Weil’s London transaction specialist lawyers provide cutting-edge transactional and advisory support across all legal specialisms. The majority of our work in London involves multidisciplinary teams across the specialist fields of competition, corporate governance and compliance, employment, intellectual property, management incentives, pensions, real estate, tax and technology, who play a crucial role in ensuring that transactions, restructurings and disputes reach a successful completion. We advise clients on a broad range of significant contentious and non-contentious matters, including recent landmark cases before the English and European courts. Our team of in-house transaction specialists leverage the expertise of our full-service capabilities, and provide a further distinctive aspect of our comprehensive client offering.

• Tier 1 for Private Equity, Investment Funds, Bank Lending, Structured Finance and Securitisation, and Restructuring and Insolvency — IFLR1000 2018
• Band 1 for Private Equity — Chambers UK 2018, Legal 500 UK 2018 and IFLR 1000 UK 2018
• Only firm in Legal 500 UK 2018 to have both top tier ranked Private Equity and Private Funds practices
• Best CSR Programme — Legal Business Awards 2018
• Best Charity Partnership — Business Charity Awards 2018
• Highest-Placed Law Firm and Among Top 10 of the UK’s Most Philanthropic Businesses Through Volunteering and Charitable Giving — GivX Awards 2018 and 2017
• Asset and Investment Management Team of the Year — Legal Services Awards Europe 2017
• Global Finance Deal of the Year: Insolvency and Restructuring (UK), Insolvency and Restructuring (Africa), Acquisition Finance; and Global M&A Deal of the Year: United States — The American Lawyer 2017
• Pan-European Legal Adviser of the Year — Private Equity Awards 2017
• European Private Equity Tax Deal of the Year; European Financial Services Tax Deal of the Year — International Tax Review’s European Tax Awards 2017
• TrustLaw Innovation Award — Thomson Reuters Foundation 2017

In London, Weil has developed an award-winning CR&I initiative which enables partners and employees to use their time and skills to tackle a range of social issues that impact the economic mobility of its clients, people and communities.

Our CR&I strategy is built on four components:

• Pro Bono – All Weil attorneys are expected to perform 50 hours of pro bono work per year, and in London, all pro bono work is counted as billable. In 2018, the London office devoted more than 10,000 hours to pro bono, an average of 60 hours per lawyer. We work with a number of Law Centres and advise a range of leading charities, NGOs and social enterprises, with a particular focus on access to justice and social finance.

• Inclusion – For the past 30 years, Weil has been a leader in investing in formal initiatives to empower and engender an inclusive culture. We have a number of network groups, such as the Weil London Multicultural Network, WeilPride (LGBTQ+ association), Social Mobility@Weil and Women@Weil. We also partner with organizations at the forefront of inclusion issues, such as InterLaw, SEO London, Stonewall and Rare Recruitment.

• Community & Environment – All Weil partners and employees are encouraged to spend two days a year volunteering in the community, and we work with Benefacto to enable our people to volunteer at grass-roots community organizations across London. Under our five-year fundraising strategy “Improving Lives and Raising Aspirations,” we are supporting six charities — Dress For Success, Glass Door Homeless Shelter, Power2, School-Home Support, Social Mobility Foundation and Suited & Booted — until November 2023. We’ve committed to raising £500,000 during this time to help these charities expand their work in tackling homelessness, reducing poverty and improving social mobility. On the environmental side, we are a member of the Legal Sustainability Alliance and have achieved Gold Award status at the annual City of London Clean City Awards for a number of years. We have also been awarded the ISO50001 (Energy Management System) certification, an internationally recognized industry standard.

• Wellbeing & Social – To enable our people to perform at their best, everyone at Weil has access to a number of benefits, information and support that endorse our culture, and our social schedule aims to support our cohesive values by offering a broad range of annual activities.