Leader

The launch of Legal Business’s debut Disputes Yearbook is just one of many signs of how dramatically the dynamics of the global law game have changed over the last decade. While our lead article, Martial Law, assesses whether the dramatic rise of the contentious lawyer has reached a post-Lehman plateau, there is no sign of litigation returning to the near backwater it was becoming at many City firms in the early 2000s.

It’s possible that a stabilising global economy will have an impact on this counter-cyclical business, but in truth pure crisis-related commercial disputes work has under-shot expectations and manifested with a greater time lag than many expected.

As such, many of the underlying factors strengthening the hand of contentious lawyers such as increasingly proactive regulation and enforcement, the rise of global arbitration in a multi-polar world and the relative patchiness of M&A and securities work show no signs of abating.

Glancing at the headline financials on the litigation teams at major commercial law firms, it’s obvious that it is now common for disputes teams to exceed firm-wide profitability by a good margin, probably in part because litigation teams rarely benefited from the over-investment seen in corporate practices at firms with delusions of M&A grandeur.

Such a picture of rude financial health is amplified by the success of London boutiques such as Stewarts Law, Enyo and Signature, to say nothing of the swagger of US dispute icons Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan and Boies, Schiller & Flexner. With US advisers currently investing in Europe’s disputes market with considerable success, including Boies Schiller’s much-touted City launch this year, and the recent launch of arbitration über-boutique Three Crowns – disputes lawyers look sure to be setting the agenda in the global legal market in a way that was unthinkable in the mid-2000s.

As we’ve noted before, City law firms, which have traditionally built their businesses heavily around transactional work, have yet to fully adapt to this shift and I suspect they may come to regret not bringing their litigators more fully into the inner circle.

Recognising that changing dynamic, Legal Business has been moving to expand our coverage of the disputes scene, not only with this report but also with upcoming events in 2015. The events will bring together the top practitioners in commercial litigation and arbitration to discuss the key issues in the global disputes community. This is a journey in which we haven’t reached the destination – I intend for us to improve our coverage of this area. For that, your feedback will be both required and gratefully accepted.

alex.novarese@legalease.co.uk