‘When it comes to English law, I don’t think clients are as focused on where a firm is headquartered, and they are willing to use a US law firm. The same is not true in reverse.’ Pranav Trivedi, Skadden
With the launch of our 2022 Global London report, we ask the leaders at US law firms in the City to weigh up the challenges ahead
Continue reading “The Last Word: Broad stripes and bright stars”
‘You can’t appeal to people’s better natures because they don’t have one. Everyone is fundamentally selfish.’ Nihilistic as this remark from a senior corporate partner may sound, on darker days, most law firm leaders would find it hard to argue the point.
While that partner can always be relied upon for a no-holds-barred, often strongly-worded take on the worries that are really keeping law firm leaders awake at night, that is not to say the more diplomatic concerns that people express on the record are any less valid. Continue reading “Lessons in management: Spoiler alert – it doesn’t get easier”
When we first launched our Euro Elite report in 2016, much of the narrative was that the future of the elite European independent firms as a breed looked assured but individually they faced challenging headwinds and delicate balancing acts to modernise their businesses for a more globalised and networked world. But we were perhaps being charitable to the Anglo-Saxon firms that have striven so hard for decades to dominate Europe and have largely failed. Nobody is drinking that Kool-Aid anymore. The headwinds have come and gone, or at least remain with little of the effects that many anticipated. The 100 firms in 40 jurisdictions that make up this year’s report have taken Brexit, Covid and political turmoil in their stride and are largely going from strength to strength.
It was supposed to be so different; the mostly UK-based firms that threw their weight about in Amsterdam, Brussels, Madrid, Paris and Rome in the late 1990s and early 2000s, acting like bullies, predicted that legal services in those markets would be homogenised and those resisting would suffer. There were casualties – Loyens & Loeff was largely born of the ruins of Loeff Claeys Verbeke after Allen & Overy had picked it over. There were success stories too – Bruckhaus Westrick Heller Löber’s merger of equals with Freshfields was viewed as market defining, although there is an argument that it allowed Hengeler Mueller, Noerr and Gleiss Lutz to bolster their positions in Germany. There are many examples of Euro Elite firms rejecting formal advances from UK firms: Gleiss Lutz and Stibbe told Herbert Smith where to go, as did De Brauw (and others) to Linklaters. Few will have regretted that decision. Continue reading “Stronger together? Not really”
‘I believe it is relevant for Spain and its economy to have strong law firms whose decision-centres are based in the country.’ Fernando Vives, Garrigues
As part of our annual Euro Elite report, management at independent firms in Europe give their views on market challenges, talent management and technology
A senior legal headhunter friend, who could easily be described as a Renaissance Man, recently confided that one of the lesser-known challenges of placing lawyers today is that it is no longer sufficient just to be technically brilliant. Employers want candidates to have emotional intelligence and be able to communicate with clients and colleagues – with less of the ego.
Commentators have long banged on about law being a ‘people business’ but truth be told, it hasn’t been until recently – not really. ‘The grey lawyer in the corner,’ as one Magic Circle managing partner hilariously put it, could once have had a long and happy career pencil pushing and never speaking to another soul for 25 years. The same is true of journalists. Being a people person was never really a prerequisite of becoming one, as long as you could bash out a decent story to deadline and not get the paper sued. And I am unfortunately old enough to recall the days when it was de rigueur in the newsroom to scream in the face of a hapless hack over some minor transgression. Continue reading “Welcome to the Renaissance”
The words of BT Legal’s Leeanne Whaley, in ‘Held to account’, particularly stand out in this issue: ‘We spend a lot of money with external law firms. It historically suited law firms to not be transparent, but outside of big-ticket M&A and litigation, the job of a commercial lawyer is more replicable than ever.’
That this type of comment, made recently but equally has been repeated in many guises since the global financial crisis, needs to be repeated today is alarming. Put simply, in this day and age clients should not need to remind law firms that their existence is on a knife-edge: they should just vote with their feet. Traditional reputations should carry no weight with clients and firms should be judged on what they are doing now, rather than what they used to do. In the feature, Tony Williams of Jomati says firms can no longer rely on getting the lion’s share of the work based on their market reputation alone, adding that traditional law firms need to ‘get sensible’ and innovate on billing or risk being left behind. Continue reading “Take a good long look in the mirror before espousing change seriously”
‘We expect investors to look through short-term business disruption and for cross-border deal flow to return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2022.’
Tihir Sarkar, Cleary Gottlieb
Global 100 leaders and corporate stars give their prognosis on how the deal market will shape up in 2022
While commentary from LB100 leaders in recent years may have occasionally sounded like a broken record, with gingerly repeated soundbites about ‘cautious optimism’, this is certainly not true of our 2021 report.
This time last year, despite the market’s best efforts to put a brave face on things, we were still very much in the throes of coronavirus uncertainty, with no-one really knowing the true extent of the damage. ‘I’m more worried about what happens next year,’ noted Roland Turnill, Slaughter and May’s head of M&A in 2020, spelling out the quandary felt by many at the time. ‘The financial crisis was six to eight months of nothing happening, but this could be a bit more of a lull and then six months from now it gets tough. It will be a funny-shaped recovery.’ Continue reading “LB100 proves pacier than hoped but there’s plenty of ground still to cover”
This month’s issue of Legal Business may be dedicated to the largest firms in the UK by revenue but sibling title The Legal 500 is a much more inclusive church. The latest UK solicitors guide includes no fewer than 1,154 distinct firms operating in the UK across nearly 10,000 distinct rankings, of which nearly 4,500 are in the all-important London market. And with client feedback levels up 50% to more than 50,000 responses across the UK, they should reflect general counsel opinion better than ever.
We’re going to be taking a closer look at the rankings themselves and the performance of the LB100 in the next issue of Legal Business but there are a few important points about the most recent research that I want to highlight now. This year, on top of my general drive towards pushing for quality at the top of our core City rankings, improving diversity and ensuring our rankings are as reflective of the current market as possible, we have made two new tangible changes. Continue reading “We’ve listened: important new changes to The Legal 500 UK 2022”
‘One of the things I’ve learnt from the pandemic is individual wealth and freedom is nothing without collective wealth and freedom.’
Gareth Price, Allen & Overy
LB100 leaders give their views on another remarkable year and offer their prognosis on the 12 months ahead
