Fieldfisher continues to build on what managing partner Michael Chissick describes as a strategy to be ‘in every commercial capital in Europe’, having opened in Dublin – its seventh new office since the beginning of 2018.
The mid-market pacesetter merged on 1 May with Irish firm McDowell Purcell to add the 25th office to its global verein. Led by managing partner JP McDowell, the 120-year-old firm counts 16 partners and 50 lawyers. Its regulatory practice is its core strength, while also operating in disputes, employment, planning, restructuring and insolvency.
Taking up the role of Fieldfisher’s managing partner for the Republic of Ireland, McDowell said he expected around 30 new staff, including partners, would join the office in the next year. The two firms had worked together for almost a decade before merger discussions started to intensify last summer. ‘We did talk to other law firms, but the pan-European presence Fieldfisher has and the level of ambition Michael [Chissick] has shown swung the balance,’ said McDowell.
Chissick said Ireland is a key financial centre and pointed to its developing life sciences industry, one of Fieldfisher’s core areas of focus. The Dublin merger comes around eight months after Fieldfisher launched a low-cost hub a few miles to the north. In August 2018 the firm announced it was opening a volume legal services arm in Belfast to provide document negotiation and legal support to its international offices, expected to employ 125 people – mostly paralegals – within three years.
The Northern Irish hub was launched in conjunction with Donaldson Legal Consulting, with which Fieldfisher combined at the end of 2017, acquiring a Belfast base for its alternative legal services platform Condor.
Fieldfisher added to the expansion both sides of the Irish border with five other office openings in 2018. In September, the firm launched in Barcelona and Madrid after merging with 60-lawyer Spanish firm JAUSAS. Verein member Fieldfisher JAUSAS has since grown to around 120 lawyers, its Madrid base going from five to 25 and moving into larger premises. The firm aims to have two offices of around the same size in the two Spanish cities. Earlier in the year the firm added a third Chinese office to its bases in Beijing and Shanghai, launching in Guangzhou through the hire of a seven-lawyer team including three partners from local firm Geenen Law Office. In May it launched in Luxembourg, while in April it opened its fourth German base in Frankfurt, to sit alongside Hamburg, Düsseldorf and Munich.
Its international expansion frenzy comes off the back of solid financial results. In 2017/18 the firm hiked revenue 24% to £207m, a 118% growth over a five-year period, while PEP rose 17% to £750,000.