Freshfields seems to be harvesting deals fairly solidly at the moment in spite of the poor conditions. The firm has taken a lead role alongside Sullivan & Cromwell on the merger of the Japanese securities units of Morgan Stanley and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and is also making the most of its German connection…

It secured a lead role on German tourism giant TUI’s $6bn (£4.2bn) sell-off of a majority stake in its Hamburg-based shipping unit to an investor group …

Although many professional services firms are taking a beating at the moment, the public sector is providing low hanging fruit for some…

Eversheds has topped the latest table of quarterly rankings from investment adviser Hemscott . The firm advises more stock market clients than any other law firm according to these results. Nearly all the firms featured in Hemscott’s rankings saw client numbers fall in the most recent three-month period surveyed. According to Hemscott :

Eversheds clings to the lead it grabbed dramatically three months ago despite losing five of the nine gains it made between August and November. Norton Rose LLP …

As the world heads further into economic mayhem we bring you a snippet of ‘positive’ news to perk up the week. The downturn is obviously providing plenty of political headlines at the moment and for some lucky lawyers these will be translating into some big fees…

Slaughter and May is advising UK Financial Investments, the Government-owned company set up last year to manage its shareholdings in banks and has now been instructed to advise the Government in its attempts to …

It will be no surprise that more redundanies emerged this week. The numbers involved were less than we’ve been used to recently, although this is no comfort to those individuals affected. The odd bit of advice and a dose of humour to ease the pain is the only medicine we can offer. (If you haven’t looked at it yet, the Odd Todd cartoon below might amuse. The site is owned and operated by Todd Rosenberg, an unemployed "dotcommer" at …

The theme of the moment may be redundancy but that has not stopped the business of law from banging the drum. Whilst the downturn might have caused the well of M&A and property deals to dry up somewhat, there seems to be a different bubble popping up in the restructuring and insolvency bath. Check out the roster of firms that will be cleaning up a corporate mess somewhere near you…

The unfolding fraud saga of Sir Allen Stanford has given …