Integration has long been one of the key issues for Baker McKenzie, a firm with heritage as a franchise and a long fight against the much-loathed ‘McFirm’ tag. A sign that things are changing came in February, when Legal Business reported that the firm is to bring London and eight of its offices in Europe, the Middle East and Africa (EMEA) into one profit pool – a landmark step towards full financial integration in the region.
Global antitrust chief Fiona Carlin has been elected to lead the integrated business, uniting 1,000 lawyers in the City, Brussels, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Madrid, Barcelona, Johannesburg, Bahrain and Qatar.
The new structure, which includes 250 partners, will go live at the start of Bakers’ next financial year on 1 July and see profits divided across the eight countries for the first time.
While efforts to integrate the firm date back to Christine Lagarde’s time as chair in the ʻ90s, current chair Paul Rawlinson is aiming to unite its 77 offices worldwide into three profit centres in EMEA, America and Asia-Pacific by 2020.
‘I view my role as one that will facilitate on a regional level the implementation of our global strategy,’ Carlin told Legal Business. ‘It is a question of creating a demand-driven, collaborative approach to building common, profitable clients across the region.’
Crucially, Carlin’s tasks will include overseeing partners’ remuneration and bringing the regional integration efforts forward. However, much remains to be done, as the current deal leaves out Bakers’ 200-lawyer German business, spread across Frankfurt, Munich, Berlin and Düsseldorf, as well as 170 professionals in Paris. Germany only shares profits with the 40-lawyer Austrian branch, while the French contingent forms an integrated business with the 40-strong Luxembourg outpost.
‘The global strategy that Paul pursues is fully embraced by the German and Austrian offices,’ said Germany and Austria managing partner Matthias Scholz, who points to tax and compliance issues as the only obstacles that remain to be cleared before the firm takes its integration efforts further. ‘Historically Bakers was a single Illinois partnership and we should not be afraid of going back there.’
As things stand, Bakers counts four cross-jurisdictional pools in Europe: alongside the eight-country grouping announced in February, France-Luxembourg and Germany-Austria, 130 lawyers in Russia form part of the fourth international profit centre in the region alongside Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan.
The other two profit centres that Rawlinson’s strategy has envisioned are also still a work in progress. Asia-Pacific’s 17 offices are operating five different profit centres at the time of writing. As for the other side of the pond, Bakers moved to bring its North American outposts into a single profit pool five years ago, but had to draft special deals for its Dallas and Washington DC offices before they agreed to join the group.