By Catrin Griffiths
Kirkland & Ellis is to open in Shanghai in November to create its second Asia office.
Corporate partner XY Li, formerly of Jun He Law Offices in Beijing and King & Wood, will relocate from Hong Kong to lead the launch. He will be joined by fellow corporate partner Chuan Li.
The move is a significant one for the Chicago-headquartered firm, which has a conservative approach to international expansion.
Its Hong Kong office was opened three years ago on the back of its private equity business. Since then the firm has acted on Asia investments for a raft of private equity houses, including Bain Capital, Oaktree Capital, Golden Gate Capital, GTCR, Silver Lake Partners and Sun Capital.
Kirkland's move will be seen in its wider context of increasing opportunities for foreign investors into China, with several recent launches of renminbi (RMB) demoninated funds. Earlier this year Blackstone formed its first RMB regional private equity fund in Shanghai.
Hong Kong private equity partner David Patrick Eich told The Lawyer: "China is a complex place in which to do a deal. Boots on the ground are critical.
"It's pretty simple: we follow our clients, they're investing heavily in China, and Shanghai is the financial capital of China."
Friday, March 27, 2009
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Revealed: gloomy prospects fail to deter wannabe partners
By Kit Chellel, Julia Berris, Katy Dowell
Junior lawyers are increasingly setting their sights on partnership despite diminishing prospects for promotion at the UK's largest firms.
The second YouGov legal sector employee engagement survey shows that more fee-earners than last year want to become partners and believe they have a realistic chance of doing so.
However, the increased ambition of junior lawyers is not matched by the opportunities available to them. Promotions at the top 30 firms in the country fell by an average of 30 per cent in 2009, according to research by The Lawyer.
The employee engagement survey was launched last year to measure commitment, motivation and career development among law firm employees. Employee engagement is seen as a better measure than job satisfaction because it is linked to productivity and profitability.
In 2008 just 46 per cent of fee-earners and professional support lawyers said their goal was to become a partner. That figure rose to 56 per cent this year.
CMS Cameron McKenna managing partner Duncan Weston said junior lawyers should not underestimate the challenge of becoming a partner. "Anyone who thinks that becoming a partner is like it was 20 years ago is misguided," he stressed. "It's getting tougher and tougher."
Yet the survey found that more lawyers thought partnership was achievable at their firm, with 48 per cent giving a positive response compared with 40 per cent in 2008.
Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) executive member Kevin Poulter said: "I'm not surprised people still view partnership as the logical career path, but this could change in the coming years.
"As opportunities to become a partner are reduced, junior lawyers will have to seek alternatives."
The proportion of lawyers who thought their firm offered good alternatives to partnership did rise during the year, from 28 per cent to 38 per cent.
YouGov's survey is the first to take into account all law firm employees. Last year the study exposed a gulf between fee-earners and business services staff in key measures of engagement - motivation, commitment, pride and willingness to recommend the firm to others.
The 2009 survey, comprising responses from 500 fee-earners and 600 business services staff, found that this gap had narrowed. The engagement score for support staff rose from 49 per cent to 54 per cent, although it remained some way behind that of fee-earners, which rose by one percentage point to 63 per cent.
Field Fisher Waterhouse head of HR James Collinge said: "These figures are interesting as they're not what you'd expect given what most law firms have been through in the past 12 months."
By far the most engaged law firm employees in 2009 were partners with a score of 84 per cent, an increase of seven percentage points on the previous year. Trainees and new associates also scored highly - 77 and 76 per cent respectively.
The lowest rating was for knowledge management and IT staff, who recorded 36 per cent engagement, down eight percentage points on last year.
The 2009 survey also revealed that the appetite for secondments had fallen in 2009, despite a growing number of law firms encouraging staff to move overseas or join clients. These opportunities are often presented as a positive step towards gaining partnership.
Both client and international secondments were less popular, with 78 and 75 per cent of respondents respectively seeing them as a positive experience, compared with 82 and 85 per cent last year.
Hammonds managing partner Peter Crossley said: "Some lawyers have found that, after returning from an international secondment, their career has gone sideways perhaps, but the secondment hasn't necessarily advanced their career."
YouGov survey finds greater proportion of junior lawyers coveting partnership in year that promotions nosedive
The second YouGov legal sector employee engagement survey shows that more fee-earners than last year want to become partners and believe they have a realistic chance of doing so.
However, the increased ambition of junior lawyers is not matched by the opportunities available to them. Promotions at the top 30 firms in the country fell by an average of 30 per cent in 2009, according to research by The Lawyer.
The employee engagement survey was launched last year to measure commitment, motivation and career development among law firm employees. Employee engagement is seen as a better measure than job satisfaction because it is linked to productivity and profitability.
In 2008 just 46 per cent of fee-earners and professional support lawyers said their goal was to become a partner. That figure rose to 56 per cent this year.
CMS Cameron McKenna managing partner Duncan Weston said junior lawyers should not underestimate the challenge of becoming a partner. "Anyone who thinks that becoming a partner is like it was 20 years ago is misguided," he stressed. "It's getting tougher and tougher."
Yet the survey found that more lawyers thought partnership was achievable at their firm, with 48 per cent giving a positive response compared with 40 per cent in 2008.
Junior Lawyers Division (JLD) executive member Kevin Poulter said: "I'm not surprised people still view partnership as the logical career path, but this could change in the coming years.
"As opportunities to become a partner are reduced, junior lawyers will have to seek alternatives."
The proportion of lawyers who thought their firm offered good alternatives to partnership did rise during the year, from 28 per cent to 38 per cent.
YouGov's survey is the first to take into account all law firm employees. Last year the study exposed a gulf between fee-earners and business services staff in key measures of engagement - motivation, commitment, pride and willingness to recommend the firm to others.
The 2009 survey, comprising responses from 500 fee-earners and 600 business services staff, found that this gap had narrowed. The engagement score for support staff rose from 49 per cent to 54 per cent, although it remained some way behind that of fee-earners, which rose by one percentage point to 63 per cent.
Field Fisher Waterhouse head of HR James Collinge said: "These figures are interesting as they're not what you'd expect given what most law firms have been through in the past 12 months."
By far the most engaged law firm employees in 2009 were partners with a score of 84 per cent, an increase of seven percentage points on the previous year. Trainees and new associates also scored highly - 77 and 76 per cent respectively.
The lowest rating was for knowledge management and IT staff, who recorded 36 per cent engagement, down eight percentage points on last year.
The 2009 survey also revealed that the appetite for secondments had fallen in 2009, despite a growing number of law firms encouraging staff to move overseas or join clients. These opportunities are often presented as a positive step towards gaining partnership.
Both client and international secondments were less popular, with 78 and 75 per cent of respondents respectively seeing them as a positive experience, compared with 82 and 85 per cent last year.
Hammonds managing partner Peter Crossley said: "Some lawyers have found that, after returning from an international secondment, their career has gone sideways perhaps, but the secondment hasn't necessarily advanced their career."
Monday, March 16, 2009
SRA accedes to Law Society demands with London launch
By Katy Dowel
Speaking exclusively to The Lawyer Plant conceded that “many City firms have issues” with the SRA, adding: “It’s important that the SRA should soon establish a presence in London.”
The regulator is currently based in Redditch, Worcestershire.
The watchdog is under pressure to address its efficacy to regulate City firms after a Law Society-commissioned report slammed the regulator for its failure to connect with commercial firms.
The Smedley Review warned the SRA that it must reform how it regulates or risk losing the confidence of the profession. It also criticised the regulator for not having a London presence (The Lawyer, 30 March).
Plant said: “One of our priorities is to establish an appropriate regulatory regime with commercial firms, and we’ll need to recruit people who are familiar with the operations of City firms.”
The SRA board will come into being in January 2010
The incoming chair of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) board Charles Plant has vowed to heal rifts between the regulator and the City by opening a London office.
Charles Plant
The regulator is currently based in Redditch, Worcestershire.
The watchdog is under pressure to address its efficacy to regulate City firms after a Law Society-commissioned report slammed the regulator for its failure to connect with commercial firms.
The Smedley Review warned the SRA that it must reform how it regulates or risk losing the confidence of the profession. It also criticised the regulator for not having a London presence (The Lawyer, 30 March).
Plant said: “One of our priorities is to establish an appropriate regulatory regime with commercial firms, and we’ll need to recruit people who are familiar with the operations of City firms.”
The SRA board will come into being in January 2010
Monday, March 9, 2009
On Law Firm Leadership and Accountability
Posted by Dimitra Kessenides
By Edwin Reeser
BigLaw has witnessed significant shortfalls in budgeted net operating income for many firms. This has led to stagnant or reduced distributable income to partners in 2007, unprecedented cost cutting and further reduced distributable income in 2008, and, in 2009, attorney and staff dismissals, revoked job offers, deferred start dates for new associates, cancelled summer programs,and reconfigured partner positions. And it doesn't end there. Further widespread reductions in distributable income as compared to the initial budgets presented to partners for 2009 should be anticipated.
Is anybody keeping copies of annual budget and forecast income memos, taking notes, and comparing management's promises to actual results?
There have been rousing statements by law firm leaders associated with the initiatives adopted and strategic plans implemented these past three years, but whatever the firm or structure of decision, the "buy in" of hard working, revenue producing partners is premised on two fundamental expectations.
The first expectation: Implementation of initiatives and plans—including many painful ones, such as partner de-equitizations and associate/staff layoffs--would lead to stabilized or higher income. Budgets associated with the plans and initiatives presented by management to partners were realistically achievable in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
The second expectation: Eventually, there must be accountability of leadership for the results delivered.
The first expectation has not transpired for many, maybe even most, big law firms. Given the continuing failure to satisfy the first expectation, the partners should demand action with respect to the second expectation. Confidence in the viability of business plans and budgets for 2010 rests on accountability of the individuals who are responsible for achieving those plans and meeting the budgets. The firms that do not redirect a sharp downward direction in performance, as contrasted with consistently overstated and unrealized targets for budgeting, are going to wind up exactly where they are headed. Oblivion.
The challenge to leaders, and to the lawyers they lead, starts this October. That's when: 1) projections for 2009 results will become accurate; 2) banks reset loan line amounts and conditions for 2010; 3) calls for capital are made; 4) partner compensation for 2010 is set; and 5) greater cost cutting may be proposed. How can the leaders rally support for this investment?
In a word, accountability. Firm leaders must demonstrate their own confidence in their budgets and business plans by holding themselves directly accountable for the outcomes.
The partners, including leaders, should respectfully require ALL persons in positions of leadership at the firm, as a group, to proportionally reduce their compensation in 2009, and again in 2010, by enough to bring all other capital partners to projected partner compensation levels announced at the end of 2008/beginning of 2009, should operating performance not be sufficient to reach those income levels, up to a maximum reduction of 20 percent of compensation for Leadership Partners. A lesser percentage doesn't have enough incentive, and more seems too great a disincentive to good leaders to step up. Build in incentives for superior performance if necessary....but survival of your firm should be enough for true leaders.
It is time for the "talk" to take a back seat to the "walk" that will instill confidence in Leadership Partners who are tasked to look after and promote the best interests of their firm. Those "leaders" who are unwilling to do so can resign and be replaced with persons who take the responsibility of leadership seriously. Anything less is not credible, and may lead to the accelerated loss of partners whose work and contribution to the firm are superb, but who are increasingly undercompensated. Partners must rally together to protect the institution of the firm and its culture with simple steps that demonstrate character, resolve, courage, and competence as managers. If Leadership Partners cannot, or will not, it tells all of partners something they are better off knowing now, and not later: Whether the leadership of the firm exists to promote the betterment of the firm and the partners, or whether the firm and partners exist to promote the betterment of the Leadership Partners. The process will deliver a budget that will finally confront reality, the first step in developing a business plan that works, and a budget everyone can believe in!
The partners of firms are not getting performance which as shareholders they deserve, and have been promised. Leadership Partners, it is time to lead your people, by walking behind them. This may be the last chance for leaders in many firms to make a right decision.
Edwin B. Reeser is a business lawyer in Pasadena specializing in structuring, negotiating, and documenting complex real estate and business transactions for international and domestic corporations and individuals. He has served on the executive committees and as office managing partner of law firms ranging in size from 25 to over 700 lawyers.
By Edwin Reeser
BigLaw has witnessed significant shortfalls in budgeted net operating income for many firms. This has led to stagnant or reduced distributable income to partners in 2007, unprecedented cost cutting and further reduced distributable income in 2008, and, in 2009, attorney and staff dismissals, revoked job offers, deferred start dates for new associates, cancelled summer programs,and reconfigured partner positions. And it doesn't end there. Further widespread reductions in distributable income as compared to the initial budgets presented to partners for 2009 should be anticipated.
Is anybody keeping copies of annual budget and forecast income memos, taking notes, and comparing management's promises to actual results?
There have been rousing statements by law firm leaders associated with the initiatives adopted and strategic plans implemented these past three years, but whatever the firm or structure of decision, the "buy in" of hard working, revenue producing partners is premised on two fundamental expectations.
The first expectation: Implementation of initiatives and plans—including many painful ones, such as partner de-equitizations and associate/staff layoffs--would lead to stabilized or higher income. Budgets associated with the plans and initiatives presented by management to partners were realistically achievable in 2007, 2008 and 2009.
The second expectation: Eventually, there must be accountability of leadership for the results delivered.
The first expectation has not transpired for many, maybe even most, big law firms. Given the continuing failure to satisfy the first expectation, the partners should demand action with respect to the second expectation. Confidence in the viability of business plans and budgets for 2010 rests on accountability of the individuals who are responsible for achieving those plans and meeting the budgets. The firms that do not redirect a sharp downward direction in performance, as contrasted with consistently overstated and unrealized targets for budgeting, are going to wind up exactly where they are headed. Oblivion.
The challenge to leaders, and to the lawyers they lead, starts this October. That's when: 1) projections for 2009 results will become accurate; 2) banks reset loan line amounts and conditions for 2010; 3) calls for capital are made; 4) partner compensation for 2010 is set; and 5) greater cost cutting may be proposed. How can the leaders rally support for this investment?
In a word, accountability. Firm leaders must demonstrate their own confidence in their budgets and business plans by holding themselves directly accountable for the outcomes.
The partners, including leaders, should respectfully require ALL persons in positions of leadership at the firm, as a group, to proportionally reduce their compensation in 2009, and again in 2010, by enough to bring all other capital partners to projected partner compensation levels announced at the end of 2008/beginning of 2009, should operating performance not be sufficient to reach those income levels, up to a maximum reduction of 20 percent of compensation for Leadership Partners. A lesser percentage doesn't have enough incentive, and more seems too great a disincentive to good leaders to step up. Build in incentives for superior performance if necessary....but survival of your firm should be enough for true leaders.
It is time for the "talk" to take a back seat to the "walk" that will instill confidence in Leadership Partners who are tasked to look after and promote the best interests of their firm. Those "leaders" who are unwilling to do so can resign and be replaced with persons who take the responsibility of leadership seriously. Anything less is not credible, and may lead to the accelerated loss of partners whose work and contribution to the firm are superb, but who are increasingly undercompensated. Partners must rally together to protect the institution of the firm and its culture with simple steps that demonstrate character, resolve, courage, and competence as managers. If Leadership Partners cannot, or will not, it tells all of partners something they are better off knowing now, and not later: Whether the leadership of the firm exists to promote the betterment of the firm and the partners, or whether the firm and partners exist to promote the betterment of the Leadership Partners. The process will deliver a budget that will finally confront reality, the first step in developing a business plan that works, and a budget everyone can believe in!
The partners of firms are not getting performance which as shareholders they deserve, and have been promised. Leadership Partners, it is time to lead your people, by walking behind them. This may be the last chance for leaders in many firms to make a right decision.
Edwin B. Reeser is a business lawyer in Pasadena specializing in structuring, negotiating, and documenting complex real estate and business transactions for international and domestic corporations and individuals. He has served on the executive committees and as office managing partner of law firms ranging in size from 25 to over 700 lawyers.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
How a Personal Injury Claim Works
The process of a personal injury claim starts when you hire a lawyer, and ends with the conclusion of your personal injury case, whether because a settlement has been reached or because the trial has concluded and judgment has been given.
Your attorney will file papers in court (a summons and a complaint) and pay the appropriate filing fee. A copy of these papers has to be served personally on the individual you intend to sue, or if you're suing a corporation, an appropriate representative of that corporation.
Consulting with A Lawyer
When you consult with a personal injury lawyer they will ask you questions about the accident and take a number of details from you, including asking you for a medical authority so that your lawyer can request your medical records. It is common for personal injury lawyers to treat your case as though it is going to trial. This is to ensure that your attorney can put forward the most advantageous case on your behalf, even if it is simply a matter of negotiating the settlement figure. In the event that your case remains contentious and goes to trial, your attorney will be in a strong position if the case has been handled properly from the outset.Filing a Personal Injury Claim
Personal injury claims must be brought within a specific period of time after the accident, after which they become 'statute barred' and will not succeed. The length of this strict time limit varies from state to state, but is shorter than in most other types of cases and is usually around 3 years. It is very important that you see an attorney soon after your accident, rather than waiting until just before the expiration of the statute of limitations. If there is insufficient time left before the statute of limitations expires, an attorney may not consider that they will be able to undertake the necessary pre-filing work in time and refuse to take your case. It is also worth remembering that it is better to see a lawyer while events are fresh in your mind, rather than trying to recall what happened months or years later.Your attorney will file papers in court (a summons and a complaint) and pay the appropriate filing fee. A copy of these papers has to be served personally on the individual you intend to sue, or if you're suing a corporation, an appropriate representative of that corporation.
Discovery
Once the defendant has been made aware of the fact that they are being sued, both parties in the case begin a process of requesting documents and information from each other ('discovery.') These may include lists of questions ('interrogatories'), medical records, doctors' reports and 'depositions', which is when an attorney questions a witness under oath. As the injured party, a doctor acting for the defendant may examine you. The discovery process can take months, or even years, depending on the nature of your case and the complexities relating to it.Negotiating a Settlement
It is during this period that each side weighs up its potential liability in relation to the case. If the defendant accepts liability for the claim it will simply be a matter of negotiating until a mutually acceptable figure can be reached. If the case has not been settled at the conclusion of discovery, it will proceed to trial.Proceeding To Trial
The court will give directions as to any issues each party should attend to before the trial, e.g. serving documents. Each party can request trial by jury, but must pay the appropriate fee with the jury demand. Once the trial starts, the court will hear evidence from live witnesses and will also consider written documentation. After the trial concludes, judgment will be given. If the claimant has been successful, but the defendant has not paid, the claimant may take steps to enforce the judgment.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)