More than 10,000 civilians have been killed in Ukraine since Russia first invaded in February 2022 according to the UN. And, as highlighted by this week’s airstrike on Kyiv, in which more than 40 people lost their lives, the war is far from over.

But despite the ongoing conflict, law firms in the country remain very much open to business.

Here, Legal Business speaks to some of those on the ground in Ukraine about the different stages of the conflict and the mood among the business and legal community.

February 2022 – June 2022: Invasion

In the initial weeks and months after Russia’s invasion on 24 February 2022, law firms, like the rest of the country, went into survival mode. The first priority was ensuring the safety of staff. Although most men of professional age were unable to leave the country, female lawyers were largely free to leave.

International firms moved their eligible staff to overseas offices, with CMS, for example, offering all of its employees on the ground the chance to move to its Budapest office. Domestic outfits either shifted as far as possible into Western Ukraine, or managed to operate entirely remotely with staff scattered throughout Europe and beyond. Independent firm Arzinger continued to practice despite resettling approximately 40 people across 22 different jurisdictions. The alternative was to lose staff.

For those headquartered in Kyiv, the situation was less dire than for those in the eastern regions, such as Kharkiv, where Aurum Law Firm evacuated its entire team, and co-founder Sergey Ostrovskiy recalls that ‘a few of our associates were caught in the area when Russia invaded, and one had to sit for eight days in the basement without leaving’.

Yet by early summer 2022, carrying on with legal business in a combat zone was becoming the new normal.

Anna Babych, executive partner at AEQUO, says that many people were back on the ground in the office from June, ‘since the goal was to keep the team together as much as possible’. She adds: ‘We tried to get back to normal and were celebrating certain things together.’

Timur Bondaryev, Arzinger managing partner, describes how even though things were put on hold at first, over time ‘people got accustomed to it’. He adds: ‘Business became more or less as usual – not considering regular missile attacks of course. As long as we’re alive we adapt.’

‘Business became more or less as usual – not considering regular missile attacks of course. As long as we’re alive we adapt.’ Timur Bondaryev, Arzinger

The first practice to bounce back was dispute resolution. Force majeure and bankruptcy claims quickly piled up, giving full-service firms the chance to rapidly pick up a healthy caseload. The courts, already primed to operate remotely, sprung into fully-digitalised action. Sanctions work was also booming. Bondaryev recalls: ‘Since Russian investors have traditionally been a huge presence on the market in every area, it was painful for each and every client.’ It meant firms were kept extremely busy, with related white-collar crime investigations relating to potential involvement with Russian money also picking up.

July 2022 – May 2023: Counteroffensive and hope

Through late summer and into autumn, Ukrainian forces liberated territory in the northeast and east of the country and, with the promise of a similar programme to follow in 2023, some opportunistic investors began to look again at Ukraine.

Tetyana Dovgan, an M&A partner at CMS in Kyiv, recalls seeing ‘the promise of deals in the infrastructure, logistics and telecoms sectors’. One such example was Nestle’s announcement in December 2022 that it was planning to invest just over $42m in a new production facility in Smolyhiv, in the western region of Volyn.

‘[Most in the industry felt that that lawyers had] a patriotic duty to work and pay taxes – this is the way for us to support the war effort.’
Olga Shenk, CMS

Throughout the winter and into spring 2023, a hopeful mood abounded. International financial institutions, tapping into the zeitgeist, resumed lending, as well as developing concurrent political risk insurance programmes. Some firms also saw their domestic clients taking the opportunity to widen their focus beyond the border.

Away from the transactional space, litigation continued to be a key driver of activity. Compensation for losses and damages caused by the conflict emerged as a core concern. Where previously there had been a lack of tangible opportunities for such claims, there was increasing optimism. In May 2023, the Register of Damage for Ukraine was established under the auspices of the Council of Europe, with Yulia Kyrpa, another of AEQUO’s executive partners, one of the current board members.

Firms were also picking up commercial and employment work, particularly in relation to military personnel.

Throughout this period, firms also continued to establish and adjust to the working patterns associated with their new reality. The barely forgotten realities of the pandemic proved useful, with Bondaryev noting that ‘Covid turned out to be a huge help, as everyone was trained to work remotely, including the public authorities’. Those who had previously been based in the eastern parts of the country, such as Aurum Law Firm, had no choice but to remain long-distance. But those in the western part of the country were seeing many lawyers opting to spend at least part of their time on the ground.

June 2023 – December 2023: Delay and disappointment

But by the end of autumn 2023, as it became clear that the counteroffensive was not progressing as had initially been hoped, even bolder investors started putting projects on the back burner once more. Bondaryev estimates that during this time, ‘maybe 10% of investors went ahead with projects, and only near the Western border’. As a result, firms experienced a slowdown in the transactional space.

With the situation on the ground becoming increasingly dire, many firms used the pause in deal-making to focus on the pro bono work many had been carrying out since 2022. CMS, for example, had launched a ‘Super Humans’ initiative, which sees practitioners assisting humanitarian and rehabilitation centres with their structuring and insurance matters. AEQUO, meanwhile, dedicated its efforts to providing prosthetics centres for veterans with free advice, as well as handling a spate of defence mandates for free on behalf of the Ministry of Defence.

Aurum Law Firm teamed up with a number of clients to create a fund that could be distributed directly to volunteers in the eastern areas of Ukraine, providing certainty that ‘every penny would reach its destination’. As Babych explains, legal professionals were eager to find their own ways of alleviating the suffering they were seeing, and ‘this was their contribution’.

During these darker days, firms continued to mine all possible sources of work. For some, like Ostrovskiy’s boutique, this meant leveraging their smaller and more flexible nature and ‘diversifying to conduct business not only in Ukraine but globally’. Larger, full-service firms, meanwhile, took on insolvency and supply chain related mandates.

Overall, as Olga Shenk, head of dispute resolution and compliance at CMS in Kyiv, explains, most in the industry felt that that lawyers had ‘a patriotic duty to work and pay taxes – this is the way for us to support the war effort’. Integrites’ managing partner Oleksiy Feliv, similarly, affirms that ‘law firms do make their contribution to Ukraine’s victory, and have been doing their job despite the ongoing war’.

‘Everyone hopes that the next year will be the one where there will be a ceasefire or a resolution.’
Anna Babych, AEQUO

January 2024 – June 2024: Pragmatism

With the war now into its second year, since 2024 the mood has shifted again. Bondaryev characterises it as: ’the realisation that this is a sprint and not a marathon’.

Firms have been operating in a war zone for nearly two and a half years, transitioning through various operational models to land on systems that work.

For those previously based in eastern Ukraine, such as Aurum Law Firm, partners and lawyers remain scattered around the world, with none currently working in Ukraine.

But firms in western parts of Ukraine have seen lawyers flooding back to the country and their offices.

At Integrites, only one partner out of 15 is now living abroad full-time, with the rest based either solely or partially in Ukraine.

‘Law firms do make their contribution to Ukraine’s victory, and have been doing their job despite the ongoing war.’
Oleksiy Feliv, Integrites

For the firm, this is ‘a conscious decision in order to try and be in Kyiv close to clients’.

The figures are similar for Arzinger, where only four of the senior practitioners are now working completely remotely.

Those who relocated their families abroad are now splitting their time between cities; Feliv alternates between spending one month at the office, and one with his wife and children. He jokes that ‘it’s great; as soon as you get everything sorted in one place you have to leave and can’t enjoy it, and then you move and there are 1,000 problems there which you sort out, then you have to leave again’. This picture is a common one for lawyers across the country.

But despite the difficulties, firms, like corporates and investors, have settled down for the long haul.

The major international players with a presence in Ukraine before the war are cautiously resuming operations, and hoping to seek opportunities in the rebuilding projects that are needed on a huge scale. As Babych explains: ‘Everyone hopes that the next year will be the one where there will be a ceasefire or a resolution.’

Ukrainian firms are keen to stress that life – and business – is still going on – despite an increase in the violence.

‘We are continuing to stay on the ground in Kyiv, working, supporting our teams, and bringing the victory closer.’
Tetyana Dovgan, CMS

As Feliv explains: ‘there’s often an ‘aha’ effect when we explain to people abroad that we are still working, because perhaps people think we sit back home in our cellars, hiding from missiles and doing nothing, but we understand that we must keep the economy going’.

Dovgan concludes: ‘We are continuing to stay on the ground in Kyiv, working, supporting our teams, and bringing the victory closer.’

If you would like to make a donation to aid efforts in Ukraine please go to british-ukrainianaid.org/

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Access your pdf edition of LB magazine – issue 320

The ESG report 2024

As ESG becomes a business fundamental, LB looks at how the top firms are responding

Overview: Beyond ‘nice to have’ – ESG goes business fundamental

Amid a tsunami of regulation and snowballing client demand, law firms are assembling ESG practices to take on the world, while also grappling with the challenges of getting their own houses in order. LB reports on the results of its fourth annual ESG survey

Mental health: Stress test – Partners on how they deal with a life under pressure

Long and unpredictable hours can make transactional work hard to reconcile with mental health considerations. LB spoke to City partners about how they keep things in check – and why the industry still needs to change

‘I mistakenly thought severe anxiety was a good thing’ – Vinson’s London head on opening up about mental health

‘I have this condition, and I’m owning it’: HSF’s Samantha Brown on managing mental ill health alongside a legal career

Gen Z: ‘Employers need to make sure they’re providing an environment in which people want to stay’: what Gen Z’s lawyers really want from their careers’

Much ink is spilled about Generation Z and the challenges of recruiting and retaining them. As more and more members of the cohort born between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s enter the legal profession, LB finds out what today’s more idealistic lawyers want from their careers and how they’re changing the profession

ESG Awards 2024: ESG Award winners

‘Non-binary people aren’t going away, no matter how much hate is expressed towards us’

‘You don’t need to be a partner at a law firm to effect change’ – ESG Award winner Ranajoy Basu on leveraging his structured finance expertise to support ESG causes in emerging economies

Eversheds, A&O, and Standard Chartered GC among winners at debut Legal 500 UK ESG Awards

Enterprise winners

On 29-30 April, more than 200 senior in-house counsel gathered at the Hilton London Wembley for the seventh annual Enterprise GC event.

MENA focus: Middle Eastern dreams

LB speaks to local players and international firms about the market across the region, including Saudi Arabia and UAE

Stressing the positives – why opening up about the demands of City life helps everyone

If you knew nothing about City law and the gender diversity problems it has at senior levels, you certainly wouldn’t think there were any issues when reading our feature on dealmakers and stress.

Making an ESG lawyer – law firms search for the magic formula

‘I don’t believe there is such a thing as an ESG lawyer’ – the words of one environmental, social and governance (ESG) practice head in an interview for this month’s lead feature aptly sums up one of the key challenges for firms trying to establish themselves at the top of this much-hyped market.

Legal 500 US: Latham tops the charts in new US rankings

The Legal 500 United States 2024 rankings have arrived, and with it a bevy of new numbers to crunch.

The new £150k benchmark for Magic Circle associates – ‘rewarding the best’, or ‘slightly alarming’?

Associate pay reaches eye-watering heights as the war for talent at the top of the market goes further into the salary stratosphere

‘Shaping the City’s tech industry’ – Perkins Coie lands in London with hire of private equity veteran Bagshaw

US West Coast firm becomes latest to target London tech transactions market with eye-catching hire of ex-White & Case dealmaker

The China conundrum – why so many US law firms are pulling out

Once seen as the next big thing for all self-respecting international law firms, China is now seeing a wave of retrenchment by US firms, with Morrison Foerster the latest to close an office in Beijing – Alex Ryan spoke to those who know the market to find out why

The Last Word: ESG to the fore

As part of our annual ESG report, management at top law firms give their views on ESG’s importance to both lawyers and clients

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Overview: Beyond ‘nice to have’ – ESG goes business fundamental

Amid a tsunami of regulation and snowballing client demand, law firms are assembling ESG practices to take on the world, while also grappling with the challenges of getting their own houses in order. LB reports on the results of its fourth annual ESG survey

Mental health: Stress test – Partners on how they deal with a life under pressure

Long and unpredictable hours can make transactional work hard to reconcile with mental health considerations. LB spoke to City partners about how they keep things in check – and why the industry still needs to change

‘I mistakenly thought severe anxiety was a good thing’ – Vinson’s London head on opening up about mental health

‘I have this condition, and I’m owning it’: HSF’s Samantha Brown on managing mental ill health alongside a legal career

Gen Z: ‘Employers need to make sure they’re providing an environment in which people want to stay’: what Gen Z’s lawyers really want from their careers’

Much ink is spilled about Generation Z and the challenges of recruiting and retaining them. As more and more members of the cohort born between the mid-1990s and the early 2010s enter the legal profession, LB finds out what today’s more idealistic lawyers want from their careers and how they’re changing the profession

ESG Awards 2024: ESG Award winners

‘Non-binary people aren’t going away, no matter how much hate is expressed towards us’

‘You don’t need to be a partner at a law firm to effect change’ – ESG Award winner Ranajoy Basu on leveraging his structured finance expertise to support ESG causes in emerging economies

Eversheds, A&O, and Standard Chartered GC among winners at debut Legal 500 UK ESG Awards

The last word: ESG to the fore

As part of our annual ESG report, management at top law firms give their views on ESG’s importance to both lawyers and clients

The post The ESG report 2024 appeared first on Legal Business.

‘In the old days, it was about having a nice brochure with some green pictures, but then getting on with the serious matter of running our business. We’ve moved way beyond that now – it’s a business fundamental now.’

Norton Rose Fulbright head of environment, health and safety, Europe, Middle East and Asia, Caroline May neatly sums up the transformative shift in attitudes in recent years, with law firms now more attuned than ever to the importance of ESG, both in their capacity as commercial advisers and in terms of their reputation as progressive employers.

Now in its fourth year, the responses from leading law firms to LB’s annual ESG survey indicate concrete progress on both fronts, with more widespread evidence of firms putting together a joined-up client offering, while implementing internal strategies to ensure they are also walking the walk, as their sustainability and social responsibility credentials come under scrutiny from all quarters.

As Michael Watson, head of climate and sustainability advisory at Pinsent Masons, explains: ‘The accelerated transition of sustainability from being a reputational issue – and therefore the domain of the marketing department of a business – to being central to the executive and particularly legal and risk, has been a significant trend this year.’

‘A few years ago, there was a high point of “let’s only advise green”, but I think that’s fundamentally wrong. Clients in the most challenging areas are often the ones most inclined to engage.’
Michael Watson, Pinsent Masons

The ESG gatekeepers

One of the most noticeable trends to emerge from this year’s survey is the growing number of firms putting processes in place to reject work on ESG grounds.

While firms are, unsurprisingly, reluctant to cite specific examples, around half of respondents to the survey provided details of how they are integrating ESG considerations into their client onboarding and business acceptance processes, with ethical labour practices, sustainability standards and governance processes all under the spotlight when determining whether potential clients meet the ESG bar.

Notable examples include Simmons & Simmons, which last year established a Business Acceptance Committee to ensure work ‘aligns with the firm’s values’, with all matters evaluated against ESG criteria such as climate risks or social harms, such as modern slavery.

At Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP), high-risk matters and clients are considered by a business acceptance team, and can be escalated to the firm’s ‘Client Council’ – a group of senior partners who weigh up the ESG considerations of taking on work. Since assuming the role in January this year, the firm’s new London-based global senior partner Segun Osuntokun has also established an ESG Action Board and is aiming to formulate a ‘clear and progressive responsible business culture’ across the firm.

Other firms taking concrete steps on this front include Dentons, which over the past two years has established and built up a responsible business team for its UK, Ireland and Middle East (UKIME) business. The firm explicitly includes ESG considerations in its client due diligence processes, turning away work from clients which fall short of established ESG standards, such as environmental crimes or poor employee treatment.

Best intentions, market realities

However, the reality is that for most firms, adherence to the purest of ideals is inevitably unrealistic, and there is a balance to be struck when it comes to clients in carbon-intensive industries – many of which are longstanding clients of top law firms.

Linklaters, for instance – a market-leader for oil, gas and mining transactions – is open about the fact that its commitment to ESG ‘does not mean that it does not work for, or impose limits or quotas on, clients which operate in carbon intensive businesses’, but that ‘the risks in relation to carbon intensive new business should be viewed as part of the usual analysis that is integral to the firm’s business acceptance process’.

The firm argues that clients in carbon intensive industries have an ‘acute’ need for high-quality legal advice, given the challenges in transitioning to sustainable practices, and that ‘it is precisely clients in those industries that most need such expertise and experience’.

‘ESG-related regulation is infectious; it snowballs, and the more that is adopted, the more will emerge.’ Jannis Bille, HSF

And this approach is not unique to Linklaters. As May explains, ‘The energy transition needs to happen, so we view it as providing best practice and advice to these companies – helping them move forward and understand where the market is heading.’

Watson adopts a similar stance. ‘The question I often ask is: what is your agency? Withdrawing your advice isn’t agency; giving it is the tool we have as professional advisers.’

He argues that advising clients in ‘challenging’ areas can be a form of social responsibility. ‘A few years ago, there was a high point of “let’s only advise green”, but I think that’s fundamentally wrong. It’s correct to engage with your whole client base, and we’re finding that clients in the most challenging areas are often the ones most inclined to engage with our ESG advisory capability.

‘If you think about energy transition, you need to be leaning into your client base rather than running away from it. Turning away a client wouldn’t necessarily make any material difference to their transition, so what we do is incorporate ESG factors into our broader client onboarding procedure, and I increasingly think that’s the correct thing to do.’

Even allowing for such considerations, firms are of course acutely aware of reputational risks. Taylor Wessing, for instance, escalates potential reputation-threatening mandates to its reputation committee, which weighs ESG factors in deciding whether to proceed with specific mandates. Jannis Bille, UK head of ESG at Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF), acknowledges this shifting dynamic: ‘Traditionally, lawyers would be quite content to follow the letter of the law and advise based strictly on that. However, with regards to ESG, this isn’t sufficient due to the reputational considerations.’

This underscores how there are always business risks to consider – how a company’s actions are perceived by the public, customers, investors, and stakeholders, and for the younger generation in particular, such considerations are front and centre of their personal and professional choices.

Arthur Cox financial regulation head Robert Cain, who is also the firm’s people partner, notes the importance of ESG credentials in the context of recruitment and talent management: ‘We are finding that Gen Z professionals value meaningful cases, social impact, and alignment with their personal values.’ Such issues are undeniably growing in importance for law firms, in terms of creating a culture that resonates with the values of the next generation.

‘We are finding that Gen Z professionals value meaningful cases, social impact, and alignment with their personal values.’
Robert Cain, Arthur Cox

Sustainable service

The responses to the survey also underline the efforts that firms are making to put together cohesive and convincing multidisciplinary practices to service client needs, which are only increasing amid snowballing ESG concerns.

Rachel Barrett, who leads the ESG practice at Linklaters, says there has been substantial progress on this front in the last year, with new ESG regulations ‘catapulting these issues further into the mainstream’. ‘As lawyers we’ve always had a crucial role, but now there are concrete new rules to address,’ she explains. ‘Clients are increasingly seeking specific support to meet their compliance obligations.’

Typical matters handled by Linklaters’ multidisciplinary practice include governance strategies, regulatory compliance, advice on disclosure requirements covering pay, climate targets, sustainability and D&I, while the firm also holds a number of broad ‘ESG counsel’ roles for major multinational corporates and financial institutions.

Hogan Lovells global ESG head Adrian Walker says a ‘tsunami of global regulation’ has been a key factor behind ESG’s rise up the agenda, with new reporting and disclosure obligations such as the EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and the UK’s climate disclosure requirements generating increasing volumes of work.

‘The old ESG economy was transactional driven – the game changer in the ESG advisory space is the tsunami of global regulation, which has really changed things for us as a global law firm,’ he explains.

HSF’s Bille adds that, ‘The CSRD has expanded the European lens of sustainability-related reporting from 10,000 to 40,000 companies, with an extra-territorial reach. ESG-related regulation is infectious; it snowballs, and the more that is adopted, the more will emerge,’ he continues.

On the sustainable finance front, Hogan Lovells last year advised the International Finance Corporation and the Bank of the Philippine Islands on its $250m green bond to finance eligible green assets in the Philippines, and is one of many increasingly involved in such pioneering work in this space.

Other firms acting on market-leading sustainable finance work include Ashurst, which earlier this year advised HSBC on the Hong Kong Monetary Authority’s issuance of a digitally native green bond – the world’s first multi-currency digital bond offering – after acting for Goldman Sachs on the world’s first government-issued tokenised green bond in 2023.

Meanwhile, A&O Shearman recently took the Legal 500 ESG Award for Sustainable Finance for its impressive CV in this space, including legacy Allen & Overy’s work with the International Swaps and Derivatives Association to develop template documentation for trading voluntary carbon credits.

Other typical areas of work being handled by ESG practices include the ESG aspects of major transactions, and ‘values-driven litigation’ concerning issues such as greenwashing, environmental and human rights, for example Baker McKenzie’s role for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in the Supreme Court case which ruled against the UK government’s policy to relocate asylum seekers to Rwanda.

‘As lawyers we’ve always had a crucial role, but now there are concrete new rules to address.’
Rachel Barrett, Linklaters

Connecting the E to the S and G

To meet and manage this rising demand for ESG-focused legal services, over recent years more and more firms have established dedicated ESG practices.

Latham & Watkins is known for being a market-leader on this front, with London partner Paul Davies leading the ESG practice – which combines regulatory, transactional, and litigation practitioners – alongside US co-chairs Sarah Fortt and Betty Moy Huber, both of whom joined the firm in 2022. Typical work handled includes regulatory reporting, compliance, and the ESG aspects of major M&A and private equity transactions.

This March, HSF named new regional leaders to drive its practice forward, with corporate energy specialist Bille taking the UK leadership role, working with existing global practice head Silke Goldberg and newly appointed US and EMEA co-heads – litigator Ben Rubinstein in New York, Frankfurt finance partner Heike Schmitz and Madrid administrative and environmental specialist Iria Calviño.

HSF’s changes came after the firm’s global head of sustainable and impact investment Rebecca Perlman left for Kirkland & Ellis, as the US leader moved to grow its ESG practice.

To integrate ESG across their operations, firms are also investing in training programmes to educate and equip staff on ESG. Linklaters’ ESG Accelerator Programme, which is run in collaboration with the University of Oxford, has trained over 500 of the firm’s lawyers over the past three years, equipping them to provide a comprehensive ESG-focused service.

Barrett elaborates: ‘At Linklaters, we started upskilling our lawyers early. We launched the Accelerator programme in 2020, which included six to eight months’ worth of training and coaching – it’s an intensive programme and a really big investment the firm made in getting our people up the curve, but also to ensure that different practice areas were able to take the time to work out what ESG meant for them.’

Hogan Lovells, meanwhile, operates under the philosophy that ‘every lawyer of all of our 2,800 lawyers is an ESG lawyer’, a bold claim backed up by its ‘You Are An ESG Lawyer’ programme, which provides customised ESG issue-spotting training tailored to each of the firm’s key sectors. ‘We want everyone to be thinking about ESG in every piece of advice that they give,’ Walker explains.

Looking ahead, May says her sustainability goal is ‘to work us out of a job so that we don’t need a separate sustainability committee, because it’s absolutely embedded,’ – a particularly apt goal for the firm’s first head of sustainability.

‘The goal is to work us out of a job so that we don’t need a separate sustainability committee, because it’s absolutely embedded.’
Caroline May, Norton Rose Fulbright

Happy teams, happy schemes

Alongside market-facing considerations, firms are also increasingly aware that they need to ensure their own houses are in order. This shift is evident in the formation of dedicated ESG committees, the appointment of ESG ambassadors to promote integration, and the establishment of robust governance frameworks for effective implementation.

Watson cautions against ESG being ‘placed into the reputational box rather than the strategy box’. ‘There’s a risk that if people are only concerned with the reputational aspects of ESG, they will see less rather than more.’

One such example of ESG considerations being embedded into business can be seen in Eversheds Sutherland, which in 2022 secured unanimous agreement from its international partnership to make an annual investment of at least 1% of net profit – equating to over £2m – in its responsible business programme, which has included the launch of a new global Ethical Code of Conduct, continued efforts to reduce carbon emissions, and the establishment of five-year partnership with the International Rescue Committee to provide pro bono and financial support.

Another trend among firms is an increasing emphasis on supporting employees’ mental health and wellbeing, an issue which was thrust into the spotlight last year by the death of Pinsent Masons partner Vanessa Ford, who had been suffering from an ‘acute mental health crisis’. As Reed Smith London office managing partner Andrew Jenkinson notes: ‘While mental health challenges are not new in the profession, the tragic news of Vanessa’s passing certainly seems to have catalysed the discussion within the UK legal industry.’

Alongside employee assistance programmes, in-house counselling services, and 24/7 access to mental health support, notable initiatives this year have included moves by Reed Smith and Macfarlanes to offer free therapy for their staff.

At Reed Smith, everyone at the firm – including their partners and children, now have access to eight free therapy sessions a year, delivered through external mental health care provider Lyra, while Macfarlanes offers all staff up to seven fully-funded confidential counselling sessions led by qualified psychotherapists and psychologists from Cognacity.

Reed Smith also holds an annual global mental health summit, where lawyers come together with industry professionals to open up about their struggles and strategies for dealing with mental health issues, as part of an effort to tackle what Jenkinson recognises as ‘one of the biggest problems in the industry – the stigma around the topic’.

Underlying numbers

On the question of whether firms’ diversity initiatives are helping to shift the needle on ethnicity and gender statistics, the jury is out – although progress is being made in some quarters.

Of the firms which provided diversity data in our survey, around half increased their percentage of women among the UK lawyer ranks last year, with the overall average in that group continuing to inch up, now standing at 55%. Strong performers include Eversheds, Pinsents, RPC, Simmons and BCLP, all of which have at least 60% female representation among their UK lawyer ranks.

Female partner numbers are also inching up – although only nine firms reported a higher percentage of women among their London partnership this year, the average across firms which provided figures now stands at 30%, up from 29% last year. Of the firms that provided figures, the standouts were Greenberg (42%), CMS (37%) and Mishcon de Reya (37%).

The figures for ethnic diversity are less encouraging, however, despite much talk from firms about how this is crucial to address. Of the firms that provided figures, average BAME headcount among lawyer ranks fell by 1% to 19%, while the equivalent figure for partners also fell 1% to 10% this year.

Our survey also asked firms to provide data on the percentage of their lawyers who are state school educated – and of those which provided figures, four stood out with figures of just over 50% for both lawyers and partners – RPC, Greenberg, Pinsents and Mishcon. At the opposite end of the spectrum were Simmons, with just 17% state school educated lawyers, and Latham with 18%.

‘Clients now want all sorts of information about how diverse we are as a firm and what our approach to sustainability is.’
Farmida Bi, Norton Rose Fulbright

What clients want

While improving these figures is undeniably a key consideration for firms, client demands will inevitably be front and centre. May describes how ESG credentials are now a ‘pre-qualifier’ for some clients. ‘We are often quizzed and rated on our ESG and sustainability performance, irrespective of our legal services. This has been a development over the last five years – we may not stay on a panel if we don’t meet the client’s criteria.’

Norton Rose Fulbright EMEA chair Farmida Bi emphasises this evolving dynamic: ‘Clients – including those with whom we have deep relationships – now want all sorts of information about how diverse we are as a firm and what our approach to sustainability is, for example. The relationship and the values are much more shared than they used to be in the past.’

And while ESG may in the past have been an easy target for non-believers, law firms now have to strike the balance between business and their best intentions, as Hogan Lovells’ Walker sums up: ‘We want to have maximum positive impact for all our stakeholders and clients, but we need to make money as well, because if you don’t, then it’s not sustainable.

‘It’s important that businesses do make money, but if you’re just in it to make money, it’s going to be a pretty bad business – I’m with Henry Ford on that.’ LB

anna.huntley@legalease.co.uk

Go to the ESG Report contents.

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Gen Z – including its lawyers – are often characterised as being overly concerned about the social and political issues that come under the ESG umbrella. It’s an issue that was discussed at Legal Business’s April Enterprise GC event in a panel called: ‘The ideal employer for an idealistic lawyer’, during which one audience member dismissed concerns in the somewhat facetious terms: ‘Everybody’s gone woke!’

The truth is – as always – more nuanced. While Gen Z lawyers do care about ESG issues, this does not mean there is a cultural clash between the generations, even if they are more vocal about their expectations than older generations may have been.

‘ESG comes up a lot in the interview process,’ says Ruth Buchanan, employment partner and training principal at Ashurst. ‘Young lawyers have done their research on our firm, and are interested to hear about our work in the projects and energy transition space, as well as what we are doing internally. We also get a lot of questions around what the firm is doing from a diversity and inclusion perspective – that’s clearly really key for candidates now, but it’s not an area I would have thought to ask about as a young lawyer.’

Johnson Matthey assistant GC and EGC ‘idealistic lawyer’ panellist Natalie Hunt agrees: ‘ESG-related things are talked about a lot more. It comes up in conversations, both internally and in interviews.’

‘If I saw a firm that wasn’t mindful of diversity, that wasn’t doing the cultural minimum, it’d be a red flag,’ says one associate. ‘This is low-hanging fruit – why aren’t you doing these things?’ Diversity in particular emerges as a key concern.

Another associate cites an ex-colleague who left their former firm to go in-house because ‘they felt the firm wasn’t diverse enough’, while a former lawyer who left the profession recalls a sense of unease that while their firm ‘wasn’t at all bad for diversity’, it nonetheless ‘did client work for organisations that were quite open about the fact that they held views that were not positive towards members of the LGBTQ+ community’.

These concerns are important to young lawyers. But they are not overriding. The reference to the ‘minimum’ is telling: poor performance on ESG is an issue because it is a sign of being, in the words of one associate, ‘out of step with the market – especially when we’re advising clients who are facing these same issues’. And firms are increasingly proactive on ESG, with a wealth of initiatives on everything from pro bono work to greener office practices and diverse hiring.

Far from there being a divide though, young lawyers’ concerns and those of more senior colleagues are often in tune with each other. ‘Different generations of lawyers care about ESG in different ways,’ says one associate. ‘For younger lawyers it’s more emotional and value-driven. For lawyers at more senior levels, there’s less of that, but it is absolutely a concern, even if just because it matters to the business.’

‘Everyone wants a work-life balance – but young lawyers are better at talking about it.’
Ruth Buchanan, Ashurst

‘Everyone wants the same thing’

Another complaint frequently raised about members of Gen Z is that they are feckless and workshy – unwilling to come into the office and put in the hours needed to progress in their careers.

Rather than bemoan the younger generation’s attitude towards work-life balance, partners and more senior lawyers spoken to for this feature were positive about some of the strengths of younger lawyers, commenting about how they can improve the office for all ages.

‘Our junior lawyers are often very good at voicing things that our more senior lawyers want too,’ says Buchanan. ‘Everyone wants the same thing: everyone wants a work-life balance that allows them to see their family and friends, take care of themselves, and so on. But young lawyers are better at talking about it. And that’s driven a lot of conversations around things like employee wellbeing.’

Simon Edwards, commercial partner at Trowers & Hamlins and another ‘idealistic lawyers’ panellist, recounts being struck by younger lawyers’ attitude to communication: ‘Gen Z has grown up with social media and mobile phones, and that’s meant that they’re used to sharing their views and having their say on things. They’re more willing to speak their minds than I was as a junior lawyer.’

Hunt notes that prospective candidates increasingly bring up flexible working at interview: ‘We get asked, “Do people come into the office, do they have to come into the office, is it flexible?” We don’t get asked outright what hours people are doing, but we do get asked how the days and the week are structured.’

‘I’m not seeing people wanting to come into the office five days a week,’ adds Edwards, ‘but on the other hand there aren’t many who just want to work from home. Most like to do two to three days in the office, because it allows for a good balance.’

Indeed, while Gen Z may bear the brunt of complaints, they point out that it is often more senior lawyers who put a higher premium on time with their families, while many of the younger cohort are eager to benefit from in-person experience.

Jasmin Chiu, a legal adviser at McArthurGlen who was also on the ‘idealistic lawyers’ panel, tells LB: ‘I’ve noticed that many young lawyers are keen to come into the office more than some other colleagues since we’re at a stage where we’re eager to learn and this can be most easily done in person. I’ve noticed there has been more of a desire to work from home from colleagues who have young families and have moved out of the city.’

This desire to get time in the office with senior colleagues is especially pronounced among the generation that was training or newly qualified during Covid. ‘I trained during the pandemic,’ says one former lawyer. ‘I had quite a poor experience. Doing it remotely was very isolating. I don’t feel that I got a particularly good training experience or felt embedded in a team at all.’

The pandemic also had a negative impact on work-life balance. ‘Things were a lot worse during Covid,’ says one associate who was several years into qualification when lockdown started. ‘You were working longer hours as there was no division between office hours and downtime. If someone emailed you on the weekend in normal times, they might think, “Well, maybe they’re out, they’ll get back to me.” But during Covid there was no excuse.’

Lawyers are split on how far this issue has been resolved since the end of the pandemic. One associate notes positive changes: ‘Firms have done things like introduced sabbatical policies and upped maternity and paternity leave. They’ve become increasingly generous on that.’

But others are more critical: ‘The way the work seeps into your personal life is becoming a lot more pervasive,’ says one former lawyer. ‘It’s so easy to not stop working if you’re doing it remotely. And no-one sees it. I almost felt that I didn’t want to raise it because I didn’t want to look like I wasn’t keeping up.’

As with so much else, the issue may turn on the culture and practices of individual firms. The former lawyer continues: ‘I got told off by one of my line managers once for sending something when I was on annual leave. The attitude was, “We’re great at work-life balance, you shouldn’t be working on annual leave – you should have managed your time better.” It was a weird distortion of what work-life balance was. The fact that I was working on annual leave was taken as my fault. It felt that what I was doing was bad for their image. I really didn’t know what to do with that.’

Law is detail oriented, labour intensive and, for those working in City law firms, extremely well-compensated. As a result, work-life balance is a challenge for lawyers of all levels. ‘I find it hard and I know my colleagues find it hard,’ says Hunt. ‘Over the years I’ve learnt how to switch off, because I know that if I don’t, I suffer, my family suffers, and my work suffers. But if this was my first job I don’t know if I’d have the confidence or the awareness to do that.’

As Edwards notes: ‘Junior lawyers take their lead from a firm’s leaders, so it is really important that those leaders are modelling the right behaviours and staying true to the firm’s culture.’ On both presence in the office and time away from work, firms must set the right example.

‘As young lawyers, we do not always have the luxury of choice when applying to firms or companies.’
Jasmin Chiu, McArthurGlen

Being proactive on these issues is a core part of team culture, argues Nick Wong, a partner in Ashurst’s global loans practice who works with early career lawyers at the firm: ‘There’s a school of thought that says, “As long as I get my job done, why do you care where I do it from?” But I don’t subscribe to that. Part of the job is to be here and to be part of a team, interacting with others in a culture where people enjoy working together. If you want that sense of community, you need to build it and work at it.’

‘It becomes self-selecting’

‘There has always been a tier of people for whom earning the most money possible and working as hard as possible has been the sole focus,’ says Wong. ‘Those people still exist. But there’s also a large and growing tier of people who want more of a balance, and that goes hand in hand with the current generation of young lawyers being brave enough to be open about what they want from their careers.’

For all their concerns about ESG and work-life balance, Gen Z lawyers are – at this point – a small and unique sample within commercial law firms or in-house legal teams. By definition, those already working are the ones who are willing to put in the hours and make the compromises that corporate law requires.

Firms increasingly have procedures in place to allow lawyers to refuse to work on a particular matter if they have ethical or other objections. However, no-one interviewed for this article could recall personally encountering or even hearing about a lawyer turning down work. ‘We’ve never had anybody in my time raise an ethical concern over a certain piece of work,’ says Buchanan.

For one associate, this is because ‘people sort themselves by their value alignments at a much earlier stage’. Put simply: ‘If you have serious ethical objections to working for tobacco companies, for example, you are not going to qualify into a firm that has tobacco clients as major clients.’

Wong concurs: ‘We’ve certainly had people decide they don’t want to go into a certain area,’ he says. ‘It becomes self-selecting.’ In addition to preferences over work-life balance, Wong notes that ethical concerns can factor into these decisions: ‘We’ve had instances where, approaching qualification, Muslim trainees have questioned whether working in certain areas of finance involving interest is compatible with their religious beliefs. We’ve had very open discussions with them about that and fully respect those beliefs. As a full-service firm, we have a wealth of other areas that they can qualify into.’

Another associate puts a slightly different spin on it: ‘It’s not just self-selection. The kind of person who cares enough about political issues to have done anything really controversial as a radical student isn’t going to get past a vetting process, even if they wanted to go into corporate law.’

Interviewees also stressed that Gen Z lawyers were not uncompromising. Chiu offers one explanation for this: ‘Ultimately, as a young trainee or lawyer, we do not always have the luxury of choice when applying to firms or companies.’ Such concerns are more likely to play into later career decisions, she argues: ‘Young lawyers put weight on these factors more than older generations when it comes to choosing to remain and progress in a particular firm or company.’

‘Gen Z has grown up with social media and mobiles – they’re more willing to speak their minds than I was as a junior lawyer.’
Simon Edwards, Trowers & Hamlins

Gen Z lawyers are also regarded as more commercial and career-oriented. ‘There has been a generational shift in terms of expectations, and also in terms of how savvy people are in mapping their careers at a very early stage,’ says Buchanan.

Wong concurs: ‘Career progression is important. Young lawyers are very switched on to what they want out of their career. They’re constantly thinking about where they want to be in two, five or ten years.’

Edwards notes that the small size of the Gen Z lawyers cohort and the youth of its members makes generalisation difficult, but makes a similar point: ‘People are more willing to move, whether that’s to a competitor firm, to go in-house, or even to get more experience in the business outside of the law.’

‘Younger lawyers aren’t going to stick in something that’s not right for them,’ he continues. ‘They say, “If I don’t like the culture or what the firm is doing on ESG, I’ll move on.” Employers need to make sure they’re providing an environment in which people want to stay. It’s not enough to just have the carrot of the money. You need to provide a rounded experience if you want to keep people.’

Partners are alive to these issues, and firms are increasingly considering them when it comes to working with and mentoring their young lawyers.

But what may be most interesting is to see what changes as the number of Gen Z lawyers grows and as members of the cohort become more senior. Hunt ends on a note of cautious optimism: ‘Yes, this profession might be one with sometimes slightly insane hours, lots of stress, et cetera, but I do think (and hope) it’s improving, especially in terms of the respect for people’s mental health within the profession. I feel that over the next five, ten, fifteen years ,the legal profession, in particular private practice, will need to change. I just don’t think it’s sustainable.’ LB

alex.ryan@legalease.co.uk

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On 29-30 April, more than 200 senior in-house counsel gathered at the Hilton London Wembley for the seventh annual Enterprise GC event.

The event – which was sponsored by Walker Morris, Luminance, Lex Mundi, SSQ, EY, Taylor Wessing, Trowers & Hamlins, Cilex, Flex Legal, Winston & Strawn, Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis – saw two packed days of dynamic sessions, panel discussions and networking, bringing together top in-house professionals and speakers from broader business and academic communities to discuss the evolving role of GCs.

Sandra Wachter, professor of technology and regulation at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford, kicked off the event with a timely and engaging keynote on bias, ethics and risks relating to artificial intelligence, questioning whether AI can be trusted and what in-house lawyers need to know when adopting such technology. She highlighted the limitations and risks of large language models and AI-powered chatbots in legal and financial analysis, stressing the need for responsible evaluation and use of these technologies.

Following this, Taylor Wessing partner Christopher Jeffery and counsel Martijn Loth hosted a panel featuring Daniel Jarman, head of ethics, compliance, and insurance at Deliveroo, and Caroline Stockwell, head of legal at Amicus Therapeutics, which centred around the practical applications of AI in business, including operational efficiency and bias reduction, stressing the importance of robust governance and ethical frameworks.

After a short networking session and coffee break, participants then split off into various round table discussions encompassing topics such as enhancing the role of in-house legal teams in IT projects, the strategic role of in-house lawyers, maximising legal team efficiency, and how GCs are shaping corporate strategy.

In the last session before lunch, Michelle T Davies, global head of sustainability at EY Law, led a panel on regulatory considerations around supply chains and greenwashing. The panel included Mark Maurice-Jones, general counsel (GC) and compliance officer at Nestlé; Dr Linn Anker-Sørensen, director and global lead of sustainability regulatory at EY Law; Melissa Strong, head of insurance, pensions, and investments litigation at Lloyds Banking Group; and Anthony Kenny, assistant GC at GSK. They emphasised the increasing importance of sustainability disclosure and transition planning, underlining transparency, robustness, and collaboration.

The afternoon kicked off with an in-depth panel on cross-border legal risk management, hosted by Eric Staal, vice president of global markets at Lex Mundi, who discussed emerging challenges such as lockdown impacts, political talent shortages, and cyber risks. Panellists including Graham Cox, programme director at Boundaries Edge Ltd; Katarina Nilsson, vice president of people and culture, communication and SHEQ at Epiroc; and Graham Vanhegan, chief legal officer at The Weir Group, shared insights on dual sourcing, crisis management, and agility in global crises.

Additional round tables included an AI workshop with Taylor Wessing and a popular Legal 500-led session exploring concerns and challenges facing today’s GC.

The day concluded with two final panels – Grace Haselden, commercial director at Luminance, and Sam Al-Ani, legal counsel at Rightmove, discussed AI’s impact on document management and commercial processes, followed by a discussion moderated by the Legal 500’s head of global research and reporting Georgina Stanley, who talked to Maaike de Bie, group GC and company secretary at Vodafone; NatWest lawyer Lisa Ardley-Price; and SSQ’s Laura Field, who offered practical tips on navigating in-house career development, advancing to senior roles, and transitioning beyond legal positions.

Day one ended with a gala dinner featuring live music, a three-course meal, and networking drinks at the hotel’s Sky Bar.

Day two shifted from AI to ESG, with Jennifer Nadel, co-director of Compassion in Politics, delivering a keynote on the vital role of compassion in politics and ethics. Using personal and historical examples like the Grenfell Tower fire, she emphasised the urgency of embedding ESG principles across society and urged collective action to bridge the moral gap and foster a compassionate world.

The day’s first panel, moderated by Ben Bruton, partner at Winston & Strawn, explored dispute resolution as an opportunity for growth and innovation. Panellists Sam Shadbolt, legal director UK & Ireland at AkzoNobel; Charlotte Digby, legal director at LEVC; Amrik Kandola, commercial mediator at Ask Mediation Ltd; and Dominic Hennessy, senior legal counsel at London Metal Exchange, emphasised proactive engagement, early legal involvement, and collaborative mediation, concluding that these strategies enhance business resilience and competitive advantage.

After a coffee break, two additional panels were held before lunch. Legal 500’s Ben Wheway and Legal Business reporter Holly McKechnie led an interactive session on what in-house lawyers expect from their external advisers and what their intentions are for the year ahead, drawing on the results of the Legal 500’s vast referee research database.

Another session, moderated by SSQ’s Laura Field, featured Taylor Wessing partner Siân Skelton; NatWest’s Lisa Ardley-Price; and Mandy Kaur, legal director at PizzaExpress. They discussed how GCs can enhance social mobility in the legal profession through outreach programmes and inclusive recruitment, calling for unity and collaboration to foster diversity and inclusion through mentorship and proactive support.

Following lunch, three panels were held. The first, hosted by Chris Bones, chair of Cilex, focused on in-house ethics with Jeremy Barton, partner and GC at KPMG; Dr Karen Nokes, lecturer in Law at UCL; Peter O’Keeffe, head of legal group and EMEA at Dr Martens; and Lara Oyesanya, GC at Zepz. They discussed ethical challenges and lawyer behaviour in corporate scandals such as the Post Office case.

Legal Business City reporter Elisha Juttla, then hosted a panel on crisis management with BA GC Andrew Fleming and Awaze GC Rupa Patel, who discussed how they had navigated crises such as Covid-19 and cyber incidents, highlighting the value of preparation and effective communication.

The final panel of the event was led by Simon Edwards, corporate and commercial partner at Trowers & Hamlins, and Natalie Hunt, assistant GC, group functions and employment at Johnson Matthey, alongside a trio of Gen Z legal professionals – Phoebe Clements and Jasmin Chiu of McArthurGlen Group and Lucy Gün of Coca-Cola, who contributed to an eye-opening discussion on the career choices of junior lawyers and what they truly value and expect from a modern employer.

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Access your pdf version of the M&A Yearbook 2024

Editor’s Letter

Foreword – Taylor Wessing: Blue skies ahead

After two subdued years, global M&A activity is showing signs of recovery.

Cleared for departure – charting the course for deal optimism

After a dismal 2023 for dealmaking, partners are focusing on the positives, despite lingering economic and geopolitical uncertainties. So is the M&A market ready for takeoff?

Dialling in the deal – the inside track on the Vodafone/Three merger

The planned tie-up between Vodafone and Three UK stood out in last year’s stuttering M&A market. Here, Slaughter and May M&A partners Victoria MacDuff and Richard Hilton, lead counsel for Vodafone, tell Legal 500 London editor Cameron Purse all about the deal

The real deal – the firms dominating the rankings for M&A

From premium, multibillion-pound practices to national players handling heavy volumes of transactional matters, the Legal 500’s M&A rankings cover the full gamut of the deals market

Stress test – partners on how they deal with a life under pressure

Long and unpredictable hours can make transactional work hard to reconcile with mental health considerations. We spoke to City partners about how they keep things in check – and why the industry still needs to change

To live or die in DC – getting deals done amid US antitrust crackdown

Elite US law firms are stocking up on antitrust expertise as the Federal Trade Commission cracks down on enforcement. Barnaby Merrill speaks to top practitioners about the current deal landscape and the key issues for clients under scrutiny

M&A perspectives

Jennifer Bethlehem

‘We were at the centre of a deal that was necessary to ensure global financial stability – the stakes don’t get higher’ – Freshfields’ head of consumer and healthcare Jennifer Bethlehem on deal highlights and having the personality for M&A

Lorenzo Corte

‘The deal was the most complete learning experience I could have ever hoped for’ – Skadden’s global head of transactions Lorenzo Corte on deal highlights and coming from a family of lawyers

Melissa Fogarty

‘I pinch myself (most days!)’ – Clifford Chance’s London corporate co-head Melissa Fogarty on memorable deals, embracing technology and why she would absolutely recommend a career in M&A law

Headline market briefings

AI spy: avoiding bad AI investments

In the wake of recent advances in generative artificial intelligence (AI), AI has shot to the top of the board agenda. No one wants to miss out on this transformative technology – but businesses need to ensure FOMO doesn’t lead to bad investments. Jonny Bethell and Jo Joyce of Taylor Wessing explore the potential pitfalls to avoid in AI acquisitions

Getting exit ready

Multiple signs are pointing to an increasing momentum around M&A activity. If you’ve been holding out for better conditions to sell your business, now is the time to make sure you’re exit ready. Taylor Wessing’s Emma Danks, Suzy Davis and Siobhán Langwade outline key areas of focus and practical matters

Argentina market briefing

Understanding mergers and acquisitions in Argentina

Rafael Salaberren Dupont, Juan Manuel Campos Álvarez, and Diego D’Odorico of SyLS discuss the processes, challenges, and prospects for M&A in Argentina

Belgium market briefing

Excess cash in a Belgian M&A context

Jérôme Terfve and Guillaume Charlier report on the treatment of excess cash in M&A transactions by the Belgian authorities

Philippines market briefing

Capitalising on opportunities in the Philippines

Gorriceta Africa Cauton & Saavedra lawyers led by Mark S. Gorriceta (managing partner), Kristine T. Torres (partner) and Kathleen T. Guiang (mid level associate) explore the challenges, cross-border elements and post acquisition disputes for M&A transactions in the Philippines

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Please see below for a link to an online pdf of the M&A Yearbook 2024.

M&A Yearbook 2024 complete pdf link

Return to M&A Yearbook 2024 contents.

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When M&A markets slowed down in the second half of 2022, the positive spin from dealmakers was that at least they got a little respite after the heady heights of the post-pandemic 2021 deal boom.

But when the lull continued and 2023 turned into a year that set all the wrong records in terms of deal values and volumes, any attempts at positive spin were a lot less convincing.

But now, at the halfway point in 2024 and with inflation falling, M&A partners are once again optimistic that things could be about to turn. Certainly, Q1 deal values suggest a market moving in the right direction, even if deal volumes are still lagging.

In the 2024 M&A Yearbook, in association with Taylor Wessing, we speak to leading corporate partners at UK and US firms to find out their thoughts on the year ahead and the way the prolonged slowdown in activity has changed the way deals have to be done in order to go ahead.

It’s a reality that Slaughter and May partners Victoria MacDuff and Richard Hilton grappled with when they advised on one of the biggest announced deals of 2023 – the planned £15bn combination of Vodafone and CK Hutchison’s Three. It’s a deal that will create the biggest mobile network in the UK, if it gets competition clearance. They tell Legal 500 London editor Cameron Purse all about their role for Vodafone.

With competition authorities around the world taking an increasingly aggressive stance towards M&A, and governments worldwide being more protectionist, it’s the perfect time for Legal 500’s US editor Barnaby Merrill to take an in-depth look at what’s happening in the world’s busiest M&A market – the US. He speaks with some of New York’s top antitrust lawyers in our feature.

Elsewhere, in ‘Stress test’ Elisha Juttla speaks to partners at firms from Milbank to Hogan Lovells and Freshfields to Simpson Thacher about the reality of a life under pressure and finds out their tips for staying calm in the midst of a deal. We also have a trio of interviews with market-leading M&A partners Jennifer Bethlehem at Freshfields, Melissa Fogarty at Clifford Chance and Lorenzo Corte at Skadden.

In addition we have updates from partner firms in Argentina, Belgium, the UK and the Philippines.

We hope you enjoy it!

Georgina Stanley

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