Legal Week | Editor's Comment
March 21, 2016

A cultural divide, banks' buying power and whiplash - the best of Legal Week
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It was a much anticipated tie-up, but it was not to be. The news that Berwin Leighton Paisner's (BLP) merger discussions with Greenberg Traurig were off dominated much of our coverage last week.

While BLP managing partner Lisa Mayhew laid out her firm's reason for looking for a merger and why "scale for the sake of scale" was not what it was after, ultimately the collapsed talks boiled down to the pay and culture divide between BLP and the Miami firm.

Elsewhere, we took a look at the beleaguered law firms operating in the insurance market. After a spate of mergers among their clients and the collapse of players such as Parabis alongside the consolidation of others, the future for this sector of the market is littered with hurdles.

Meanwhile, Barclays announced that it was taking a scythe to its already reduced roster of law firms as it kicked off its latest review.

Slaughter and May's partner promotions provided a slightly more positive note to the week, with ten of the elite firm's associates climbing the ranks.