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Our view...
Richards
Butler merged with US firm Reed Smith on 1st January 2007. It's
already lost its name and partners will be hoping that it doesn't lose
its identity. Nervous glances will be cast at Jones Day, whose
takeover of City firm Gouldens in 2003 resulted in massive culture
shock and redundancies. Still,
one happy side effect is that the firm has now said goodbye to its
logo, which famously looked like a half digested vindaloo that has been returned to sender on the pavement.
Although its offices still look like something from Posh and Becks' wedding.
And will continue to do so for the next two or three years - the firms
may have merged but their lawyers are still working in their old
quarters until a big enough building can be found to house them all. It's
too early to say whether the merger will be a success, but at least
it's raised the firm's previously low profile. If anyone had a view of
Richards Butler it was that of a big shipping firm whose heyday was in the eighties. Which is
odd, given that it was bigger than MacFarlanes, Taylor Wessing
and Stephenson Harwood and that its most senior partners take home the same
sort of wedge as the big boys at Clifford Chance. Sure,
it's a good shipping firm, but it's also well known for
leisure and property work (such as working with Freshfields on Trillium's
outsourcing deal with the BBC). Of late it has also positioned
themselves as the top referral practice for financial disputes, to
take advantage of the fact that most of its City competitors are
regularly conflicted out in this arena. The real concern is
the firm's commercial
department, which is small and depends on a relatively small number of
clients. Richards Butler accepted that it needed to ramp up the group,
and the merger should have achieved this in one fell swoop. Watch this
space.. Richards
Butler had some interesting foreign offices and the merger has added
to this. Most notable is the firm's highly rated,
and consistently profitable, Far
East outfit. Students should know that there's a summer scholarship
in Hong Kong, which sounds great fun. They should also know that it's
reckoned to be harder to bag than a training contract. Richards
Butler's ties with the meeja world make for some interesting work. Recently the
firm sued Victoria Beckham for malicious falsehood, won the UK's largest anti-piracy case
and worked for film director Robert Altman. MTV is a long standing
client, and trainees can go there on secondment. Wicked. So
the money's decent, the work is good and looks to be getting better,
the hours aren't as tough as some and there's the opportunity to work
overseas. All of which should provide pretty decent compensation for
working for a slightly anonymous firm at the wrong end of the City.
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