The buzz
* It’s the season for announcing the numbers of new partners and
for avid City law firm watchers there is all the thrill of seeing the trends
unfolding as the favoured individuals and their specialisms are released.
The fact that boutique firm Kemp Little, for example, is now
expanding the number of partners in its relatively new litigation practice
is very revealing of how the business is going. Then the fact that almost
two-thirds of Allen & Overy’s appointments were outside of
London points clearly to a change in the balance in power over the next
decade or so. Other firms which have made an exceptionally high numbers of
partner appointments in the Gulf are clearly setting out their stall for
that region. Yet behind all this is the knowledge that there is a crisis in
the partnership concept. So is the appointment of a large number of partners
actually a “good” or “bad” sign? Does more mean worse? Are they “real” (i.e.
equity) partners? Or something rather less than that? Or with the emergence
of the new “of counsel” role should we actually be more interested in the
overall make-up of the package of the human resources within a firm rather
than obsessing about partnership. Law firms are more complex than ever. And
partnership is not, any longer, the only fruit of success.
* Trainees and associates at Clifford Chance are in for a good weekend
(assuming they are allowed out of the office) following news that salaries
are jumping by around 15 per cent all round. One-year-qualified lawyers
will now take home £66,000 a year, up from a measly £60,000 before the
changes. Add in a slightly complicated bonus scheme that the firm insists is
not just based on how many hours you bill and the top performers can earn as
much as £79,000. First seat trainees, i.e. those straight out of law school
with no legal experience whatsoever, will now have £35,700 to play with. Of
course, regular readers will remember that CC are only just catching up with
rival Allen & Overy, which hiked it salaries by a startlingly similar 15
per cent late last year.
* Lord Grabiner, QC, opened The Times Law Awards the other week with a brief,
understated but nonetheless moving tribute to his old friend and colleague Chris
Carr, QC, who died of a heart attack on March 2. The Times has a full
obituary of the popular and brilliant commercial litigator - who had a
strong influence on the early legal career of Tony Blair - here.
* No one, lawyers included, is safe at Citigroup after the giant
banking group announced a mass
staff cull. Around 17,000 jobs are going worldwide including an
unspecified number from the bank’s 1,000-strong legal department. Charles
Prince, Citigroup chairman, said the restructuring would “eliminate
organisational clutter” – management speak for too many lawyers doing the
same job, we presume.
* A former New York University whiz kid who posed as a Turkish heir and
persuaded sophisticated investors to invest millions of dollars into a
nonexistent hedge fund has been jailed for three years. Hakan
Yalincak, 22, needs the time in prison to reflect and find his “moral
compass'' the judge said adding that “it would appear the majority of his
[Mr Yalincak’s] life was spent engaged in fraud”. His mother, Ayferafet
Yalincak, 52, was sentenced last month to two years in prison after pleading
guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud in connection with the scheme. The
elder Yalincak said in court papers that she had been “bent to the will” of
her brilliant son and played a limited role in the fraud.
* Barlow Lyde & Gilbert has promoted seven associates to its
partnership. Five in London, two in Hong Kong. All boys.
* Almost one out of every three British workers is unhappy at work,
according to research released today by City & Guilds, the education and
training organisation. The Water Cooler refuses to believe it. They're
telling us two out of three people are actually HAPPY at work? Who are these
poor, deluded schmucks? Hairdressers came top of the 1000-person survey,
followed by beauty therapists, childcare workers and plumbers. No surprises
that lawyers - oh, and you were wondering where the legal angle was! - are
almost bottom in job satisfaction.
* Anything we can do, the US can do bigger. Just hours after we brought you
news of Jim Beresford, the UK solicitor who made £16.8
million (or £45,892 per day) last year, an American litigator has caused
a stir by demanding fees of $11,000 an hour for a case he didn’t even
win. Willie Gary, who represented Florida tech firm SPS Technologies in a
trade secrets spat with telecoms giant Motorola, made the request after an
eight week hearing ended in a mistrial. A spokesman for Motorola branded the
request “outrageous".
* Hammonds is the latest firm to announce partner promotions with 11
associates hitting the big-time, down from 17 last year. Four for corporate,
two each for construction, employment and IP and one for property. Nine
boys, two girls.
* A treat for our student readers this week: BabyBarista,
the blog that has become cult reading around the Inns of Court, joins the
Times Online stable. So who is the anonymous pupil that has been causing
such a stir? The Water Cooler is sworn to secrecy (but is, as always,
willing to accept bribes).
* There's more. Our revamped student page sees a new pupillage diary by Alex
Aldridge and Chris
Milsom, two bright aspiring barristers, on the difficult and often
cutthroat journey to find a chambers to call home; career
advice from the College of Law; and informative articles from our
archive on how to find a pupillage or secure a training contract. Professor
Gary Slapper's weekly column, The
Law Explored, looks at a topical point of English law and explains it in
language that even an uneducated hick such as the Water Cooler can
understand. And of course there's the latest episodes in the ever-popular
adventures of the Anonymous
Assistant.
* Our readers are not particularly impressed with reports of Jim
Beresford's staggering earnings. "Disgusting but hardly suprising,"
says Edward from London. "Everbody knows lawyers are only here to use
the system to line their pockets." Helen from Liverpool chips in: "There
is no justification for these solicitors earning this type of money, and it
simply reinforces the very wrong public view that all solicitors are
unscrupulous and money grabbing. In fact, many solicitors who work for the
most needy in society do so for very little money - it would surprise people
to know that many solicitors are paid less than teachers, yet that side of
the story is never told, primarily because of people like this."
Desmond Taylor from Houston, Texas is far more blunt: "Welcome to
American lawyering. God help you."
Trading Places
* Alasdair George, a former senior lawyer at Sony BMG, has
resurfaced at niche media and entertainment advisory and investment group Edge.
George, who was in private practice before joining Sony in 1994, has
represented musicians including Blur, Happy Mondays and Spandau Ballet,
reports The Lawyer.
* DLA Piper has boosted its Islamic finance practice with three
hires in the Middle. Abdulaziz Al Bosaily is joining the firm's Dubai office
as a legal director from Clifford Chance along with two senior associates
Adil Hussain from Norton Rose and Saqib Awan from Saudi Arabian firm
Alliance.
Either this article was sent from the future or it's dated incorrectly.
H, Colchester, UK