UK Regulatory Lawyers Ascendant: Hourly Fees Reach $1440

Move over, M&A lawyers. There’s a new lawyer in demand in the United Kingdom, with record-breaking rates to prove it.

Regulatory lawyers are now on top, charging fees as high as 1,000 pounds an hour—translating to $1,440, Bloomberg reports.

Darren Fox is a regulatory lawyer with Simmons & Simmons who advises hedge funds. “It’s our time in the sun,” he told Bloomberg. “If you ask which departments are very busy and where clients’ worries are, it tends to be in the regulatory area.”

The lawyers will be busy advising clients targeted by the U.K. Financial Services Authority and the Office of Fair Trading, which have vowed to bring more criminal charges against senior executives, the story says. These legal specialists will also be asked to help their clients understand regulations being reformulated next month at a Group of 20 Nations summit in London.

Michael O’Kane, a criminal and regulatory specialist at Peters & Peters, explained why billing rates for regulatory lawyers are increasing. “Our general experience is the bigger the problem, the more willing people are to accept the fees,” he told Bloomberg. Regulatory lawyers working on cases carrying possible jail sentences command the highest fees, the story says.

Last year top billing rates were 900 pounds an hour, according to the story.