Ballmer Exit Brings Microsoft a Chance for Reinvention

Ballmer Through the Years: Moments of Steven A. Ballmer from conferences, commercials and interviews over the years that he was Microsoft’s chief executive.

SEATTLE — Steven A. Ballmer announced on Friday that he was leaving the top job at Microsoft, paving the way for a generational change at the once-dominant technology company and giving it an opportunity to reinvent itself for a world dominated by mobile devices, social media and other technologies that have eluded its influence.

A number of powerful executives have departed Microsoft over the years. While some current executives have recently risen to prominence, here is a look at some who had been mentioned previously as possible choices to take over the company.

Mr. Elop was the head of Microsoft's business division from 2008 until 2010, when he left to take the chief executive job at Nokia. In 2011, Nokia announced a smartphone alliance with Microsoft.

Mr. Johnson worked at Microsoft for 16 years, running the company's online services group and its Windows division. He left to become the chief executive of Juniper Networks in 2008. In July, Mr. Johnson announced his retirement from Juniper.

Mr. Maritz was effectively the No. 3 executive at the company when he left in 2000. He later became the chief executive of VMWare, but he stepped aside last year. Mr. Maritz is now the chief executive of Pivotal, a cloud-based start-up.

Mr. Raikes spent 27 years at Microsoft, the last eight running the company's business division. He left in 2008 to become the chief executive of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Mr. Sinofsky was both widely admired and considered abrasive as the head of Windows, and his exit from the company last year is said to have come after a string of run-ins with Microsoft’s leaders. On Thursday, he announced that he had joined Andreessen Horowitz, the venture capital firm, as a board partner.

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But with no clear successor to Mr. Ballmer lined up and a jumble of businesses that will require the skills of a polymath to run, the company still faces huge obstacles to reclaiming its former glory.

While Microsoft in Mr. Ballmer’s reign as chief executive has yielded the spotlight to more glamorous companies like Apple, Google and Facebook, it still makes some of the biggest money-gushers in the technology business, including its Windows operating system for personal computers and Office applications like Word. Its profit last quarter was nearly $5 billion, compared with $3.2 billion for Google and $6.9 billion for Apple. Anyone who uses a PC to create a résumé or a term paper or to do online banking is more often than not doing so on a machine running Windows.

But the PC business, which Microsoft has ruled for decades, is under siege by mobile devices like tablets, an area that Microsoft has stumbled in, and that Mr. Ballmer famously underestimated. Analysts say the company needs to act quickly to right itself.

“The walls are falling now,” said George Colony, chief executive of Forrester Research, a research and advisory firm. “They may fall very quickly. There’s not much time for the board.”

Nonetheless, it has given itself a year to choose a successor, and Mr. Ballmer, 57, will stay on until then. The company declined requests for an interview with him.

Some analysts have suggested that Microsoft could use a seasoned turnaround artist in the mold of Lou Gerstner, who rescued I.B.M. from irrelevance in the 1990s. Current and former Microsoft executives said the company would more likely turn to someone with a technology pedigree. Some pundits have called for Bill Gates, Microsoft’s co-founder and chairman, to return to the company, in a nod to how Steven P. Jobs revitalized Apple.

But people who know him said Mr. Gates has no intention of doing that because of his full-time focus on philanthropy.

Others believe Microsoft is not governable in its current form. Ben Slivka, a 14-year employee of Microsoft who left in 1999, said the company should split up into five independent companies he calls “Baby Bills” devoted to Windows client software, Office applications, servers, Xbox and the Web.

“Give each of them (say) $5B for a rainy day, but not much more,” Mr. Slivka wrote in a post on Facebook after the news of Mr. Ballmer’s retirement. “You want them to be hungry. Return most of the cash hoard to shareholders.”

That Mr. Ballmer announced his plans without a successor in place is puzzling and led to speculation among current and former Microsoft executives that Mr. Gates might have been losing patience with his longtime friend, whom he first met when they were students at Harvard University in the 1970s. A spokesman for Mr. Gates said he was not available for interviews.

While the board, Mr. Ballmer and Microsoft gave no public indication that he was pushed out, the disappointing stock price may have been a factor in his departure. Over Mr. Ballmer’s 13-year tenure at Microsoft, the stock has lost 36 percent of its value, if the dividends that Microsoft pays out are excluded. Apple, meanwhile, was up nearly 2,000 percent over the same period. With the announcement of Mr. Ballmer’s departure on Friday, Microsoft’s stock rose more than 7 percent, closing at $34.75.

“Microsoft will have to go through a very hard and painful transition,” said Joachim Kempin, a former senior Microsoft executive, who has written a book critical of the company under Mr. Ballmer. “I’m not very confident the next guy will be able to immediately turn the ship around.”

This year, ValueAct, a hedge fund known for behind-the-scenes shareholder activism, began acquiring a small stake in Microsoft. Some analysts say they believe other shareholders might have been willing to join with the fund in efforts to lobby for management changes at the company. Two years ago, the investor David Einhorn said Mr. Ballmer was “stuck in the past” and called for him to go.

Mr. Ballmer provided plenty of fodder for such critics over the years with his dismissals of technologies that turned out to be game-changers. At a forum in Seattle in 2007, shortly after Mr. Jobs introduced the iPhone, Mr. Ballmer said there was “no chance that the iPhone is going to get any significant market share.”

Your Money: Win a Lottery Jackpot? Not Much Chance of That

This is exactly the sort of logic that, over the last year, led millions of people to spend $5.9 billion of their hard-earned dollars on Powerball alone. They spent nearly $69 billion on all lottery games in 2012, according to two lottery trade groups.

It is also precisely the kind of mental trap the Powerball people want you to fall in; they tweaked the game rules last year, doubling the price of tickets to $2 to raise more revenue and create more eye-catching jackpots.

And the state agencies running the games advertise heavily that it could be you making off with millions of dollars.

The odds of winning, however, remain infinitesimal: Powerball players, for instance, have a 1 in 175 million chance of winning. You have roughly the same chance of getting hit by lightning on your birthday.

Even though some people may be able to intellectually grasp what that means, the Multi-State Lottery Association can predict with clocklike certainty that on Saturday night, with a jackpot worth about $40 million, 13 million to 15 million people will buy tickets. Those ticket buyers are all thinking they have a shot of defying the odds.

That is why the lottery is called a tax on people who don’t understand math. Lower-income individuals who play but don’t win are hurt the most because they’re wasting a greater share of their income on the games. That’s also why the lottery is often called a regressive tax on the poor.

Sure, last year the games returned $19.41 billion to the states that sponsored them, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries, which represents 52 lottery groups. But that’s not why anyone plays them.

What’s the big motivation to volunteer to pay this tax? Psychologists say it has more to do with our all-too-human propensity to run with the dreamlike possibilities it creates in our minds.

“For emotionally significant events, the size of the probability simply doesn’t matter,” said Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel-prize winning psychologist. “What matters is the possibility of winning. People are excited by the image in their mind. The excitement grows with the size of the prize, but it doesn’t diminish with the size of the probability.”

So ticket buyers allow themselves some momentary escapism since it costs only $2, thinking about what they would do with all that money. And they’ll ignore all of the well-known horrors and pitfalls that many lottery winners encounter, whether it’s a severe depression or blowing through all of the money in a form of self-sabotage that ends with them living in a trailer down by the river. This phenomenon of feeling anxious and undeserving, among other things, is what some experts call “sudden wealth syndrome.” It may afflict people who benefit from all sorts of success or windfalls, whether from the sale of a valuable business, signing an N.F.L. contract or inheriting a huge sum from a maiden aunt.

“Money that is much more than you’re used to sounds unlimited,” said Susan Bradley, a financial planner and founder of the Sudden Money Institute, who has worked with several lottery winners. “If you don’t have someone to help you, yes, you can go through extraordinarily large amounts of money, and, even worse, you can be in debt. It can really happen.”

Plugging some numbers into this dream provides some perspective. Winners wanting to be able to safely spend $1 million a year for 55 years (adjusted for inflation) would need about $36 million, after taxes, to invest, according to calculations by Northern Trust. (Those numbers also factor in annual taxes and investment expenses.) They would need to set aside nearly $15 million in high-quality bonds to know they would always have 15 years of spending in stable investments. To cover the remaining 40 years, they would need to put another $21 million in a diversified stock portfolio.

So in thinking about it, it’s not even worth playing unless the jackpot is more than $75 million, because the state and federal government take about half in taxes.

Part of that fantasy is that winners would start buying fast cars and big homes, not to mention stuff for all of your family members along with their children’s education. It’s easy to see how they could run through the money, as hard as that may seem to believe with $36 million in hand. Of course, if you want to live even larger — more homes, more cars, more ex-spouses, servants, accountants, lawyers, other lawyers to watch the lawyers — you’ll need far more. Probably more like $100 million, after taxes.

“If they make it to the fifth year with enough money to securely handle their life going forward and all of their relationships are intact, they are probably going to make it long term,” Ms. Bradley said.

So let’s get back to the probability of all of this ever even happening.

Buying more tickets improves your odds, but not by much. So if you want the fantasy, just buy one. Buying more doesn’t make the fantasy any richer.

It would take centuries of ticket buying before you even make a dent. If you purchased roughly 126,000 tickets a month for the next 80 years, for example, you could improve your odds to 50 percent, explained Gary A. Lorden, emeritus professor of math at California Institute of Technology (who, for the record, has bought a single ticket three times over the last decade; he split the last one with his grandson).

“The difference is like moving from a big house to a small house to make it less likely a meteor will strike your roof,” he said.

Good luck with that.

Inquiry Suggests Chance That Mechanical Failure Had Role in Crash

Investigators in the cockpit of the wreckage found the auto-throttle switches set to the “armed” position, meaning that the auto-throttle could have been engaged, depending on various other settings, she said. The disclosure is far from conclusive, but raises the clear possibility that there was a mechanical failure or that the crew misunderstood the automated system it was using.

The chairwoman, Deborah A. P. Hersman, also said that interviews of the three pilots who were in the cockpit at the time of impact showed that the speed indicator on the flat-panel displays in the cockpit had drifted down into a crosshatched area, meaning that the instruments were saying that the plane was moving too slowly.

At the dual controls, the pilot flying the plane was undergoing initial training as he upgraded from a smaller plane, and was supervised by a veteran pilot who was new as an instructor, Ms. Hersman said. The instructor told investigators that between 500 feet and 200 feet in altitude, the crew was also correcting from a “lateral deviation,” meaning that the plane was too far to the right or left (she did not specify which) and realized they were too low.

At 200 feet, the instructor pilot told investigators in an interview, he noticed they were too slow. “He recognized that the auto-throttles were not maintaining speed,” and began preparing the airplane to go around for another try. But it was too late.

Ms. Hersman made clear that the safety board was looking to see if there was a generic problem with the runway and the approach path. Her agency requested data from the Federal Aviation Administration, which operates the air traffic system, on other recent arrivals by Boeing 777s, and recent go-arounds, cases in which crews broke off the approach because of a problem.

As the investigation continued, others — including lawyers, passenger advocates and a pilots’ union — began jockeying for position.

The crash resulted in an unusual mix of deaths and injuries, said Robert A. Clifford, an aviation lawyer in Chicago, who pointed out that lawyers in his specialty are usually pursuing wrongful-death claims, not personal injury ones. Injured passengers will need legal help, he said.

But Hans Ephraimson-Abt, who leads the Air Crash Victims Families Group, and who frequently lobbies for passenger rights and represents the families of people killed, said that under the governing international law, those injured were covered by a no-fault provision. Under the 1999 Montreal Protocol, he said, “they are entitled to be reimbursed for all their property damages, and economic and noneconomic damages, including psychological counseling.” All that was required, he said, was to show medical bills or calculate lost earnings.

Mr. Ephraimson-Abt’s 23-year-old daughter was one of the 286 passengers on board Korean Air Lines Flight 007 when it was shot down by a Soviet fighter plane in 1983 after a crewman’s navigation error.

Mr. Clifford and other lawyers, however, have been making public statements since the crash about safety problems and stressing their expertise in pursuing claims.

On Tuesday, Mr. Clifford said that another party, not covered by the Montreal Protocol, could be vulnerable to claims: Boeing. The plane did not have an aural warning of low airspeed, he said, even though the safety board recommended 10 years ago that the Federal Aviation Administration convene a panel of experts to consider installing them. If the plane was unsafe, he said, the manufacturer could face suits.

A retired 777 captain, Chuck Hosmer, who flew for American Airlines and later Air India, said that many foreign carriers had a reluctance to land the plane manually, and thus lacked proficiency in the technique. The Asiana crew was attempting a manual landing on Saturday because an instrument landing system was out of service. And though there were four pilots on the Asiana plane, three of them very experienced in the 777, pilots in some cultures are reluctant to contradict a pilot at the controls, Mr. Hosmer said.

In fact, the safety board has investigated previous accidents in which cultural factors have reduced the effectiveness of the crew, and that is one of the areas of inquiry here, investigators said.

On Tuesday, a pilots’ union, the U.S. Airline Pilots Association, issued a statement critical of the safety board, asserting that the board’s quick release of “incomplete, out-of-context information” had “fueled rampant speculation about the cause of the accident” and created the impression that it was pilot error.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

Correction: July 10, 2013

An earlier version of this article misidentified the retired 777 captain who flew for American Airlines and later Air India. He is Chuck Hosmer, not Robert Maurer.

Law School Offers A Second Chance to Rejected Students

One law school is giving applicants who don't make the initial admissions cut a second chance to prove they have what it takes. And it's doing it for free.

Davis Polk Launches Hong Kong Litigation Practice With Clifford Chance Hires

Davis Polk & Wardwell has recruited two Clifford Chance partners to launch a Hong Kong litigation practice.

Martin Rogers, the former head of Clifford Chance's Asia Pacific disputes practice and co-head of its regional financial regulatory practice, and partner James Wadham are both set to join Davis Polk "in the near term," according to Thomas Reid, the New York-based firm's managing partner.

Reid says the move was driven by the demand of domestic and international clients facing a rising tide of enforcement actions in Asia. "We certainly have seen our clients asking for help in enforcement matters in Asia with increasing frequency," he says.

The move is the firm's second major expansion into Hong Kong practice in recent years. Though it opened its Hong Kong office in 1993, Davis Polk, like many Wall Street firms, only practiced U.S. law in the region until 2010, when it launched a Hong Kong capital markets practice. Since then, most of Davis Polk's major New York rivals, including Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Sullivan & Cromwell have launched similar practices.

But Hong Kong capital markets have been in a severe slowdown since the end of 2011, and Davis Polk's push into local litigation reflects a desire to create a more balanced practice in the region.

Several firms have deployed litigation partners from the U.S. and elsewhere to advise companies in Asia on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or Securities and Exchange Commission investigations. But Davis Polk is also eyeing the more active financial regulatory stance that Hong Kong's Securities & Futures Commission has adopted under chief executive Ashley Alder, a former partner at the firm now known as Herbert Smith Freehills.

The SFC recently announced a new Companies Bill that would make auditors criminally liable if they knowingly or recklessly omit a required statement from an auditor's report. And Hong Kong's securities regulator announced last week that banks could be held criminally liable if the companies they sponsor in IPOs provide false information on their prospectuses. Rogers has already been working with Davis Polk Hong Kong partner Bonnie Chan in advising 23 investment banks in their interactions with the SFC, says Reid.

Qualified in England and Hong Kong, Rogers has been a partner at Clifford Chance since 2002, when he moved to that firm from the Hong Kong office of Herbert Smith, where he had worked for 14 years and had been named Asia managing partner just prior to leaving.

Wadham began his career in New Zealand, where he worked for Auckland's Russell McVeagh. He joined Clifford Chance in Hong Kong in 2002 and became a partner in 2007. Like Rogers, he focuses on advising clients in the financial services industry. He is admitted in New Zealand, Hong Kong and England.

In a statement, Clifford Chance said it continued to have a strong litigation and dispute resolution practice in the region, noting its announcement last week of a formal law alliance with Singapore litigation boutique Cavenagh Law.

"We have every confidence this will not affect our relationships with our institutional clients as Clifford Chance offers the highest quality advice and service across the broadest range of international law expertise available in the market," the firm said.

Davis Polk Launches Hong Kong Litigation Practice With Clifford Chance Hires

Davis Polk & Wardwell has recruited two Clifford Chance partners to launch a Hong Kong litigation practice.

Martin Rogers, the former head of Clifford Chance's Asia Pacific disputes practice and co-head of its regional financial regulatory practice, and partner James Wadham are both set to join Davis Polk "in the near term," according to Thomas Reid, the New York-based firm's managing partner.

Reid says the move was driven by the demand of domestic and international clients facing a rising tide of enforcement actions in Asia. "We certainly have seen our clients asking for help in enforcement matters in Asia with increasing frequency," he says.

The move is the firm's second major expansion into Hong Kong practice in recent years. Though it opened its Hong Kong office in 1993, Davis Polk, like many Wall Street firms, only practiced U.S. law in the region until 2010, when it launched a Hong Kong capital markets practice. Since then, most of Davis Polk's major New York rivals, including Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton, Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, and Sullivan & Cromwell have launched similar practices.

But Hong Kong capital markets have been in a severe slowdown since the end of 2011, and Davis Polk's push into local litigation reflects a desire to create a more balanced practice in the region.

Several firms have deployed litigation partners from the U.S. and elsewhere to advise companies in Asia on Foreign Corrupt Practices Act or Securities and Exchange Commission investigations. But Davis Polk is also eyeing the more active financial regulatory stance that Hong Kong's Securities & Futures Commission has adopted under chief executive Ashley Alder, a former partner at the firm now known as Herbert Smith Freehills.

The SFC recently announced a new Companies Bill that would make auditors criminally liable if they knowingly or recklessly omit a required statement from an auditor's report. And Hong Kong's securities regulator announced last week that banks could be held criminally liable if the companies they sponsor in IPOs provide false information on their prospectuses. Rogers has already been working with Davis Polk Hong Kong partner Bonnie Chan in advising 23 investment banks in their interactions with the SFC, says Reid.

Qualified in England and Hong Kong, Rogers has been a partner at Clifford Chance since 2002, when he moved to that firm from the Hong Kong office of Herbert Smith, where he had worked for 14 years and had been named Asia managing partner just prior to leaving.

Wadham began his career in New Zealand, where he worked for Auckland's Russell McVeagh. He joined Clifford Chance in Hong Kong in 2002 and became a partner in 2007. Like Rogers, he focuses on advising clients in the financial services industry. He is admitted in New Zealand, Hong Kong and England.

In a statement, Clifford Chance said it continued to have a strong litigation and dispute resolution practice in the region, noting its announcement last week of a formal law alliance with Singapore litigation boutique Cavenagh Law.

"We have every confidence this will not affect our relationships with our institutional clients as Clifford Chance offers the highest quality advice and service across the broadest range of international law expertise available in the market," the firm said.

10 Tips to Enhance Your Chance of Getting a Good Performance Review

Debra Bruce, president of Lawyer-Coach in Houston
Image: Sylvester Garza

This is the time of year when many lawyers have a meeting with a supervisor or a compensation committee to discuss their performance over the past year. Many big firms, corporations and government agencies have instituted procedures that give the attorney an opportunity to submit a self-evaluation in advance of their performance review. Many small law firms are more informal, or even haphazard, about the process, however.

If there is an established procedure, follow the guidelines or instructions. When an organization doesn't have a formal review procedure, I recommend that my clients prepare a concise memo, email or other written communication summarizing their accomplishments of the past year. Most associates just wait anxiously, but passively, for the news. They may think the partners are aware of what they have been doing all year, or perhaps they think it is safer to stay under the radar. Maybe they just don't know what else to do.

I believe it is necessary to be proactive about your career. You can stop by the office of the appropriate person with your memo and say something like, "I know that you have a lot on your plate at the end of the year. I thought I might save you a little time and make things easier on you if I prepared a summary of what I've been doing over the past year. If there are other ways I can be of assistance, please let me know."

Here are a few tips on putting together your year-end self-evaluation:

1. Don't just rely on your memory. By October or November, it will be difficult to remember what happened in March and April. I urge my clients to keep a "success journal" throughout the year. Keep track of the significant projects you worked on, developmental milestones you achieved and compliments or expressions of appreciation from clients, partners, co-workers, bosses, etc. If possible, record exact quotes and the date, and save copies of complimentary emails and letters. Put complimentary quotes in your memo and consider attaching copies of glowing emails.

2. Review your administrative records to refresh your memory. Look back over your calendar, time entries, client lists, expense reports or any other records that will remind you of what you have done since your last review. If you received a formal report or took notes at your last review, be sure to look at those also.

3. Start with your strengths and your most significant accomplishments. Remember the journalist's adage, "Don't bury the lead." Your reader may get interrupted, distracted or bored after the first few paragraphs. Emphasize work with your largest clients or highest-ranking leaders. Highlight strong revenue generation, or the most significant milestone achievement you made for a lawyer at your experience level. Show how you took on responsibility for keeping a complex project on track or for shepherding younger lawyers. Make the first impression a good one.

4. Avoid the passive tense as much as possible. As lawyers, we generally draft documents in the passive tense, but that underwhelms a reader. Active verbs convey conviction, energy and strength. Your boss wants to know that you have what it takes to get the job done. A memo infused with action naturally instills more confidence in the reader.

5. Don't make assumptions about what your reader understands. People who don't work with you may participate in the decision process. Give specifics and spell out how you have contributed value to the organization or have enhanced your ability to perform more sophisticated work. Provide the names and titles of clients you have courted and what kind of business that may bring the firm. Explain how your skillful deposition of a witness shrank the settlement demand, saving the client $300,000. Describe how your consistent efforts at maintaining law school acquaintances are paying off now that a classmate has accepted an important in-house counsel position. Draw attention to the large dollar amounts or high-profile personalities involved in your cases or transactions.

6. Demonstrate your ability to be a team player without selling yourself short. Give credit to others who played a significant role in your accomplishments, but don't weaken your perceived level of contribution by overusing "we" instead of "I." Share information on leads and referrals you have provided to other members of your organization. Explain how you have taken on leadership or mentoring roles.

7. Think about the goals and objectives of your department or organization. Describe your accomplishments in terms that demonstrate how they support those objectives. You might feel honored to be elected to the local board of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. If your organization's leaders don't share your passion for that cause, however, you will need to point out how your service on the board will create goodwill or positive publicity for the firm, will help you build relationships with other civic leaders who can be good referral sources, or provide other such benefits. Explain how any significant nonbillable work you have done inures to the benefit of the firm.

8. Show how you focus on continual development. Reflect in your report how you have addressed any criticisms you received at your last review or during the year. State some goals and objectives you intend to work toward in the coming year. Give a progress report on goals you identified in your last review. Describe your efforts to gain additional expertise or take on more significant responsibilities.

9. Explain significant deficits in your numbers. Everyone may be well aware that you had a baby this year, but they may forget to consider your maternity leave when reviewing your billable hours. If your collections are down because your most significant client got wiped out by a devastating hurricane, point that out, along with any expectations of eventual payment. If the industry you serve is in an economic slump, consider providing statistics on the industry's status and any reliable predictions about recovery. You may think everyone knows your situation, but we can all get pretty myopic. If your situation is not poised for a turnaround, explain how you are retooling your skills, seeking to serve a different industry or positioning yourself to help busier departments. Don't bring up the demands on your time outside of work, except in extraordinary circumstances. Be careful not to whine, complain or sound like a victim. That will undermine your credibility and the confidence they have in you.

10. Ask someone you trust to review your self-evaluation. Get a colleague with more experience or greater political savvy to give you feedback on your memo before you submit it. The tone you intended to set may not come through in your writing. You might have highlighted things that don't really matter to the powers that be.

Your career success warrants this extra effort, and the opportunity only comes up once or twice per year. Make the best of it.

Debra L. Bruce is president of Lawyer-Coach LLC, a law practice management training and coaching firm. She practiced law for 18 years and has been a professionally trained executive coach for more than 11 years. She is a frequent speaker and writer on law practice management topics, and has served as the vice chair of the law practice management committee of the State Bar of Texas. She welcomes questions and comments at 713-682-4353 or debra@lawyer-coach.com.

Clifford Chance Launches Singapore Alliance

Singapore
Source: Getty Images

Clifford Chance has entered into a formal law alliance with newly established Singapore litigation boutique Cavenagh Law.

The U.K. Magic Circle firm says the alliance is intended to help its clients gain access to local litigation and dispute resolution counsel in the city-state. Clifford Chance holds a Qualifying Foreign Law Practice license, which allows it to practice Singapore law in corporate and commercial transactions but not to litigate in local courts.

Cavenagh Law was created in October for the purpose of entering into a formal alliance with Clifford Chance. The firm has three partners, two of whom -- managing partner Harpreet Singh and energy and infrastructure disputes specialist Paul Sandosham -- joined from WongPartnership, one of Singapore's largest firms and Clifford Chance's former partner in a joint law venture. The third is current Clifford Chance partner Nish Shetty, who heads the firm's Singapore international arbitration and disputes resolution practice.

According to Shetty, who joined Clifford Chance from WongPartnership in 2009, all three will be partners concurrently at both Cavenagh and Clifford Chance. Cavenagh takes its name from a Victorian-era pedestrian bridge that crosses the Singapore River near the financial district.

A firm spokeswoman says Singapore regulations permit the allied firms to market themselves under a common brand. For Clifford Chance and Cavenagh, that will be "Clifford Chance Asia."

"We can now offer our clients high quality advice and service across the broadest range of Singapore and international law expertise available in the market," says Geraint Hughes, Clifford Chance's Singapore managing partner, in a statement. "As transactions and, consequently, disputes become ever more cross-border, our clients increasingly need and want to access this expertise from one platform in Singapore."

Singh only joined WongPartnership earlier this year from another major Singapore firm, Drew & Napier, where he had also been a partner and practiced for 18 years. Singh, who was appointed a Singapore Senior Counsel, the local equivalent of a British Queen's Counsel, in 2007, has been active in many of the island nation's highest-profile criminal cases. He recently represented Howard Shaw, a member of one of Singapore's wealthiest families and one of 51 men accused in a major scandal of having sex with an underage prostitute. Shaw pleaded guilty and received a three-month sentence in July.

Sandosham is returning to Singapore to join Cavenagh after leading the Middle East expansion for WongPartnership for several years, mainly out of that firm's Abu Dhabi office.

Clifford Chance's predecessor firms have been operating in Singapore since 1981 and, according to its website, the firm now has more than 60 lawyers in its office there. The firm entered into a joint venture with WongPartnership in 2002 but the firms ended their relationship in November 2008, just before Clifford Chance became one of the first six firms to be granted QFLP status. This year, Singapore opened up more applications to international firms; approvals have not yet been announced.

Clifford Chance Accounts Reveal Management Team Pay Hike of 10 Percent

Clifford Chance's management committee received total remuneration of £19 million for the 2011-12 financial year, a 10 percent increase from the previous year's figure.

The figure is contained within the firm's latest limited liability partnership accounts, which show the 16-member board received a total of £17.3 million in 2010-11.

The report also reveals that the average partner headcount at the firm increased 3 percent to 568 in 2011-12, while the number of associates rose 5 percent to 2,325. Total staff costs increased by 5 percent from £537.3 million to £565.7 million.

Profit available for profit share among members rose to £382.5 million in 2011-12, up almost 13 percent from £339.5 million in 2010-11.

Audited revenue for 2011-12 rose 7 percent to £1.303 billion from £1.219 billion in the previous year, the same figure as reported by the firm earlier this year.

Geographically, the Asia-Pacific region saw the most significant growth, with a 28 percent increase on the previous financial year to account for 14 percent of global revenue. The firm's performance in the region was bolstered by its tie-ups with Australian boutiques Chang Pistilli & Simmons and Cochrane Lishman Carson Luscombe during 2011, as well as solid returns from its bases in China, Hong Kong and Singapore.

Capital net contributions made by partnership members also increased significantly over the year, up from £1.9 million in 2010-11 to £8.1 million in 2011-12. The firm attributed this in part to a larger number of partners promoted into the equity over the year as well as a substantial number of senior lateral hires made during the period.

The report also showed that the firm repaid a £2.2 million bank overdraft during the year, with cash at the bank and in hand now standing at £120 million, up from the 2010-11 figure of £66.8 million.

Separately, the accounts note that the closure of its defined benefit pension scheme came into effect from the end of the 2010-11 financial year, stating: "The scheme was closed to future accrual with effect from 30 April 2011, having been closed to members since 2005."

Clifford Chance Asks Singapore Associates to Take Sabbaticals

Singapore
Source: Getty Images

Clifford Chance has asked associates from its capital markets team in Singapore to take voluntary sabbaticals as the firm moves to cope with the dramatic slowdown in Asian securities work.

The Magic Circle law firm is understood to have met with staff this week to offer them a percentage of salary and benefits if they accept the offer of leave between now and early 2013. It is unknown how many staff will be affected by the cost-cutting measure, but sources close to the matter indicate that it will be less than 10.

Clifford Chance would not confirm the percentage of salary that associates would receive, but stressed that the firm was not making any redundancies or calling on lawyers in other teams or offices to take sabbaticals. No partners will be affected by the move.

"Capital markets is an important part of our practice in Southeast Asia and India," said Crawford Brickley, Clifford Chance practice area leader for capital markets in Asia Pacific.

"However, in common with any business, we always keep our resourcing under review to ensure that our capability is in line with client needs. We remain very busy in other practice areas and do not expect any further changes."

The City giant's stance reflects the current slowdown in Singapore and Hong Kong in equity capital markets (ECM), a key practice area that international firms have targeted in the region. The notoriously volatile market for initial public offerings has seen a number of floats delayed this year amid concerns about the global economy and signs that some economies in Asia are slowing their still-robust growth levels.

In May, luxury jeweler Graff Diamonds abandoned its $1 billion (£621 million) Hong Kong listing just two days before the deadline, shortly after copper producer China Nonferrous Mining Corp. and car dealer China Yongda Automobiles Services postponed their own IPOs.

Figures from Dealogic show that Hong Kong raised just $3 billion (£1.9 billion) in new listings between January and September this year compared with $23.8 billion (£14.7 billion) for the same period in 2011.

The sharp drop in ECM work is acknowledged by firms to have hit pricing, leaving some advisers to focus on expanding other practice areas. Notably, Clifford Chance this week announced that it was transferring its highly regarded restructuring chief Mark Hyde to Hong Kong to lead the firm's Asian finance practice.

Clifford Chance, which announced a redundancy consultation in March affecting 13 associates in its City finance and capital markets practices, said that it expected the Asian securities market to return to stronger levels of activity at the start of 2013.

Clifford Chance Asks Singapore Associates to Take Sabbaticals

Singapore
Source: Getty Images

Clifford Chance has asked associates from its capital markets team in Singapore to take voluntary sabbaticals as the firm moves to cope with the dramatic slowdown in Asian securities work.

The Magic Circle law firm is understood to have met with staff this week to offer them a percentage of salary and benefits if they accept the offer of leave between now and early 2013. It is unknown how many staff will be affected by the cost-cutting measure, but sources close to the matter indicate that it will be less than 10.

Clifford Chance would not confirm the percentage of salary that associates would receive, but stressed that the firm was not making any redundancies or calling on lawyers in other teams or offices to take sabbaticals. No partners will be affected by the move.

"Capital markets is an important part of our practice in Southeast Asia and India," said Crawford Brickley, Clifford Chance practice area leader for capital markets in Asia Pacific.

"However, in common with any business, we always keep our resourcing under review to ensure that our capability is in line with client needs. We remain very busy in other practice areas and do not expect any further changes."

The City giant's stance reflects the current slowdown in Singapore and Hong Kong in equity capital markets (ECM), a key practice area that international firms have targeted in the region. The notoriously volatile market for initial public offerings has seen a number of floats delayed this year amid concerns about the global economy and signs that some economies in Asia are slowing their still-robust growth levels.

In May, luxury jeweler Graff Diamonds abandoned its $1 billion (£621 million) Hong Kong listing just two days before the deadline, shortly after copper producer China Nonferrous Mining Corp. and car dealer China Yongda Automobiles Services postponed their own IPOs.

Figures from Dealogic show that Hong Kong raised just $3 billion (£1.9 billion) in new listings between January and September this year compared with $23.8 billion (£14.7 billion) for the same period in 2011.

The sharp drop in ECM work is acknowledged by firms to have hit pricing, leaving some advisers to focus on expanding other practice areas. Notably, Clifford Chance this week announced that it was transferring its highly regarded restructuring chief Mark Hyde to Hong Kong to lead the firm's Asian finance practice.

Clifford Chance, which announced a redundancy consultation in March affecting 13 associates in its City finance and capital markets practices, said that it expected the Asian securities market to return to stronger levels of activity at the start of 2013.