Michael Francies (born 14 October 1956) is a British

solicitor A solicitor is a legal practitioner who traditionally deals with most of the legal matters in some jurisdictions. A person must have legally-defined qualifications, which vary from one jurisdiction to another, to be described as a solicitor and ...

who specializes in equity financing. He is currently the managing partner of the

London London is the capital and largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary down to the North Sea, and has been a majo ...

office of the United States

firm A company, abbreviated as co., is a Legal personality, legal entity representing an association of people, whether Natural person, natural, Legal person, legal or a mixture of both, with a specific objective. Company members share a common p ...

, Weil, Gotshal & Manges LLP. In 2004 he won the "Partner of the Year" award at ''The Lawyer'' awards. He followed this by winning the "Deal Lawyer of the Year" award at the ''Legal Week'' awards in 2006.

Early life and education

Francies was born in Israel, but moved to the UK with his family as a young child. He did most of his schooling and university there. He earned his law degree at

Manchester University , mottoeng = Knowledge, Wisdom, Humanity , established = 2004 – University of Manchester Predecessor institutions: 1956 – UMIST (as university college; university 1994) 1904 – Victoria University of Manchester 1880 – Victoria Univer ...

(LLB, 1978); and did graduate work in finance at the College of Law, London (LSF, 1979).

Career

After law school and passing the bar, Francies started with

Clifford Chance Clifford Chance LLP is an international law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom, and a member of the "Magic Circle", a group of London-based multinational law firms. It ranks as one of top ten largest law firms in the world measured bo ...

, which became one of the largest global law firms after its merger. It is based at Canary Wharf, but has offices throughout Europe, and in other nations, including the United States. He moved to Weil Gotshal & Manges in 1998. In 2009 an industry magazine described Francies as "the best UK corporate partner currently practising with a US firm." Francies was among the "Hot 100 2009" by ''

The Lawyer ''The Lawyer'' is a legal business information product for law firm leaders, commercial lawyers, barristers A barrister is a type of lawyer in common law jurisdictions. Barristers mostly specialise in courtroom advocacy and litigation. The ...

''.

Honours

* World's 10 Best Equity Lawyers, ''Expert Guides'', Managing Partners Forum * 2008, named one of the

Times Online ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

's "Law 100", a list of "the most powerful and influential eoplewithin the law today".Frances Gibb and Alex Spence, "Times Law 100"
''Times Online'', 22 Apr 2008, accessed 21 Jun 2010

References

English lawyers English solicitors 1956 births Living people English people of Israeli descent {{UK-law-bio-stub