The Lex 100: Archives

Irwin Mitchell has hiked profit 76% to £21.3m in a ninth consecutive year of growth that has also seen 9% added to its top line.

The pace-setting results compare with last year’s slight fall in profit to £12.1m and modest 3% increase in turnover to £241.8m, meaning the firm has added £21.4m to its top line to hit £263.2m in 2018/19.

Andrew Tucker (pictured), chief executive of Irwin Mitchell, attributes the firm’s strong financial performance to client engagement. [Clients] tell us our service is consistently good and distinctive. We have an extensive programme to enable us to really understand what our clients value which helps us deliver our services more effectively.’

Tucker said the firm is investing in its people with initiatives such as flexible working patterns and mental health training. ‘These and other initiatives are driving our growth in revenue and profit,’ he said.

During the financial year the firm added non-lawyer directors from IT, HR, marketing and operations to the executive board and promoted eight people to the partnership. The firm boasts a better gender balance than many, with 43% of Irwin Mitchell’s partnership now female.

The firm, which became an alternative business structure in 2012, also has a fast-growing Business Legal Services division which advises individuals, senior executives, growing businesses, sector leaders and overseas businesses in sectors including consumer business, education, manufacturing and technology.

Irwin Mitchell recently opened an office in Reading, growing its number of UK locations to 15, with the firm intending to invest in marketing and technology to grow further.

In May it was reported that the firm fired at least a dozen partners across the business. At the time a spokesperson said that following a review of the business, a small number of partners would be leaving the firm but did not confirm specific numbers.

Irwin Mitchell’s group companies include Ascent, a specialist law firm and financial services business focusing on debt recovery for banks and SMEs as well as IM Asset Management which provides financial planning and investment advice and has over £700m in funds under its management.

The rundown of this week’s top news stories.

1. Stock markets drop on new Trump China traffic [via BBC News]
2. Emma Watson launches workplace harassment legal advice line [via The Guardian]
3. Tesco to cut 4,500 jobs across 153 Metro stores [via BBC News]
4. Capital One data breach: Arrest after details of 106m people stolen [via BBC News
5. Barclays, RBS and other banks face £1bn forex rigging lawsuit [via The Guardian]
6. Just Eat agrees to combine with Takeaway.com in £8.2bn deal [via BBC News]
7. Mike Ashley wins race to buy Jack Wills [BBC News]
8. Boohoo buys Karen Millen and Coast for £18m [via BBC News]
9. Corporate raider speaks out on targeting UK firms [via BBC News]
10. HSF becomes latest Western firm to gain Chinese law capability through new Shanghai alliance
11. Dealwatch: US and UK outfits line up on Jack Wills sale, BT fleet group buy-out and Majestic Wine

Student survey Universum has rated The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) as the number one employer for law students in the UK.

Universum surveyed 39,900 UK students across 97 universities. The results were gathered between September 2018 – February 2019 and 3,000 of the total respondents were law students.

The CPS earned five Lex 100 Winner medals in the 2018/19 survey for living up to expectations, work/life balance, confidence in being kept on, approachability and inclusivity. Lex 100 survey respondents praised their approachable colleagues and the inclusive culture: ‘everyone is approachable and willing to help, advise and support’. The fact that ‘there is flexibility within the CPS’, with recruits able to ‘choose which firm to spend the secondment period’ and occasionally ‘work from home’ also pleased the solicitors-in-training.

The CPS beat all five Magic Circle firms to claim the top spot. Clifford Chance, Slaughter and May and Allen & Overy were ranked fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, while Linklaters came seventh. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer did not make the top ten.

The Lex 100 2019/20 survey will be published in print and online on 25 September 2019. Sign up to our newsletter to be alerted when the results go live.

Ten-time Lex 100 Winner Mills & Reeve has seen another solid year of growth as revenue grew by 4.3%.

The firm announced a record turnover of £110.9 million this year, and is rewarding all full-time employees who have been with the firm for at least a year a £1,500 bonus.

The strong financial results top a successful year of accolades for Mills & Reeve, which included two awards for Law Firm of the Year.

The firm also launched a new website which unveiled a new visual brand identity, the aim of which is to showcase the firm’s collaborative and inclusive culture, as well as its cross-sector expertise.  

Managing partner Claire Clarke said: ‘It’s been another great year for Mills & Reeve and we are delighted that the hard work of everyone who works at the firm has been formally recognised through a number of major award wins and accolades.

‘The growth of the firm would not be possible without the hard work of our people in delivering outstanding service to our clients. We are also proud that our people and our culture remain front and centre of everything we do and are key to our success.’

Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson, RPC, Mayer Brown and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner were among the firms to enjoy a pre-summer deal rush this week as Sports Direct bought Jack Wills and private equity player Aurelius acquired BT’s fleet business.

Fried Frank advised high street clothing retailer Jack Wills on the buy-out of its UK businesses with a team led by restructuring and insolvency partner Ashley Katz and including corporate partner Dan Oates, finance partner Neil Caddy, real estate partner Patrick Williams and restructuring and insolvency partner Gary Kaplan.

The deal was the result of a restructuring and pre-packaged administration after Jack Wills fell into administration on Monday (August 5) and a team of KPMG administrators led by partners Will Wright and Chris Pole was appointed.

The £12.75m acquisition by Sports Direct includes acquiring stock, a distribution centre and 100 stores across the UK and Ireland. Owner Mike Ashley agreed to the takeover after winning the bid against Edinburgh Woollen Mill Group owner Philip Day. Last year House of Fraser was acquired in a similar pre-packaged administration deal by Sports Direct for £90m when it out-bid Philip Day.

Sports Direct is a long-standing client of RPC which advised on the takeover.

A Mayer Brown team led by Perry Yam advised Aurelius Equity Opportunities, the equity investment entity of Aurelius Group, on the acquisition of commercial fleet management operator BT Fleet Solutions from BT Group Plc.

Mayer Brown and Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner worked on the transitional arrangements which will ensure that the carve-out from BT is successful, as well as the long-term outsourcing agreement between BT Group and BT Fleet Solutions. BT Fleet Solutions will continue to manage BT’s vehicle fleet nationally after the acquisition.

Co-leader of the global corporate & securities practice and private equity partner Perry Yam told Legal Business, ‘It’s an exciting opportunity for Auerelius to take on a non-core asset from BT and to retain BT as a customer.’

The BCLP team led by BT relationship partner Marcus Pearl and M&A partner Ben Lee advised BT Group.

Pearl, told Legal Business: ‘BT is seeking to focus more and more on investing in the best fixed and mobile networks in the UK and therefore the divestment of this non-core part of BT Group is very much part of its ongoing commitment to the core of its strategy.’

BCLP is a prominent member of BT’s panel and advises both BT and Openreach on strategic M&A, outsourcing, regulatory investigations and litigation and competition matters.

Meanwhile Allen & Overy and Hogan Lovells advised as Majestic Wine Plc agreed to sell its retail and commercial businesses to investment manager Fortress Investment Group.

The deal will see Fortress, which is owned by SoftBank, pay £95m for the businesses, which will continue to trade under the Majestic name. The deal is subject to European Commission antitrust clearance and Majestic shareholder approval. It is part of Majestic’s plan to focus on driving growth in its Naked Wines business.

The A&O team was led by corporate M&A partner Seth Jones with partners Alasdair Balfour and Nigel Parker advising on antitrust and commercial matters respectively. Tom Whelan, Hogan Lovells’ global head of private equity, advised Fortress on the deal.

Corporate partner Seth Jones told Legal Business ‘It’s a sector that is seeing rapidly changing consumer behaviour which is driving some of the deal activity we are seeing. 2019 has also seen an increase in private equity capital being deployed both in private M&A but also public takeovers. We’ve really seen private equity go after UK listed companies and deploy the capital that they’ve raised over the last few years and that’s really the stand-out trend for the first half of the year in the UK.’

Finally, Shoomiths is advising Malvern Group administrators KPMG following the announcement of the Group’s collapse last week (July 31). The corporate restructuring and advisory team is led by partner Sarah Teal and headed up nationally by James Keates. Malvern Group owns holiday brands Late Rooms and Super Break.

Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) has made what its senior partner James Palmer described as a ‘game changer’ for its Chinese practice by signing a joint operation agreement with 20-lawyer Shanghai firm Kewei.

The move announced today (7 August) makes HSF the sixth Western firm to acquire PRC law capability in the Shanghai Free Trade Zone (FTZ), as part of the scheme launched by the Chinese government in 2013 in a bid to boost foreign investment.

While HSF’s 35-strong China operation remains barred from practising local law, the deal will allow its Shanghai practice to team up with Kewei’s PRC-qualified lawyers on client matters through a contractual arrangement known as HSF Kewei.

Palmer told Legal Business: ‘This may look just like another decision but it’s strategically key: clients are looking for integrated capability and if you can deliver it, as we now can, that’s a game changer for us in terms of offering advice in China.’

The deal took over a year of negotiations and planning before receiving the approval of Shanghai’s Bureau of Justice. Palmer said HSF picked Kewei because the firm, launched in 1995, had been growing with a view to tying up with an international player in recent years.

He said: ‘It was not a firm we would have worked with five years ago, but it developed a strategy to meet international quality standards with a view to entering an international partnership like this. It wants to be the Shanghai end of global quality work.’

As part of the deal, Kewei has also absorbed HSF’s alternative legal services hub, set up in Shanghai in summer 2016, into its own managed services business.

The initial focus of the joint operation will be on cross-border M&A, finance, disputes, competition, capital markets and financial services regulatory. Palmer noted the firm had not set any targets for headcount growth but its development would be influenced by ‘client response and the quality of people we can find’.

Despite being the only way around the ban on local law for foreign counsel in mainland China, just five firms have preceded HSF in signing similar partnerships in the six years since the launch of the FTZ.

The first was Baker McKenzie, which in April 2015 signed an association with FenXun Partners, followed by HFW’s deal with Wintell & Co in April 2016; Hogan Lovells’ alliance with Fujian Fidelity Law Firm in October 2016; and Ashurst’s tie-up with Guantao in January 2018.

Completing the group is Linklaters which, after holding talks with several firms for years, resolved to spin off some of its team to launch 30-lawyer practice Zhao Sheng and then set up a joint operation with it, which received the green light in May last year.

Palmer mentioned the current challenging economic climate in China amid trade wars with the US and the difficulties in finding a partner firm of the right quality as some of the challenges in the route to such partnerships for Western firms.

He added: ‘We take a long-term view: we are looking at the next 10 to 20 years, and international trade with China is going to increase massively. So we were not worried to enter [this association] in this period.’

The Shanghai launch comes after HSF posted the second consecutive year of sharp uptick in partner profits amid slower revenue growth. The firm’s top line rose 4% to £966m while profit per equity partner surged 11% to £949,000.

Author: Legal Business

CMS has raised its newly-qualified (NQ) salary to £73,000 plus bonuses. Qualifiers will have the ability to earn a bonus of up to 20% on top of their salary, based on their performance and ‘contribution to the firm’.

The salary for regionally-based NQs at CMS will remain at £50,000 in Bristol and £41,000 in Sheffield. Trainee salaries will also remain the same: First year London trainees receive £43,000, rising to £48,000 in their second year.

Clifford Chance has also confirmed a pay increase. Effective from 1 September 2019, trainee solicitors at the Magic Circle firm will now receive £48,000 in their first year and £54,000 in year two; an increase of 3%. The firm now pays the highest trainee salary compared to its Magic Circle counterparts, closely followed by Linklaters, which offers a first year salary of £47,000. The move comes after Clifford Chance increased its NQ remuneration package to £100,000 including bonuses just two months ago.

Compare what you will earn as a trainee and newly-qualified solicitor here.

The rundown of this week’s top news stories.

1. Pound falls lower on no-deal Brexit prospect [via BBC News]

2. Bank of England cuts UK growth forecast [via BBC News]

3. Facebook bans ‘Saudi Arabia-linked propaganda accounts’ [via BBC News]

4. Barclays, RBS and other banks face £1bn forex rigging lawsuit [via The Guardian]

5. Harbour litigation funding launches first litigation training contract

6. Accelerate your CV with a virtual experience programme

7. UK challenger bank OakNorth launches training contract

8. SRA report reveals money laundering and #MeToo cases driving increases in workload

9. Taylor Vinters accelerates strategy to help world leading innovators and entrepreneurs

10. Labour has spent ‘£400k’ on legal advice over antisemitism crisis [via The Jewish Chronicle]

11. SQE regulator ponders pure multiple choice to help minority candidates [via The Law Society Gazette]