Hammonds’ average profits per partner have slumped 18 per cent from £330,000 to £272,000. Turnover for 2003-2004 is down 1 per cent to £136m, which includes a £7.1m loss of revenue due to the departure of the entire commercial insurance team at the beginning of the last financial year. Senior partner Richard Burns said: “We […]
Berwin Leighton Paisner walked away with the prestigious, Law Firm of the Year award but the biggest cheer of the evening went to the winners of the Public Sector Team of the Year Award: the Hutton Inquiry team. It was that inquiry which had “ruined the summer” of the host for the evening, Tony Blair’s
Linklaters has been hit by another wave of partner defections to US firms after losing highly rated structured finance expert Richard Hughes to Sidley Austin Brown & Wood. At the same time, Latham & Watkins’ Paris office has taken a second capital markets partner from Linklaters in little over a year with the hire of
The quality of a journalist’s notetaking took centre stage in a court case yesterday that will determine whether a City firm can proceed with a £230m libel action against the Financial Times. Lawyers acting for Collins Stewart Tullett, which is suing the FT over an article published in August 2003, tried to persuade Tony Tassell
After three months of talks, Boston-based Ropes & Gray and New York intellectual property firm Fish & Neave have decided to join forces. The leaders of the two firms said Monday that they expect to merge around the end of the year. While 150-lawyer Fish & Neave will be absorbed into the 580-attorney Ropes &
John G. Rowland, who stepped down as Connecticut’s governor last summer in the face of impeachment, pleaded guilty today to a single federal charge of criminal conspiracy. In the plea agreement, Mr. Rowland admitted to defrauding the Internal Revenue Service by failing to report gratuities, and to defrauding the people of Connecticut by failing to
The 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a lower court’s decision to slash White & Case’s legal fee in a bankruptcy-related case from $5.5 million to $1.8 million, criticizing the firm’s fees as excessive. “White & Case has not persuaded us that it is entitled to so much more than the attorneys on
Both are former federal prosecutors, formidable in their courtrooms. They are also fast friends, contemporaries who rose through the legal ranks in New York City during the gritty 1970’s and the more prosperous 1980’s. And, for the next few months, Denise L. Cote, 58, and Barbara S. Jones, 57, United States District Court judges in
McDonalds agreed yesterday to pay $8.5 million to settle two lawsuits accusing it of misleading consumers about the levels of trans fat in its food. McDonald’s will pay $7 million to the American Heart Association to finance a campaign educating consumers about trans fats, which are considered major contributors to heart disease. In October 2003,
A U.S. judge on Thursday dismissed Russian oil company YUKOS’ U.S. bankruptcy case, saying the issue belonged in a forum that included the participation of the Russian government The ruling, which came just hours after a summit between President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bratislava, ends two months of legal maneuvering by YUKOS
