DWF picks Dubai for first international office and puts three-year growth plan in place
With just 35 lawyers spread across four offices, Latham & Watkins admitted last month it had made a mistake in how it launched in the Middle East in 2008, and told staff in Abu Dhabi and Doha that their offices will close by the end of the year with the firm using Dubai and Riyadh to service the region.
Latham’s chairman Bill Voge said that the strategy committee for the Middle East he headed in the run-up to the launch had been wrong in ‘concluding that there were four distinctly different markets that we wanted to attack in Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha and Riyadh’ and the firm should instead operate on a regional basis. ‘Now we’ve been on the ground we’ve found that there are not distinct markets,’ he said.
‘Dubai is only 80 miles down the road from Abu Dhabi. Consolidation makes sense.’
Bill Voge, Latham & Watkins
The 11 lawyers in Doha and Abu Dhabi have been offered the opportunity to relocate to the firm’s Dubai office and Voge argues that the decision is a logical step after managing the three offices together when, two years ago, Villiers Terblanche was placed in charge of Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi. ‘Two years ago we started managing the three offices as one and now we’re making the three offices one,’ he said.
The exits follow discussions that have taken place since Voge took up the role of chairman on 1 January. During that period the firm held talks with 12 major clients to assess if the closures would impact on its business in the region.
Voge added: ‘I personally had several calls with top clients in the region to explore the effect on our client service and that gave us the comfort that what we’re doing is not disruptive to our clients. They didn’t view having an office in Doha, when our office in Dubai is an hour’s flight away, as critical. Dubai is only 80 miles down the road from Abu Dhabi too. Consolidation makes sense.’
Also betting on Dubai as a base to serve the wider Middle East region was Legal Business 100 firm DWF, which relocated London-based insurance partner Chris
Ryan and hired construction partner Steven Hunt to cement its first foothold outside of the UK. Andrew Leaitherland, managing partner and chief executive, described the move as a ‘real opportunity’, with the firm taking a 1,000 sq ft office in the Dubai International Finance Centre to house a four-lawyer team.
The outpost is being targeted at the firm’s clients across construction, energy, insurance and transport in the Middle East and North Africa, with a three-year plan in place to develop the offering.
tom.moore@legalease.co.uk