THE West Coast giant Heller Ehrman is to become the first of a wave of leading US firms to launch London offices when it opens next month. Heller Ehrman, San Francisco’s third-biggest firm, has been planning its London launch for the past two years. It would like to merge with a UK firm but will transfer some of its leading partners while it looks at teams and individual lateral hires. Heller will compete with its West Coast rivals O ‘Melveny & Myers, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Morrison & Foerster and Orrick, which are all in the midst of aggressive recruitment drives in the UK capital. Cooley Godward is also exploring how best to launch in the City. (The Lawyer)
AN ARRAY of prominent City litigators have teamed up in an attempt to head off plans to implement a £5.8 million “pay-as-you-go” costs regime for High Court trials. Partners from several City firms, understood to include Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith, Richards Butler and Lovells, have formed an ad hoc working party to open dialogue with the Department for Constitutional Affairs. (Legal Week)
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PLANS for alternative business structures (ABS) to deliver legal services could be derailed by the additional regulatory burdens they will impose and by confusion over what level of privilege will apply to them, the Government has been told by legal bodies in the first raft of responses to the Legal Services reform White Paper. ABS firms — made up of different types of lawyer and also non-lawyers — will be able to choose which approved body will regulate them. (Law Society Gazette)
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THE Equal Opportunities Commission has said that at the current rate, it will take 40 years for women to achieve equality in the senior judiciary. The EOC survey Sex and Power: Who Runs Britain? 2006 reveals that women make up just 9 per cent of the senior judiciary and ranks the UK 20th out of 26 countries in Europe in this regard. (Solicitors Journal)