The GC Powerlist returns for its fifth annual report after launching back in 2013 and once more the format has evolved. While partially returning to the rising star model we used back in 2014, the 2017 edition has become a two-hander under the unifying title, The Clients of Tomorrow.
On one hand we have, following months of research, identified 55 outstanding individuals working at established companies active in the UK. This group is focused primarily on the in-house counsel fast establishing themselves in the middle ranks of their teams, typically in their 30s or early 40s.
But, in a departure, the second strand of the research focuses on high-growth companies with the prospects to be the global giants of tomorrow. These are largely, though not exclusively, businesses underwritten by technology. As such some of the conventional measures of success have to be adjusted. Many of the businesses we cite already have nine or even ten-figure valuations despite having relatively small revenues and staff rosters. But growth, and the potential to shake up their industry, marks them out as names to watch and clients to covet.
The revolution in legal teams and the role of in-house counsel at plcs has already been widely chronicled – but the recent emergence of ultra-fast-growth companies that can turn an industry on its head in half a decade means we are only beginning to gauge how in-house counsel will evolve for the age of Uber. (One early indication is the recent formation of the new networking and support group, Disruptive GCs, for the lawyers operating in such environments.)
Not only do such lawyers have nothing like the support or specialist skills enjoyed by their brethren in bluechip-land, they often face huge regulatory challenges in businesses that are either way in front of established law, or are attracting antagonism from national agencies (tech-driven businesses tending to cross borders and inflame local interests).
Researching across such wide-ranging sectors and institutions is obviously not an exact science, though we dedicate substantial editorial resources to this report. Even with months of research, there will clearly be many talented individuals and companies to watch that have escaped our notice. But we feel confident that the names included in this report constitute some of the most promising in the legal industry, and many that will be defining the UK and European legal market in the next ten years and more.
How successfully City law firms, who are in the main used to focusing on large, bureaucratic businesses, manage to adapt to such institutions and a new breed of emerging general counsel with different values to the generation before them, will do much to separate the winners from the losers in the legal industry.
In the meantime, in-house counsel continue to assert themselves across such new terrain. Many are only getting started.
alex.novarese@legalease.co.uk
The GC Powerlist 2017 was researched and written by James Wood, Kathryn McCann and Sarah Downey. Additional reporting by Matthew Field and Madeleine Farman.