In 1994, a young South African lawyer named Kevin Gold was sitting in his office at central London practice Bayer Rosin flipping a coin to decide the future of the firm he ran. ‘Heads or tails… Olswang or SJ Berwin…’ A third, lesser-known firm was also at the back of his mind: Mishcon de Reya. …
To highlight the strength of Scotland’s GC community, The In-House Lawyer profiles some of the nation’s leading buy-side lawyers.
The High Court judgment in Essar Oilfields Services Ltd v Norscot Rig Management Pvt Ltd [2016] was brought down by His Honour Judge Waksman QC (sitting as a deputy High Court judge). The report of its delivery on 15 September 2016 had already sparked great interest in the world of litigation finance and for good …
Unlike their private practice counterparts, in-house private equity (PE) lawyers prefer a low profile. Or, as one private practice partner puts it: ‘PE is a murky, sharp-elbowed world. In-house lawyers like to stay out of the limelight.’
In-house teams may have grown in size and stature over recent years, but their external adviser panels are definitely shrinking. As a result, law firms find themselves increasingly at the sharp end during adviser reviews (see box ‘Cutting back’, below), with clients pushing for better rates, greater efficiencies and added extras.
‘The fantastic, wonderful part about being in-house is working with massively stimulating people. There’s this misconception that you outsource talent. You don’t.’ So says Piers Le Marchant, chief compliance officer for corporate and investment banking at JPMorgan Chase & Co.
Catherine McGregor: Lawyers get very focused on their professional qualifications, but as they rise through the ranks – particularly to the general counsel position – their role becomes increasingly focused on management. A common concern we hear is that they feel ill-equipped to deal with this shift. There can also be a desire not to …
‘I would never have taken a role where I wasn’t sitting at the top table. I make sure I have influence in how a firm goes about things,’ notes veteran litigator Margaret Cole, PwC’s UK general counsel and chief risk officer.
Stefan Stern assesses a new book on how institutional weaknesses let corporate risk wreak havoc. If you found the events of 2016 unsettling you may wish to look away now. For the foreseeable future. Brexit means Brexit, apparently, but no-one seems able to provide much more detail than that as yet. A new US president …
Continue reading “‘Crisis accumulates for years’ – a fascinating insight into the roots of risk”
Paul Gilbert attempts to chart what is so rarely discussed: the core competences and obligations of a general counsel. At the risk of saying something that sounds unhelpfully like, ‘general counsel means general counsel’, I have spent a lot of time over many years considering how people in this role should define their purpose and …