Slaughter and May

Last updated

Slaughter and May
Slaughter and May logo.svg
HeadquartersLondon, United Kingdom
No. of offices4 [1]
No. of lawyersApproximately 560 [2]
No. of employeesApproximately 1,140 [3]
Major practice areasGeneral practice
Key peopleRoland Turnill (Senior Partner)
Deborah Finkler (Managing Partner),
Jill Hoseason (Chief Operating Officer) [4]
Revenue£654.0 million (2023/24) [2]
Profit per equity partner£2.9 million (2023/24) [2]
Date founded1889 (London) [5]
Company type General partnership
Website slaughterandmay.com

Slaughter and May is a British law firm headquartered in London, England. Founded in 1889 as an offshoot of Ashurst Morris Crisp (later Ashurst), [6] Slaughter and May is considered to be one of the most prestigious British law firms [7] and is a disputed member of the "Magic Circle", with many legal commentators no longer considering it a member. [8] The Lawyer in particular have noted that "Slaughter and May is far more like Macfarlanes tha[n] the magic circle quartet it is commonly lumped in with" and believe that Slaughter and May should rightly be considered part of the Silver Circle. [9] In addition to London, it has offices in Beijing, Brussels and Hong Kong. [1]

Contents

According to research conducted by The Lawyer, amongst the 30 largest UK 200 firms by revenue generated in London, Slaughter and May has the 4th slowest growth in profit per equity partner (PEP), third slowest growth in profit per lawyer (PPL), and 5th slowest growth in net profit over the last 5 years. [10] However, as of 2024, Slaughter and May maintains its position within the 10 largest firms by revenue generated solely in the City at 9th place (£562.0m) behind Linklaters, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, Freshfields, Kirkland & Ellis, CMS, Latham & Watkins, and Herbert Smith Freehills. [11]

History

Slaughter and May was founded on 1 January 1889 by William Capel Slaughter and William May both previously of Ashurst Morris Crisp (later Ashurst). [5] [12] The firm's first office was located at 18 Austin Friars in the City of London. [5] In 1974, the firm opened an office in Hong Kong, being the first London law firm to establish a presence there. [5] During the 1980s and 1990s, the firm acted on a number of privatisations in the United Kingdom, including those of British Airways, British Gas and British Steel Corporation. [5]

In 2002, Slaughter and May moved to its current London office at One Bunhill Row. Slaughter and May closed its New York office in September 2004 and its Singapore office in October 2004, instead referring its U.S. work to Wall Street firms and its Southeast Asia work to the Australian firm of Allens Arthur Robinson. [13] In December 2005, Slaughter and May agreed to cede its Paris office to the French law firm Bredin Prat. [14] In 2009, the firm opened an office in Beijing, China, [5] to focus mainly on M&A and outbound and inbound investment. [15]

In comparison to Magic Circle firms, Slaughter and May has a minimal overseas presence. Its international practice largely relies on relationships with local law firms in other countries, many of which themselves have minimal overseas presence, and thus do not compete with Slaughter and May. These closely associated firms have included Clayton Utz, Corrs Chambers Westgarth and Gilbert + Tobin in Australia; [16] Bell Gully in New Zealand; BonelliErede, Bredin Prat, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Hengeler Mueller and Uría Menéndez in continental Europe; [17] Shin & Kim and Kim & Chang in South Korea; and three of the Big Four law firms in Japan. [18]

Operations

In 2015 its partners earned the highest profit per equity partner (PEP) of any UK law firm. [19] [20]

In 2015, the firm represented 33 clients on the FTSE 100 and 44 clients on the FTSE 250, more than any other firm at the time, [20] including governments, entrepreneurs, funds to leading banks, retailers, entertainment companies, industrial conglomerates and professional sports clubs. [21]

In London, Hong Kong and Beijing, Slaughter and May's core practice areas are mergers and acquisitions, corporate and financing work. [22]

In Brussels, its practice areas are competition, financial regulation, data protection, as well as trade issues raised by Brexit.[ citation needed ]

Carillion collapse

In May 2018, a report by a joint inquiry of members of the UK parliament criticized the firm for billing more than £8 million for legal advice to Carillion from when its dire financial position became clear in May 2017 to its eventual collapse in January 2018. Members of parliament said that "names such as Slaughter and May, Lazard, Morgan Stanley and EY were brandished by the board as a badge of credibility. But the appearance of prominent advisers proves nothing other than the willingness of the board to throw money at a problem and the willingness of advisory firms to accept generous fees". The report added that "by the end, a whole suite of advisers, including an array of law firms, were squeezing fee income out of what remained of the company. £6.4m disappeared on the last working day alone as the directors pleaded for a taxpayer bailout". Rachel Reeves, the Labour MP who chaired the Commons business committee, said that after the accountancy firms "it was Carillion's legal advisers who took the big payouts in the company's dying days". [23] [24]

Notable clients and cases

Attorneys and alumni

See also

Related Research Articles

Linklaters LLP is a British multinational law firm, headquartered in London, England. Founded in 1838, it is one of the four prestigious "Magic Circle" law firms known for their corporate and financial expertise. It currently employs over 3100 lawyers across 31 offices in 21 countries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Law firm</span> Business entity formed to practice law

A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other matters in which legal advice and other assistance are sought.

Clifford Chance LLP is a British multinational law firm headquartered in London, England, and a member of the "Magic Circle", a group of leading London-based multinational law firms.

Allen & Overy LLP was a British multinational law firm headquartered in London, England. The firm has 590 partners and over 5,800 employees worldwide. In 2023 A&O reported an increase in revenue to GBP2.1 billion and is the second largest law firm headquartered in the UK by revenue.

"Magic Circle" is an informal term describing the five most prestigious London-headquartered multinational law firms, which generally outperform the rest of the London law firms on profitability. The term has also been used to describe the most prestigious barristers' chambers in London. All of the 'Magic Circle' law firms and barristers' chambers specialise primarily in corporate law.

Freshfields LLP is a British multinational law firm headquartered in London, England, and a member of the so-called "Magic Circle". The firm has 28 offices in 17 jurisdictions across Asia, Europe, the Middle East and North America. It advises national and multinational corporations, financial institutions and governments.

The offshore magic circle is the set of the largest multi-jurisdictional law firms who specialise in offshore financial centres, especially the laws of the British Overseas Territories of Bermuda, Cayman Islands, and British Virgin Islands, and the Crown dependencies of Jersey, Guernsey and The Isle of Man.

Conyers is an international law firm. Their client base includes FTSE 100 and Fortune 500 companies, international finance houses and asset managers. The firm advises on law practiced in Bermuda, British Virgin Islands and the Cayman Islands. Conyers Headquarters is situated in Hamilton, Bermuda and has international offices in Hong Kong, London and Singapore.

Ashurst is a British multinational law firm headquartered in London. It has 27 offices in 15 countries apart from the United Kingdom, across Asia, Australia, Europe, the Middle East and North America, and employs around 1,600 legal advisers. Ashurst is 55th in the list of 100 largest law firms in the world by revenue, and 8th in the list of largest UK law firms by revenue.

The Silver Circle is a group of elite corporate law firms headquartered in London that has evolved significantly as the UK legal market has been affected by globalisation and mergers. The law firms generally described by The Lawyer magazine as comprising the Silver Circle were historically Ashurst, Herbert Smith, Macfarlanes, SJ Berwin and Travers Smith.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek</span>

De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek N.V. is a Dutch law firm headquartered in Amsterdam with branch offices in Brussels, London, Shanghai and Singapore. The firm has 60 partners and 300 other qualified lawyers. The firm was founded in 1871.

The Big Six is a term that has traditionally referred to the six largest Australian law firms, as assessed by revenue and lawyer head count. From the mid-1980s, the phrase was in regular use to distinguish the largest Australian firms, collectively, from their smaller competitors. While informal, it was a widely-used descriptor, appearing in news items, industry commentary and scholarly articles.

Hengeler Mueller is a German law firm of about 320 lawyers. The firm maintains offices in Berlin, Düsseldorf, Frankfurt am Main, Munich, Brussels and London. The firm was created in 1990 when Hengeler Kurth Wirtz and Mueller Weitzel Weisner merged. It has been recognized in the top tier of firms in the fields of mergers & acquisitions, capital markets, finance, private equity and structured finance, particularly in synthetic securitization. The firm maintains strong ties with Slaughter and May, Bonelli Erede Pappalardo (Italy), Bredin Prat (France), De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek and Uría Menéndez (Spain). In March 2014, it became known that the Munich public prosecutor's office was investigating lawyers at the law firm for inciting false unsworn testimony and aiding and abetting fraud, and that the law firm's offices had been searched. The lawyers were accused of arranging untrue statements with witnesses in a court case brought by the heirs of Leo Kirch against Deutsche Bank over the insolvency of the Kirch Group. In April 2016, the Deutsche Bank board members were acquitted in the related trial at the Munich Regional Court.

Travers Smith LLP is a corporate law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It advises national and multinational companies in the UK and internationally across the full range of corporate and commercial matters.

Macfarlanes LLP is a London-based law firm.

King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) is an international commercial law firm based in Asia-Pacific. It is the largest international law firm in Asia-Pacific. It has 26 offices and more than 3,000 legal professionals across Australia, China, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Herbert Smith Freehills</span> Multinational law firm

Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) is a global law firm with headquarters in London, England and Sydney, Australia. HSF has been widely acknowledged as one of the world's most elite and selective law firms, and, as of 2024, was the 33rd largest by revenue. It was formed on 1 October 2012 by a merger between the United Kingdom-based Herbert Smith founded in 1882, then a member of the Silver Circle of leading UK law firms, and Freehills founded in 1852, one of the Big Six Australian law firms.

The legal services sector of the United Kingdom is a significant part of the national economy; it had a total output of £22.6 billion in 2013, up from 10.6 billion in 2001, and is equivalent to 1.6% of the country's gross domestic product for that year. The sector has a trade surplus is £3.1 billion in 2013 and directly employees 316,000 people, two-thirds of whom are located outside London. The UK is the world's most international market for legal services. It allows virtually unrestricted access for foreign firms, resulting in over 200 foreign law firms with offices in London and other cities in the UK. Around half of these are US firms, with the remainder mainly from Europe, Australia and Canada. The UK legal market has a strong global position due to the popularity of English law. Some 27% of the world's 320 legal jurisdictions use English Common law.

Bredin Prat is a French law firm of about 180 lawyers, 45 of whom are partners and 14 are counsels. Founded in 1966, it is one of the largest law firms in Europe. It has offices in Paris and Brussels. Bredin Prat maintains partnerships with BonelliErede (Italy), Cravath, Swaine & Moore, Hengeler Mueller (Germany), Slaughter and May, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, and Uría Menéndez (Spain).

In 2019, the top 50 Dutch law firms had around 4,476 attorneys and the top 30 law firms had around 183 notaries and 527 candidate notaries. According to the Chambers and Partners legal directory, the top five law firms in the Netherlands are Allen & Overy Netherlands, De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek, Houthoff, Loyens & Loeff and Stibbe. Every year advocatie.nl publishes a list of the 50 biggest law firms in headcount.

References

  1. 1 2 "Offices". Slaughter and May. Retrieved 26 October 2010.
  2. 1 2 3 "Slaughter and May – UK results 2010". The Lawyer . Retrieved 24 October 2010.
  3. ↑ "Key facts and figures". Slaughter and May. Retrieved 29 April 2015.
  4. ↑ "Partners". Slaughter and May. Retrieved 29 June 2022.
  5. 1 2 3 4 5 6 "History". Slaughter and May. Retrieved 26 October 2010.
  6. ↑ Marc Galanter & Simon Roberts (2008). "From kinship to magic circle: the London commercial law firm in the twentieth century". International Journal of the Legal Profession. 15 (3): 147.
  7. ↑ Byrne, Matt (27 October 2016). "UK 200: Record 11 firms join the £1m PEP club".
  8. ↑ Mawardi, Adam (15 July 2024). "How Slaughter and May fell out of the Magic Circle – and why it might not want back in". The Telegraph. ISSN   0307-1235 . Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  9. ↑ "Who are the silver circle law firms and how it has changed". The Lawyer | Legal insight, benchmarking data and jobs. 19 September 2017. Retrieved 25 November 2024.
  10. ↑ Matt Byrne & Vitesa Fetahu (October 2024). "UK 200: City Profitability". The Lawyer. Retrieved 25 November 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  11. ↑ Matt Byrne, Vitesa Fetahu & Nikhil Aggarwal (September 2024). "The City: City 50 2024". The Lawyer. Retrieved 25 November 2024.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
  12. ↑ "Slaughter and May". Legal Week . 21 August 2009. Retrieved 26 October 2010.
  13. ↑ "Slaughters shuts NY and Singapore". The Lawyer. 5 July 2004. Retrieved 18 July 2013.
  14. ↑ "Bredin Prat to take over Slaughters Paris". The Lawyer. 14 December 2005. Retrieved 2 October 2012.
  15. ↑ "Slaughter and May – What The Lawyer Says". The Lawyer. 9 April 2018.
  16. ↑ "Slaughter and May – Overview". The Lawyer. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  17. ↑ "Slaughter and May – The Best Friends group". www.slaughterandmay.com. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  18. ↑ "Slaughters unveils best friends strategy in Asia". www.thelawyer.com. Retrieved 21 September 2015.
  19. ↑ Wilson, Harry. "Slaughter and May top the table for lawyers' pay | The Times" . Retrieved 24 September 2015.
  20. 1 2 "Slaughter and May leads as magic circle dominates FTSE 100 client list" . Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  21. ↑ "Slaughter and May – Key facts and figures". www.slaughterandmay.com. Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  22. ↑ "Slaughter and May" . Retrieved 17 September 2015.
  23. ↑ Walters, Maxv (18 May 2018). "Carillion paid Slaughter and May millions for crisis advice". Financial Times.
  24. ↑ "Slaughter and May billed Carillion £8m in months before collapse". Law Gazette.
  25. ↑ "Slaughters on Northern Rock: "The house of cards collapsed"". The Lawyer. 15 September 2017. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  26. ↑ "Freshfields and Slaughter and May advise government on covid corporate finance facility". CityAM. 25 March 2020. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  27. ↑ Thompson, Barney (18 May 2018). "Carillion paid Slaughter and May millions for crisis advice". Financial Times. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  28. ↑ Tillay, Meganne. "Magic Circle Trio to Take Slice of £75M Bill from Prudential Demerger". Law.com International. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  29. ↑ "Liverpool's takeover by FSG: Inside the deal 10 years on". Sky Sports. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  30. ↑ "Deal of the Year: Slaughter and May, GSK/Novartis". www.fnlondon.com. Retrieved 1 November 2020.
  31. ↑ "Michael Coates". The Lawyer | Legal insight, benchmarking data and jobs. 7 July 2021. Retrieved 18 November 2023.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.