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CMS

Interesting selling points

  • Market leading experience servicing the tech sector, advising on high profile matters such as International Cricket Council's digital content rights tender process, which saw Facebook become the exclusive digital content rights partner in the Indian sub-continent for all of the ICC global events for the next cycle.
  • Strong fintech practice.
  • CMS is both one of the largest UK regional law firms (with 9 offices across the UK) and also a truly global firm (with a grand total of 79 offices).
  • Chambers and Partners has awarded the firm Band 1 rankings for its Hotels & Leisure, Investment Funds: Real Estate, Pensions Litigation, and Retail departments.
  • Works not only with large corporations, but also early stage start-ups. 
  • CMS has strong legal tech offerings, including its CMS by Design programme and applications like CMS Evidence. 

We cover these selling points in more detail below, alongside other relevant firm facts and characteristics.

Practice areas / services

CMS is a full-service firm, with a broad range of practice areas including: 

  • Antitrust, Competition & Trade 
  • Banking & Finance 
  • Commercial 
  • Construction & Engineering 
  • Consumer Products 
  • Corporate 
  • Dispute Resolution 
  • Employment & Pensions 
  • Energy & Climate Change 
  • Environment 
  • ESG 
  • Financial Services & Regulation 
  • Funds 
  • Hotels & Leisure 
  • Infrastructure & Projects 
  • Insurance 
  • Intellectual Property 
  • Legal Services Unit 
  • Life Sciences & Healthcare 
  • Private Equity 
  • Public Procurement 
  • Real Estate 
  • Tax 
  • TMT: Technology, Media & Telecommunications 

Chambers and Partners, a leading analyst of the legal market, has awarded CMS its highest ‘Band 1’ ranking for the following departments: Hotels & Leisure, Investment Funds: Real Estate, Pensions Litigation and Retail. See here for more information

Key sectors / industries

CMS describes itself as having six core sector focuses, including: 

Work

Some of CMS’ most notable work includes:

  • BBC: The firm advised its long-standing client the BBC on the acquisition of ITV’s 50% stake in BritBox International. 
  • Esports World Cup Foundation: CMS advised the Esports World Cup Foundation on the organisation of the first Esports World Cup. 
  • Pathé: The firm advised Pathé on its acquisition of five major titles from the Celador Films library, closing the sale with Paul Smith CBE, the founder and owner of Celador Films. 

Older examples

  • easyJet: The firm advised easyJet on the prepayment of its $1.77 billion UKEF guaranteed term loan facility and the release of security in respect of multiple aircraft. Alongside this, the firm advised on the collateral package in relation to a new $1.75 billion indrawn five-year term loan facility. 
  • Department for Energy, Security and Net Zero: CMS was recently awarded a three year contract with the department to provide claims handling, litigation and advisory services across the UK in respect of the Government’s liabilities arising from the operation of the former nationalised coal industry. 
  • NatWest: The firm advised NatWest in connection with its acquisition of a majority shareholding in Cushon, a workplace savings and pensions fintech. 

Offices / global footprint / expansion

Headquarters: Frankfurt 

Offices: The firm has 79 offices worldwide, including 9 in the UK, with its London office at 78 Cannon Place. Its other worldwide offices include Hong Kong, South Africa, UAE and Germany, to name but a few. 

Insights, internships and other opportunities

CMS offers a variety of insights, internships and other opportunities including its CMS Connect programme for Year 12 students, solicitor apprenticeships, a First Steps programme for those in their first year of law or penultimate year non-law students and scholarship opportunities. The firm also runs a variety of virtual events and Open Days to get to know the firm better. Alongside these amble opportunities to get to know the firm, it also runs a traditional Vacation Scheme which is known as the CMS Academy. This is the main way to secure a training contract with the firm and it lasts for three weeks. The first week focuses on the business of law, and the last two weeks are an internship in the CMS office which the vac schemer applied for. 

Training contract

CMS’ training contracts are only offered to those who successfully complete the CMS Academy programme. There are training contracts at offices in Aberdeen, Bristol, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Manchester and Sheffield. The firm also offers a training contract in Dubai, where a minimum of three seats will be based in the UAE and the fourth seat in the UK, another international office or a client’s offices. 

The training contract is comprised of four six-month seats. Seats that are available include construction, environment, pensions, real estate and commercial. Alongside the seats, CMS’ training contract features regular courses, lectures and workshops to help support trainees’ learning. 

Secondments

Trainees have the option to apply for either a client secondment, a secondment to a CMS international office, or a secondment at one of the firm’s other UK offices. 

Technology and innovation

CMS focuses on pioneering digital products and processes for its clients and as such has developed a number of offerings, examples of which include: 

  • CMS by Design: This initiative involves the Legal Innovation team working with clients and the firm’s lawyers to understand specific client issues, then design bespoke, innovative ways to solve a challenge or deliver a project. 
  • CMS Evidence: This is the firm’s eDisclosure service, which provides tools for processing, investigation, review and redaction of evidence.
  • CMS equIP: This programme supports start-ups which are intellectual property rich, by offering discounted rates, introductions to potentially valuable connections, and other value added services.
  • CMS Managed Legal Services: This team brings together the firm’s lawyers, plus its innovation, technology and project management teams, to deliver “business as usual legal work streams” on a unique fixed retainer model. This service supports some of the world’s biggest companies. 
Corporate social responsibility

CMS describes pro bono work as being “a fundamental part” of its corporate social responsibility objectives. Examples of its pro bono work include: 

  • Trust Law: CMS has been a member of Trust Law, the Thomson Reuters Foundation’s global pro bono service, since 2011. In that time, the firm has been involved in a number of national and international pro bono projects. 
  • Charity Matters: This is a CMS-run podcast series which provides those setting up charities or running them with knowledge to fill the gaps in their understanding of what is needed early in the process (including key legal issues that might need to be addressed when setting up a charity). 
  • Marie Curie: The firm offers pro bono legal advice to a number of charities, but particularly over recent years it has been offering its services to Marie Curie, a charity that provides care and support for people living with any terminal illness (and their families). 

Diversity and inclusion

The firm states that diversity and inclusion is not just an aspiration but an “imperative”. It centres its approach around “future facing inclusion” and that emphasis is illustrated in these examples of its diversity and inclusion initiatives: 

  • Recruitment Processes: The firm believes that to ensure it is meeting its future facing inclusion missions, its recruitment processes should be reaching out and attracting a variety of candidates. The Early Talent Acquisition team uses contextual recruitment to take into account the context in which someone’s academic results are achieved. In addition, all Recruitment and HR teams undertake diversity and inclusion training to build awareness of how unconscious biases influence their day-to-day decision-making. 
  • HR Policies: The firm constantly reviews its HR policies to ensure its employees are accommodated for. For example, the firm changed its maternity policy to cover shared parental leave, adoption and surrogacy, and this applies to all employees of the firm (including same sex couples). It also launched a “Time Out! No questions asked” scheme allowing employees to take up to four weeks unpaid leave for any purpose. 
  • Employee Networks: The firm has a number of employee networks, helping employees from various diverse backgrounds come together to discuss ideas and offer support. These networks include gender equality, LGBT+, ethnicity, disabilities, mental health, social mobility, families and carers, and faith.