Success is a mysterious beast. Hard to define, built up over years and often the result of a formula even its creators struggle to understand. But failure, well, that’s simple. When a law firm runs into difficulties you can point to bickering partners, problem offices, a weak client-base or an unworkable strategy. Whatever it is, there’s usually a clear narrative to explain the situation.
As such, the current rough patch at Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) is striking less in itself than because the firm seems surprised by – and unable to entirely explain – the situation. When BLP announced in May that it was consulting on deep redundancies, by many accounts even a number of senior partners at the firm were caught unawares.After all, this is one of the most upwardly mobile firms of the last decade, having in 2001 secured probably the most successful UK merger since Clifford Turner hooked up with Coward Chance. BLP then substantially delayed announcing its financial performance – and still appears unsure on the exact profitability picture for 2012/13. It is clear that profits have fallen sharply and revenues are down 5% – by some margin the worst performance this year in the top 25.
