AA Thornton’s Post

We are excited to announce that AA Thornton’s partners and the rest of its amazing team of people will join Venner Shipley on 1 December! The combined firm will operate under the Venner Shipley name, uniting 46 partners and a total team of 230 across eight offices in Europe providing a full IP service, including #patent, #trademark, #design, #litigation expertise. #LeadingFirm #IntellectualProperty https://lnkd.in/eP76ExKE

More big news in the UK Patent & Trade Mark Attorney market as AA Thornton are joining forces with Venner Shipley! The new outfit will have over 200 people, with 46 partners internationally, but will continue to use the Venner Shipley name and they'll start together on 1st December. Seems to be lots of change in the market at the moment, with this being not long after HGF announcing that it had secured Private Equity investment!

The past few years has been a fun ride - in many ways thanks to these two people. 💡 Imagine transforming collaboration into a winning strategy in the #RealEstate industry. That's exactly what the #Vested partnership model can do for you. ✨ As an architect for seven years and now an advisor at EY Sweden, a global Centre of Excellence for Vested, my journey has been deeply enriched by the power of partnership. Whether it's #FacilitiesManagement, #Maintenance, or #ComplexInfrastructure, a true partnership brings unmatched value. 🌐 Having worked on several Vested partnerships over the last two years at EY, I have witnessed how this outcome-based approach fosters extraordinary win-win situations. 👥 Vested is more than just a methodology or a business model – it's a transformative movement that redefines how we think about #partnerships and #collaboration. 💫 What are your experiences with partnerships and outcome based contracts? Let me know in the comments #EY #OutcomeBased #Collaboration #WinWin

What has happened to equity partner compensation within firms this year in the AmLaw 100 and what impact will that have on firm culture? It is unsurprising to see the spread in average equity partner compensation at Am Law 100 firms increase from 9.8-to-1 in 2022 to 10.3-to-1 in 2023. Given the much publicized battles at the top of the market for rainmaking partners I can't see this trend reversing any time soon. This year has shown beyond any doubt that no firm is unsusceptible to having its top performers poached by competitors. Firms that do not increase the spread in partner compensation to reward rainmakers, risk losing partners. Pure and simple. That alone will continue to drive this trend. However, I do wonder about the compound effect this will have over time on culture. A fundamental principle of organizational psychology is that incentives drive behavior. Aligning incentives to reward book size makes a lot of commercial sense on paper. However, one cannot overlook that it also frequently encourages behaviors from partners which come at the expense of firm culture. Great article by Andrew Maloney of The American Lawyer breaking down some of these stats. https://lnkd.in/eYStW9Fk Follow me for more #biglaw market commentary, intel and roles.

Given the scale of the Projects in the Middle East and the ambitious programmes, it is often necessary for an Employer to reduce or omit works in order to limit risk of prolongation costs where a design is incomplete. In this latest article published in #ConstructionWeekMiddleEast, Claire Miller and I take a look at how best to manage these reductions. A quick read, but hopefully some useful points to consider. 

Our second Lawshare Management Conference panel are ready to introduce themselves!👏 Building a Firm, Building a Culture. Our illustrious panellists will be discussing how firms of different shapes and sizes can grow and, at the same time, develop or maintain a 'culture' that is reflective of a firm's values and philosophy. For any queries, please email lawshare.marketing@jmw.co.uk #jmw #lawshare #lawshareconf2024

Check out below a snapshot of what the DLA Piper Birmingham office has been up to recently - some great deals across the practice areas!

They're (Still) Never Coming Back Approximately three years ago I wrote a similar post during the middle of the pandemic. And I stand by that today. Five days a week is a historical relic, at least in the legal industry. And the truth is very few people were in five days a week before the pandemic even started. I've spent the last 23 years meeting with virtually all of the world's leading law firms at their offices, and long before the pandemic even started their offices were often ghost towns. There is no question that some time in the office is essential, especially for culture and training. But we've seen that lawyers can work extremely effectively remotely, and there is simply no chance that they are going to give that up altogether. What does the mean for firms? You better take this into account when formulating and adjusting your latest RTO policies.

If success is measured by profit, then Macfarlanes seems to be a clear winner in the UK, with a profit margin of 50%, pipping Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to the post (49.1%). Interestingly the average profit margin for the top 30 UK firms with the highest profit margins was 31.5%. By contrast, across the pond there are 18 US law firms with profit margins above 50%, according to the  2024 Am Law 100 Report, with specialist litigation firms coming out on top: Susman Godfrey LLP at a staggering 85%, Quinn Emanuel at 65% and Williams & Connolly LLP at 61%. Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz was unsurprisingly in the top performers at 68%, and Kirkland & Ellis at 59%. (Link to the full table in the comments below). Congratulations to management in all firms for achieving such success and to the worker bees who underpinned it. May you all enjoy the honey one day too!

Want to know more about public sector collaborations? Watch our latest webinar by Tiffany Cloynes and Rebecca Gilbert of Capsticks LLP as they explore corporate and contractual collaborative models. #corporatelaw #EMLawshare