If you were to venture outside London to the major regional legal markets ten or 15 years ago, you would probably have been surprised. The energy, ambition and cohesive professional communities in these markets went well beyond expectations.
In the bars of Birmingham, Bristol and Manchester you would often meet individuals with that mix of personality, judgement and charisma that marks out the best commercial lawyers. No wonder so many of London’s sharpest legal operators used to be bred in the sticks.
On one level you could argue, however, that this was the end of an era. The original breed of upwardly mobile provincial firms typified in different ways by Dibb Lupton Alsop and Wragge & Co were becoming part of a genuinely national market. The regionally-distinct economies that once powered such firms gave way to more integrated markets – the problem was this shift meant an increasingly global London and wealthy South East was encroaching on and luring away more legal talent that once would have stayed local. This shift has been most stark in Birmingham – now a radically different place from the confident legal hub of the late 1990s.
But if all that sounds downbeat, there is another side to the coin. In the same way that London only in the last 20 years truly reinvented itself as a global city, some regions have moved past their industrial decline to position themselves for the future. A more connected economy means that the successful cities such as Bristol and Manchester have to compete for people and investment nationally, rather than rely on geography and history. But it can be done and there is phenomenal opportunity outside of London, particularly in a nation increasingly leaving the UK’s legacy of creaking infrastructure behind it and refocusing its manufacturing base for high-end global competition. The UK needs more attractive hubs and hot-spots outside the South East and the success of Manchester points the way for huge potential in these markets.
Which brings us to the Regional Insight report – a cross-over project between The Legal 500, Legal Business, The In-House Lawyer and GC Magazine. Having gained responses from more than 1,200 companies across the UK – and produced profiles on more than 40 individual clients – this report shows that such clients share many concerns with GCs at larger bluechips. Even smaller clients have concluded it is often more cost effective to build up their own teams and cut reliance on external counsel and they are likewise rapidly converting to the beauty of fixed fees. But beyond that it is unclear which providers will ultimately colonise this fast-changing market. Will it be the new band of regional and national firms such as DWF, Shakespeares and Bond Dickinson? Will New Law providers working out of the regions become successors to DLA? (Client scepticism in our research perhaps suggests otherwise.) Maybe the advent of flexibly working lawyers and the emergence of ‘near-shoring’ hubs in Manchester, Glasgow, Birmingham, Bristol and Belfast will further transform an increasingly networked but physically separate legal market. Let’s hope so. The UK will be better served with a more vibrant national economy in which a strong South East can complement and sometimes compete with more confident regional centres. This report gives a few clues about what those hubs may look like for legal services.
alex.novarese@legalease.co.uk, catherine.mcgregor@gcmagazine.com, david.burgess@legal500.com