited litigator Iain Tucker, formerly a counsel at Hogan Lovells, and finance and corporate lawyer Patrick Ormond, previously counsel at Carey Olsen. In Hong Kong litigator Callum McNeil joined as a partner from Campbells.

In Dublin, PIMCO senior legal counsel Nicholas Blake Knox, Arthur Cox tax partner Aisling Burke and Dillon Eustace funds partner Sarah Maguire all joined as partners.

Although total staff and fee-earner numbers dropped year-on-year at Mourant Ozannes, an increase of 23 in its qualified lawyer headcount means the firm stays in third place.

The firm employed 453 legal staff last year and just under 300 fee-earners, of whom 238 were lawyers. Mourant’s small fiduciary business employed 60 people.

The most significant strategic move by Mourant last year was its decision to make two non-lawyers up to the partnership: chief operating officer Keith Pearse and corporate services managing director Ed Fletcher. In total, eight new partners have been appointed since February 2017, bringing total numbers to 60 – a net gain of five since last year’s Offshore Top 30.

The focus on operations was reflected in several other hires to the firm’s business  services team. Most of this recruitment was in Jersey, where Mourant recruited a chief information officer, chief risk and compliance officer, global operations director for corporate services, group financial controller and head of learning. In the Cayman Islands it brought on board a new business development manager.

The hires were part of Mourant’s efforts to become the first offshore firm to achieve information security standard certification, ISO 27001.

Carey Olsen climbs the rankings again after a November 2017 launch in Bermuda. The firm has two partners in its ninth jurisdiction – Michael Hanson and Keith Robinson – and plans to expand the office.

The firm now has 210 lawyers, up by 15 (7.7 per cent) compared with the previous year, and 400 staff in total.

The greatest increase came in the Caribbean with the firm’s BVI and Cayman offices seeing 30 per cent growth in headcount in the past 12 months. Hires were mainly at counsel or consultant level from rival offshore firms.

Partner numbers rose to 51 from 49 the previous year thanks to the Bermuda launch and internal promotions.

Otherwise, the firm invested in tech, introducing an e-discovery platform and moving towards electronic bundles for litigation.

After a year of lateral hiring Ogier is closing in on Carey Olsen, adding 25 lawyers to bring its lawyer headcount to 200 and celebrating its 150th anniversary in style.

A number of hires were at a senior level, with former Appleby Guernsey managing partner Gavin Ferguson, former Mourant Ozannes London head Simon Felton, and former Harneys Hong Kong litigation head Marc Kish all joining last year. The firm also picked up two partners from Bedell Cristin in Jersey.

Partner numbers rose from 53 to 57.

During the year Carey Olsen brought on board Caribbean capabilities in the Channel Islands, which it said helped it to maintain its service to clients when BVI services shut down after the hurricanes at the end of 2017.

There were also management changes at the firm, which appointed banking head Angus Davison to its executive. Nick Patterson was appointed as finance director to allow chief operating officer Jamie Bore to focus more on strategy.

Appleby had a tough year, with the headline undoubtedly the massive leak of data known as the ‘Paradise Papers’ in November 2017. However, it also saw a decrease in headcount, with total staff numbers dropping slightly and lawyer numbers falling from 205 to 184 year-on-year.

Acknowledging the impact of the Paradise Papers, Appleby said: “We have made a number of changes to our IT environment to make our data more secure”

Partner numbers fell by three, from 60 to 57.

As a result, Appleby falls two places in the rankings – it was second just a couple of years ago.

The firm said its focus remained strongly on the US, Asian and African markets.

Acknowledging the impact of the Paradise Papers, Appleby said: “We have made a number of changes to our IT environment to make our data more secure but we’ve also done things that are way above what any other firm is doing.”

The firm hired Michael Hughes as head of information security last year, as well as naming former Olswang chief operating officer and chief financial officer Simon Glynn as chief financial officer.

Harneys was one of the biggest recruiters last year, with total headcount increasing by 10 per cent, from 327 to 362. It now has 162 qualified lawyers, up from 147. The firm also employs almost 150 staff in its fiduciary arm.

The firm revealed it had 16 equity partners out of a total of 51, the first time it has provided this number.

Harneys was busy on both the legal and fiduciary fronts. It launched in Shanghai in November and moved Kristy Calvert from Hong Kong to lead the new venture. The firm also acquired Midocean Management and Trust Services from Maitland.

A total of three new partners were recruited from other firms: litigator Nick Hoffman from Cayman firm Priestleys, Travers Thorp Alberga banking partner Nicole Pineda, and Appleby Hong Kong partner Maggie Kwok.

Michael Buhre also joined the firm in Cayman as the chief operating officer for Harneys Fiduciary, from a finance background.

Litigator Christian Luthi was elected as Conyers Dill & Pearman’s chairman last year, succeeding co-chairs Narinder Hargun and David Lamb who stepped down after five years.

In early 2018 the firm announced it had hired Paul Naylor as chief operating officer following the retirement of Stephen DeSilva. Naylor joined from Linklaters, where he was business manager for litigation and chief operating officer for the India practice.

In early 2018 the firm hired Paul Naylor as chief operating officer.

Litigator Christian Luthi was elected as Conyers Dill & Pearman’s chairman last year

The firm saw headcount increase by 14 staff members in total, with the addition of seven lawyers.

Conyers is due to close its Dubai office by June 2018, relocating associate Oliver Simpson to London to run a MENA desk in the City.

There were no partner-level laterals, and partner numbers remained stable at 61.

Collas Crill’s rapid growth continues and it moves one spot up the rankings with the largest headcount increase of any of the top 30. An 18 per cent increase in staff numbers means the Channel Islands firm now employs 210 people, up from 178 last year, including 80 lawyers, up from 68.

Much of the growth was thanks to the merger with BVI firm Farara Kerins in January 2017. Collas Crill also launched a representative office in Hong Kong last year, building its presence in Asia from its Singapore office, which has been open for some time. Former MJ Hudson partner Simon Fraser is leading the Hong Kong work as a consultant.

There were three partner hires in Jersey, including that of Mourant Ozannes partner Mike Williams. At the start of 2018 Collas Crill recruited Kate Stanfield as head of knowledge from CMS and Sandy Salter as compliance head from Baker Tilly in the BVI.

Although its headcount went up substantially last year, with a 10 per cent hike in staff numbers and an extra five lawyers, more significant growth at Conyers and Collas Crill means Gibraltar firm Hassans drops two spots down the table this year.

A key focus during 2017 was fintech. The firm has been heavily involved in Gibraltar’s efforts to establish itself as a ‘crypto
harbour’, and has formed a dedicated fintech team.

Hassans has been heavily  involved in Gibraltar’s efforts to establish itself as a ‘crypto harbour’

Hassans is currently working on a restructure that will result in the legal practice being operated via a limited company
rather than a general partnership. The aim is to complete this within the next six to 12 months.

There were no partner hires, but Hassans appointed a new business development director last year.

With little change in its headcount, Bedell Cristin is holding steady at 11th place in the Offshore Top 30.

Last year was the first full year as a standalone law firm, following the sale of Bedell Trust, now known as Ocorian. The firm says it delivered on its first-year budget and strategy, and last year had the most successful financial performance in the law firm’s history.

Bedell Cristin appointed 42 Bedford Row CEO Neil May as its new chief operating officer in late 2017

Bedell Cristin appointed 42 Bedford Row CEO Neil May as its new chief operating officer in late 2017. May’s recruitment followed a series of appointments to the management team during the year, inclu­ding heads of IT, risk and compliance, and marketing and business development.

Campbells reported no change in its lawyer headcount last year and only a handful of staff hires.

The firm said its fintech practice had been particularly busy.

Campbells recruited Mo Haque QC as a partner to head up its office in the BVI from Crown Office Chambers in London. Meanwhile, in late 2017 Jeremy Lightfoot moved from the BVI office to Hong Kong and Ross McDonough QC moved back to Cayman along with senior associateLiam Faulkner.

Travers Thorp Alberga gained two lawyers last year but its total headcount dropped from 58 to 54. It gained one partner and keeps its ranking in the top 30.

There were no significant strategic moves last year. The firm continued to advise on a range of transactions from its offices in Cayman, the BVI and Hong Kong.

Senior partner Anthony Travers was a particularly outspoken voice during the Paradise Papers scandal, speaking out in defence of the offshore industry in both local and international media.

Although Forbes Hare has two fewer lawyers than at this time last year, with numbers falling from 27 to 25, it rises up the top 30 rankings thanks to more dramatic decreases at other firms.

Last year saw Forbes Hare open an office on the island of Nevis

Last year saw the firm open an office on the island of Nevis to complement its Cayman and BVI presence. It also moved Catherine Ross, previously head of London, to Singapore to head up corporate and fund services there.

Forbes Hare is currently investing in a new corporate services IT platform.

Manx firm Cains saw a sizeable drop in lawyer numbers year-on-year, from 32 to 24 – although its staff headcount fell by just two, to 57. Partner numbers were unchanged at nine.

Last year Cains joined the wave of firms selling off fiduciaries, offloading this arm to First Names Group. It also invested “significantly” in IT, notably in information security systems, HR and compliance.

Last year Cains joined the wave of firms selling off fiduciaries

Cains announced one lateral hire, recruiting First Deemster, or judge, David Doyle for its litigation department. Doyle is yet to start work and will be of counsel at the firm.

Gibraltar’s Isolas celebrated its 125th anniversary last year. Size-wise it was pretty stable, adding one lawyer to bring its legal headcount to 24. The number of partners at the firm did not change.

As with some of its competitors, fintech and blockchain was a focus through the year, with regulatory advice and thought leadership on the topic a busy area for Isolas.

In early 2018 Isolas acquired family office consulting firm Legacy Consulting. The acquisition boosted Isolas’ private client team and saw the arrival of the business’s owner, Emma Lejeune, and two lawyers.

Triay & Triay’s lawyer headcount decreased from 27 to 23 year-on-year and fee-earner numbers dropped from 35 to 29. Its
partnership of 11 was unchanged.

Partner Robert Vasquez QC retired from the partnership in June and became a consultant.

The Triay & Triay fintech team grew – a theme among Gibraltar firms in 2017.

While the number of qualified lawyers at Guernsey firm Babbé dropped last year, from 25 to 22, its partnership expanded through the internal promotions of corporate and commercial lawyers Robert Varley and Katherine Hitchens in April 2017, and of trusts lawyer Rajah Abusrewil in September.

In early 2018 Hitchens was named head of corporate, taking over from Stuart Tyler.

The firm remains the largest practice in the Channel Islands to operate in just a
single jurisdiction

Voisin Law rises up the rankings after a busy year in which it added lawyers and made two up to its partnership. Corporate lawyer Kate Anderson and advocate Clare Nicolle joined the partnership.

Voisin Law rises up the rankings after a busy year

The firm said it had seen a steady flow of corporate and commercial work in 2017 and expected this to increase in the coming year. Private client, wills and probate, banking and finance and employment were also busy, while Voisin noted a consistent flow in work from fiduciaries reacting to changes in their clients’ tax profiles.

Voisin’s affiliated trust company, Volaw Group, now has 110 staff.

In May 2017 Wakefield Quin merged with smaller Bermuda firm HCS Law, including its corporate administration company, Hollis Corporate Services. The tie-up, which included two lawyers, helped increase Wakefield Quin’s lawyer headcount to 22 from 18 the previous year, and the firm now employs 53 people in total.

As a result, Wakefield Quin moves up into the top 20.

Since its foundation in 2011 in Jersey, Hatstone has been through several guises. At the start of 2018 it continued its development through a merger with BVI fund administration business the Folio Group. The merger saw the addition of Calum McKenzie and Daniel Cann as equity partners to lead the expanded business’s administration work.

Hatstone also recruited Collas Crill finance partner Alex Carus last year.

The firm now has 45 staff, including 20 lawyers.

The smallest of the four Gibraltar firms in the top 30, Triay Stagnetto Neish drops down two places in the rankings with a reduction of four (18 per cent) in its lawyer headcount. Total staff numbers remained more or less stable at 39.

The firm continues to be led by managing partner Louis B Triay; firm founder Louis W Triay remains a consultant. All the firm’s nine partners are male.

Cayman firm HSM makes its third appearance in the top 30, rising one place. The firm continues to grow, last year adding one lawyer and five non-lawyer fee-earners, and gaining five staff on a net basis – although partner numbers were stable at five.

At the start of 2018 HSM hired corporate lawyer Peter de Vere from Campbells as its new head of corporate and commercial

At the start of 2018 HSM hired corporate lawyer Peter de Vere from Campbells as its new head of corporate and commercial, following on from the 2016 recruitment of private client head Robert Mack from Mourant Ozannes.

It was a quiet year for Bermuda firm Cox Hallett Wilkinson, with no change in headcount and no significant strategic moves or hires. The firm employs 50 members of staff including 30 fee-earners of whom 16 are lawyers and six partners.

Jersey firm Viberts added two lawyers last year, bringing the number of qualified legal staff to 16, including seven partners. Of those, four are women, giving Viberts the highest female partner proportion in the Top 30.

There were no senior lateral hires or departures at Viberts last year and the firm did not provide details of strategic changes.

Like Cox Hallett Wilkinson, Bermuda’s MJM reported no change in total staff numbers, remaining steady at 50 year-on-year. Fee-earner numbers decreased from 24 to 20 and lawyer numbers from 16 to 15, but the firm still has six partners, all in the equity. The main investment priority last year was technology investment but otherwise there were no major strategic initiatives and no hires, with the firm saying things had been “very steady”.

Cayman firm Solomon Harris re-enters the top 30 this year. It now employs 29 staff in total including 17 fee-earners, of whom 15 are lawyers. The firm has a Zurich representative office, but recently relocated a partner from there back to Cayman as a result of slowing demand from European investors in the wake of Brexit.

Solomon Harris relocated a partner from Zurich to Cayman as a result of slowing demand from European investors in the wake of Brexit

The firm said its emerging market practice for private equity, hedge fund and venture capital formation and transactional work was growing rapidly. Portfolio insurance companies were introduced to the Cayman statute book in 2015 and Solomon Harris says it has formed the majority of these vehicles.

As well as traditional offshore work, Solomon Harris has a buoyant Cayman transactional and real estate practice, and also reported strong growth in providing advice to high-net-worth individuals.

While lawyer numbers at Isle of Man firm DQ Advocates remained steady at 14 last year, the firm saw a reduction of one in its fee-earners. Declines in headcount at other firms push it up the rankings. In 2017 Mark Dougherty took over as managing partner after the retirement in 2016 of Tom Maher for health reasons. Stephen Dougherty became corporate and commercial head. DQ also promoted employment head Leanne McKeown to director.

Last year DQ launched an equality e-learning product in association with an employment law training company, Legal-Island, with the aim of filling a gap in terms of access to Isle of Man-specific equality training for local employers.

Guernsey firm AFR saw a small decrease in its headcount last year, with lawyer numbers dropping from 14 to 13 and staff numbers from 33 to 31. It still had four partners. The firm did not provide any details of its
strategic initiatives last year.

Simcocks saw its lawyer – and accordingly fee-earner – numbers dip by two last year and the firm now has 13 qualified lawyers. The Isle of Man practice therefore slips to the bottom of the rankings, although it maintains a position in the top 30.

The firm redesigned its website last year to streamline it and add more information.

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Linklaters, Slaughter and May and Gibson Dunn & Crutcher have won the top roles on Sainsbury’s shock £10bn merger talks with Asda.

Sainsbury’s is being advised by Linklaters partners Iain Fenn and Michael Honan, as well as managing associate Margot Lindsay. Competition aspects of the deal are being led by partner Nicole Kar and Simon Pritchard.

The supermarket’s intended merger partner Asda is being represented by Slaughter and May, with partners Sally Wokes, Victoria MacDuff and Nigel Boardman in the driving seat for US partner company Walmart.

Other members of the deal team include finance partner Guy O’Keefe, tax partner Steve Edge, and pensions partners Jonathan Fenn and Charles Cameron. Partners Cathy Connolly, Jane Edwarde and Ben Kingsley are focusing on IP/IT, real estate and financial regulation matters respectively.

Slaughters is not fielding any competition partners on the deal, with Gibson Dunn & Crutcher instead advising Walmart on issues relating to the likely investigation by the Competition & Markets Authority (CMA). The team is led by partner Ali Nikpay and new partner Dee Taylor. Both joined the US firm from the CMA and have previous experience advising on retail probes, such as Gala Coral’s merger with Ladbrokes in 2016.

If the deal goes ahead, both retail giants will retain their current names and continue to operate the same brands in the UK.

The value of the deal is understood to be worth around £10bn.

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Fieldfisher has promoted 3 women to partner in a 10-strong promotions round across the firm’s London, Manchester, Brussels, Silicon Valley and Hamburg offices.

The new partners are Jochen Beck, Tom Ward, Maxime Berlingin, Donall Caherty, Daniel Hayward, Hannah Rowbotham, Laura Berton, John Brunning, Thorsten Ihler, and Leonie Power.

The technology, outsourcing and privacy sector is gaining four new partners, dispute resolution three, and competition, corporate, and financial services seeing one promotion apiece.

Of the women, Rowbotham is being made partner in the financial services practice. She joined Fieldfisher as a trainee. Both Berton and Power are being made partner in the technology, outsourcing and privacy practice. Berton trained at Simpkins before joining Fieldfisher in 2005, while Power was at Pinsent Masons before joining Fieldfisher in 2011.

Fieldfisher made up nine partners in 2017, two of which were women. Fieldfisher made up four partners in 2015, also two of which were women.

Fieldfisher has made three lateral partner hires in 2018 already. Brian Chadwick was brought in from Cooley as a corporate partner working in the games industry, Dentons global trademarks chair John Linneker joined the firm’s IP practice, and Shepherd & Wedderburn data privacy partner Judy Krieg joined Fieldfisher’s privacy, security and information law group.

Fieldfisher’s managing partner Michael Chissick said in a statement: “The broad range of practice and sector groups in which the promotions have taken place is testament to the strength and confidence we have in the markets where we operate. Providing opportunities for progression for all our employees is a key priority.”

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Clifford Chance has announced its second major managerial change in the firm’s Tokyo office in a month with the appointment of co-managing partners Reiko Sakimura and Leng-Fong Lai.

Capital markets partner Sakimura and structured finance partner Lai will replace current office managing partner Eiichi Kanda effective from tomorrow (1 May) as the firm says Kanda will step back into a client-facing real estate and infrastructure role.

Last month, the firm revealed that partner Peter Coney would be taking over to head up the litigation and disputes practice in the 31-year old office.

Clifford Chance Asia Pacific regional managing partner Geraint Hughes, who replaced Peter Charlton in his role two years ago, said: “We are delighted to welcome two highly regarded partners to the regional management team. They both have been active members of the firm locally, regionally and globally and will bring valuable leadership experience.

“Eiichi will be continuing to make a major contribution to the office and our practice in the region in building and developing his practice with its strong focus on the important real estate and infrastructure sectors.”

The magic circle firm has made a string of managerial announcements in 2018. Clifford Chance named its first chief risk officer just two weeks ago, while Charles Adam was revealed to have taken over from Yves Werhli as its Continental European managing partner.

Clifford Chance corporate head Guy Norman was also reappointed to his role for a second four-year term recently.

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Morrison & Foerster (MoFo), Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom and Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz have won the top roles on the mega-merger between Sprint and T-Mobile, which values the company at $146bn.

MoFo led for US-based telecoms company Sprint and its Japanese communications shareholder, SoftBank Group, alongside Skadden which acted as co-counsel.

MoFo’s global M&A practice group co-chair Robert Townsend spearheaded the deal from San Francisco, alongside corporate partners Brandon Parris and David Slotkin. On this side of the Atlantic, head of MoFo’s London corporate practice Graeme Sloan led the deal, aided by associate Adam Westhead.

Tokyo office managing partner Kenneth Siegel provided support from MoFo’s Japan office.

The Skadden team included antitrust and competition partners Steven Sunshine and Matthew Hendrickson in Washington and New York, as well as national security partners Ivan Schlager and Michael Leiter.

Wachtell corporate partners Adam Emmerich and David Lam led for T-Mobile from New York, with finance partner Eric Rosof and tax partner Jodi Schwartz. Emmerich previously advised T-Mobile in its proposed $39bn sale to AT&T in 2011, and the 2013 merger of T-Mobile USA and MetroPCS Communications.

Weil Gotshal & Manges advised financial advisor Evercore, with New York partner Michael Aiello leading alongside partner Eoghan Keenan.

T-Mobile, which is controlled by Deutsche Telekom, the largest telecommunications provider in Europe, has kept a keen eye on Sprint for some time. An acquisition was discussed in 2014, which was nonetheless quashed after regulatory resistance from the Obama administration.

Now that a deal has finally been cemented, the combined network will carry on the T-Mobile name, with hopes to rapidly propel 5G connection across the US.

Sprint, previously the fourth largest network carrier in the US, valued at $59bn, had been struggling to compete on its own, saddled with large debt and annual losses.

Through the merger, T-Mobile has become the greatest competitor to the two other giants in the cellphone industry, Verizon and AT&T.

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Simmons & Simmons has made up nine lawyers to partners in its 2018 promotions round, spanning six sectors in Europe and Asia.

In pursuit of its 30 per cent female partnership promotion target, women have made up just under half of the promotions at the firm, with finance lawyer Paula Macnamara joining the London office and real estate partner Caroline Turner-Inskip in Bristol. Macnamara started her legal career at Simmons in 2003; whereas Turner-Inskip began at Bond Pearce (now Womble Bond Dickinson), before joining Simmons in 2012.

They are joined by information, communications and tech partner George Morris and corporate partner Patrick Boyd in London, with employment partner Olly Jones splitting his time between the firm’s Bristol office and the Capital. Both Morris and Boyd trained as associates with Simmons.

Jones was previously a senior associate at Allen & Overy and left the magic circle in 2013 to join Travers Smith. He entered Simmons in 2015 after serving as senior employment legal counsel at HSBC.

Outside of the UK, dispute resolution lawyer Amanda Lees is one of two new partners in the Singapore office. Two other partners have been made up in Paris and Munich.

This month, Simmons has opened in Dublin with former Mason Hayes & Curran head Fionan Breathnach leading the new office. Investment funds and asset management partners Niamh Ryan and Elaine Keane, who were formally at A&L Goodbody, join him, with hopes for the office to grow to ten partners over the next three years.

Last year, women made up just a quarter of Simmons’ 12-strong partnership promotions.

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Ogier has advised on the purchase of The Peninsula Hotel by leading hotel group Kings Mill Hotel Ltd. The firm’s Guernsey corporate and property teams advised on the purchase by the group that already owns the Fleur de Jardin and Les Douvres hotels.

The Peninsula is Guernsey’s second-largest hotel and was built in the 1990s. New owner Ian Walker praised Ogier’s work on the acquisition, saying “the service was second to none and very pragmatic”.

Partner Martyn Baudains led the Guernsey property law team, and Group Partner Craig Cordle led the corporate law team including senior associate Michelle Watson Bunn.

Advocate Baudains said: “We were pleased to advise on a major commercial property acquisition by one of the leading players in the industry – our property team continues to grow as we expect the positive trends that we saw in 2017 to continue throughout this year.”

Commenting on the acquisition, Craig said: “Our cross service-line teams have earned a strong reputation for local M&A activity, which reflects the strength that we as a firm can bring to complex matters that span a range of legal disciplines.”

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Ogier has advised Domestic & General, a leading specialist provider of appliance care services for domestic appliances and consumer electronic products, in relation to a multi-million pound note offering and financing.

The firm advised on all Jersey law aspects of the note issuance by D&G subsidiary Galaxy Bidco Limited and a related financing.

Partner Raulin Amy led the Ogier team including senior associates Oliver Richardson and Anna Cochrane, associate Tiffany Ager and trainee solicitor Jamie Colquhoun.

Raulin said: “This was a complicated transaction involving seven Jersey subsidiaries, that required a cross-disciplinary team approach.”

The team worked alongside lead counsel Latham & Watkins on the transaction.

Freshfields and Reed Smith acted for the other parties to the transaction.

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Ogier has launched a new range of legal services in Insurance and Private Wealth into the Luxembourg market, led by Eva Gyori-Toursel who has joined Ogier as Counsel.

Under Eva, Ogier’s Luxembourg office will expand its established investment funds, corporate and finance services.

Providing independent legal and regulatory insurance expertise in Luxembourg, Ogier’s new offering includes insurance set-up and contracts, portfolio assignments, regulatory assessments and passporting of activities. The new Private Wealth offering focuses on wealth and estate planning, matrimonial regimes, successions and relocation.

As the only offshore law firm in Luxembourg and with offices in the Caribbean, Channel Islands and Hong Kong, Ogier co-ordinates multi-jurisdictional advice.

The firm was recently named Chambers Europe’s Offshore Law Firm of the Year for the second time in three years, with the citation recognising that “Ogier stands out for its excellent capabilities in cross-border matters”.

Ogier’s Luxembourg practice partner, Francois Pfister, said: “We are delighted that Eva has joined the team. She is a high profile and well recognised insurance legal and regulatory expert. Eva will undoubtedly be the cornerstone of the development of our new service lines in Luxembourg as we continue to expand and grow our client offering.”

Partner Sally Edwards, the Global Head of Ogier’s Private Client team, added: “Our private client team continues to grow, with Eva’s arrival following lateral partner hires in Jersey and Guernsey and the recruitment of Wisdom Hon in Hong Kong in the last 12 months, all in response to continued growth in instructions and activity.

“The addition of the Luxembourg capacity is a clear differentiator, and we are pleased to welcome Eva to our international team.”

Eva is an international lawyer whose career began in the reinsurance sector at General & Cologne Re. Most recently she was Head of Legal at a Luxembourg insurance and banking group where she handled legal, regulatory, tax and wealth structuring issues for the group’s subsidiary company which distributes life insurance solutions in 11 jurisdictions.

She is a regular speaker at conferences and currently teaches “cross border insurance and wealth structuring” at ESCP Europe business school, and the author of several publications focusing on European insurance and international estate planning.

A French national, Eva speaks and writes many languages including English, French, Spanish and German.

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Metro Bank has added five new firms to its commercial panel, including CMS Cameron McKenna Nabarro Olswang and Eversheds Sutherland.

They have been joined by DLA Piper, Browne Jacobson and Linklaters, which acts as Metro Bank’s main corporate adviser.

Incumbents Blake Morgan, Gowling WLG and Addleshaw Goddard keep their places, while former employment firm Travers Smith has lost its place.

CMS and Eversheds were also the only two firms that made it onto Metro Bank’s separate lending and securities panel, which was completed at the start of the year.

Both panels have increased in size in the latest review, with the lending roster growing from nine to 18. The growth reflects the bank’s expansion nationally.

Linklaters has served as the bank’s main corporate adviser since representing it on its £1.6bn London Stock Exchange listing and £400m equity capital deal with RBC Europe.

The processes were run by Metro Bank general counsel Sally-Ann James, who joined as sole counsel in 2012 after joining from Co-operative Financial Services.

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Norton Rose Fulbright has postponed its partner promotions until January 2019 after overhauling its financial reporting to fit an American-style calendar year-end, The Lawyer can reveal.

The firm decided to make this change following the merger with Chadbourne & Parke last year, and it is expected to impact the financial reporting for the current 2017/18 financial year.

This is the first big internal change for the firm since the merger went live on 30 June 2017, following a number of delays.

The Lawyer understands that no formal announcement about the postponing of partner promotions has been made. With the season for partnership promotions in full swing, a number of associates and senior associates at Norton Rose were not previously aware of the change.

An inside source stated that though they were “surprised” to find out that the next partner promotion round will be a year and a half from the last one, they didn’t see it as “too big of a deal as long as associates are committed enough to stick around and find out if they’ll make partnership”.

Another source stated that as promotions represent a structural change and are not directly linked to the operation of the financial year, they didn’t see why the London office would need to “delay the promotions, unless there is an important, centralised reason”. They added that they were nonetheless unaware of any reason being supplied.

The global firm has offices in over 50 cities worldwide, covering twelve countries in Europe, including Frankfurt, Paris and Warsaw. It launched its latest European office in Luxembourg in May 2017, following its announcement to merge with New York-based firm Chadbourne & Parke at the beginning of the year.

Last year, Norton Rose embarked on a global promotions sweep, making up 45 partners worldwide. The Australia, Canada and US promotions took effect at the beginning of the calendar year on 1 January 2017, whereas those in Europe, the Middle East and Asia stuck to the April-year end.

According to The Lawyer UK 200 2017, the firm has 3,166 qualified lawyers and 1,177 partners, of whom 876 are thought to be full equity.

Osborne Clarke switched to a December financial year-end in 2012, in order to further integrate its Italian, German and Spanish bases. This followed a series of European mergers, which the firm hoped would transform it into a standalone European firm.

This April, flurry of firms have announced their partnership promotions. CMS made 47 lawyers to partner, and Clifford Chance made up 26 partners, with seven in London alone.

Norton Rose Fulbright confirmed that the EMEA promotions cycle has been moved to align with the financial year.

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