Foxy lawyers
All praise to Leicester City Football Club for its success in clinching the Premier League. But they also serve who only stand and draft the contracts. So a winner’s medal for local Leicester law firm Spearing Waite, the club’s legal adviser. Spearing Waite is nestling in what might be called the fourth tier of the UK Legal League (so says the Legal 500). But they have some super strikers in Jonathan Wheeler, rated “excellent”, and associate Phillippa O’Neill. What chance of their climbing the ranks and knocking the “magic circle” off its perch? Worth a 5,000-1 bet.
No couch potato
Couchmans has cemented its position as the top niche football lawyers with an unprecedented strike for Burnley FC in securing £6.5 million compensation from Liverpool for nurturing the youthful centre forward, Danny Ings, before he moved to Merseyside. It’s a classic tale of football today: massive sums; protracted negotiations between professionals, a tribunal and the Professional Football Compensation Committee. It’s a world away from a ball and a couple of white sticks but it’s the norm. With Couchmans in their attack, Burnley — already top of the Championship — are on their way into the Premiership.
Quo Vardy?
The law industry is niggled by charges that it’s unmeritocratic. So the setting up of Prime five years ago under the leadership of Allen & Overy’s David Morley was an important move towards a more socially diverse entry, to provide better access to work experience for the “less privileged”. Morley succeeded in boosting Prime’s law firm membership from 20 to almost 90. This week he is replaced by Nicholas Cheffings, chairman of Hogan Lovells, who says that Prime must follow up its work experience places “to ensure that more young people with talent but not connections get the opportunity to succeed in our profession”. Why just the young? The Leicester story shows some talents mature late.
Cool-it
US patent firm Cooley is behaving increasingly like Manchester City Football Club since it set up its London office, trying to buy its way to the top. Of late it’s scooped up eight new partners including Stephen Rosen and Natasha Kaye from Olswang; John Wilkinson and Nicola Maguire from Reed Smith; Paula Holland from WilmerHale; Louise Delahunty from Sullivan & Cromwell; John Clark from Mayer Brown; and now Colm Murphy from Venner Shipley. But can they top the Champions League?