The way we think

We enjoy what we do and want our clients to enjoy working with us. The quality and personable approach of our lawyers attracts the world’s best known corporations and financial institutions. Such clients include EDF Energy, Gazprom, Goldman Sachs, Sumitomo, Tata and Time Warner. Where possible, we integrate with the client’s own team, allowing us to get closer to their objectives and allowing them to take full advantage of our expertise.

We are always encouraging our people to have enquiring minds. Being inquisitive and thinking about things rather than accepting the norm comes naturally to them. We seek to innovate, and at times will develop legal solutions not seen before in the market.

Recent innovative work includes:

Class actions: we conducted original research on business reaction to extending the class action regime in the UK and Europe. We found that those we interviewed in large corporates were opposed to making class actions easier and more accessible, but helpfully pinpointed that their concerns lay in some of the worst excesses of the US experience.

Hedge funds: we were sole legal adviser to the Hedge Funds Working Group on best practice standards. This is the first time the hedge fund industry in the UK has aimed to define the key issues on which it should be regulated. Over half of the industry’s participants have already agreed to comply.

Companies Act 2006: the firm provided significant input into Parliamentary debates and committee drafting on the original legislation, and produced an authoritative guide to the Act before any commercial or academic editions were published. We ran a series of seminars for clients on the practical impact of the new Act that were commended by a number of clients for their effectiveness.