Outside the Box: Can Reed Smith’s new Euro heads take the firm’s London practice to the next level?

Georgiana Tudor and Victoria Young talk to Tamara Box and Andrew Jenkinson about competing in the London market

Three years ago, Legal Business noted that an upwardly-mobile Reed Smith was, in its own understated fashion, making notable strides in the City under EMEA head Roger Parker. The London office had been performing well on the back of investment in lateral hires to develop its key sector groups. In 2012, London revenues jumped 21% to £114.7m from £94.5m, with Parker predicting UK revenues of $200m for 2013.

In the end, London turnover in 2013 reached $188m (£120.2m), up by 5%, but short of Parker’s prediction. In some ways it sums up Reed Smith’s fortunes in recent years – a respectable performance without quite managing to get the US-based heavyweights running scared.

Now, for the first time in a decade, Reed Smith’s European and Asian businesses have undergone a significant leadership change. In September the firm announced it had carved up Parker’s role, with Tamara Box – one of the most significant hires made by the firm in 2011 from Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) – stepping up to become managing partner for Europe and the Middle East. Parker will assume a newly-created position, Asia managing partner, as the firm ramps up its investment in that region.

‘”Taking over” is interesting,’ says Box. ‘Because we revamped the management team to ensure a greater geographic focus, there is much less of an element of changing or taking over or that I’m doing Roger’s job. We’re really working together and the regional managing partner role that we each have is a revamped role. We’ve got different priorities, so we each do our bit and come together.’

‘I don’t feel like an American leading a European business; I feel very much like a European lawyer with a little American veneer.’
Tamara Box, Reed Smith

But Texan-born finance lawyer Box has a challenge ahead of her, not just following the popular Parker in Europe but also after a recent period in which the firm has posted subdued growth in the City. The US firm achieved the notable feat of twice integrating City firms with little or no fallout. The question remains whether Reed Smith will demonstrate a more thrusting ambition in the Square Mile to reflect its transformation in the US from regional stalwart to top 30 national force.

 

Serving them fully

Described as a ‘positively energetic force’, ‘a very talented lawyer’ and a ‘rainmaker in client relationships’, Box, who cut her teeth as a partner at Hogan Lovells, established herself as one of Reed Smith’s biggest-billing partners in the region since joining from BLP. She served as global chair of the firm’s financial industry group, one of Reed Smith’s cornerstone practices. Box will oversee the London practice alongside real estate partner Andrew Jenkinson, who was made London managing partner in March and has notched up 25 years of service with the firm.

And despite being a relatively recent lateral hire, those within the firm and on the outside are confident Box is the right lawyer for a senior management role. A former partner says: ‘Does it slightly buck the trend putting an American lawyer in charge of a European business she only joined five years ago? Yes. Does that mean that even if she’s a very powerful voice within Reed Smith, she should have been denied the position? I don’t think so.’

Box, for her part, says: ‘I’ve been here for almost 20 years. I’m a British citizen, my little heart beats British and more importantly my heart beats European. That might not be as popular at the moment, but that’s how it’s been for a very long time. So I don’t feel like an American leading a European business; I feel very much like a European lawyer with a little American veneer.’

‘We’ve got to make damn sure we are fighting for the future and giving the next generation the same benefit we had.’
Andrew Jenkinson, Reed Smith

In London, Reed Smith’s revenue for 2015 was at $207m (£135.5m) up from $205m (£124.5m), an increase of 1% from the year prior where globally the firm reported a 3% decrease in turnover to $1.12bn.

Box says: ‘We’re in a world where flat is the new up. And we were up. Up is a good thing to have, even in a small percentage. 2015 was a revenue-increasing year for us. We’ve been seeing growth year on year, admittedly not giant percentages, but growth. That’s a positive.’

The Pittsburgh-bred firm’s 2001 merger with Warner Cranston gave it a foothold in the UK, followed by the well-executed 2007 merger with Richards Butler.

Box says she is ‘someone who likes to shake things up’. ‘We want to be a global law firm with strong relationships with our clients and industries, and when we got that, that’s it. Numbers? I don’t think we can ever say that’s success in itself.’

Jenkinson echoes this message: ‘We’ve all got to make damn sure that we are in a firm that’s fighting for the future first and foremost, and giving the next generation the same benefit we had. This is what partner satisfaction is, not just remuneration; it’s the whole thing.’

Box continues: ‘The reality is the legal industry is migrating and none of us are prepared to commit to what we should look like in the future. Whether it’s a consultancy or more like the accounting firms, we can say that our clients look to us for more than just legal advice. They are expecting market views and for us to understand their industries.’

With this in mind, the firm has also put emphasis on getting onto client panels, with notable wins this year including new appointments for Avis and Nokia, as well as reappointments for Barclays and Shell.

It is Reed Smith’s global reputation in two areas – media and energy – that means these two sectors are where it is most likely to pick up significant deal work.

Box says the firm wants to ensure a depth of relationship with major clients to the extent that it is handling everything for them. ‘Let’s take our energy business, for example – it’s not good enough to go in and make sure we’re acting for all of the major energy and commodity houses; we want to be acting for them in the major corporate transactions. We want to be helping them if they have disputes; we want to act with them on their capital raising. We want to make sure we are serving them fully.’

The firm cites its media and entertainment practice – a legacy strength of Richards Butler in London – as a priority for growth, with a client roster that includes Sony, Channel 4, Bauer Media Group and NBC among others. High-profile recent work includes Rihanna’s court battle against Topshop for image rights, which ended in 2015, and Sony’s acquisition of Ministry of Sound’s music catalogue in August. Meanwhile, the energy and natural resources practice, chaired by London-based Kyri Evagora, has grown from six to 130 lawyers globally in the last ten years and counts Shell, Chevron Corporation and Vestas among its clients. In London, the group has grown by 15% in three years.

Elsewhere in London, substantial investment in the financial services industry can be seen by the recent lateral hires of Diane Roberts from Ashurst in July and US securities specialist Daniel Winterfeldt from CMS Cameron McKenna, who joined with three associates in June. Of the six City promotions at the firm at the start of this year, Reed Smith made up acquisition and leveraged finance specialist Monica Dupont-Barton, and real estate finance lawyer Angelina Soon.

Despite being wary of revealing specific intent at this early stage, Box is widely tipped to be a natural leader with the personality required to push on Reed Smith’s European offering. Not only has she the track record as a fee-earner to lead by example, she has also been an advocate for modernising law firm management, as her 2015 article for Legal Business on implicit gender bias in the profession demonstrates.

‘I was speaking at an event recently and there was a headhunter there who said – really eloquently – “you have to, as you get more senior, basically live your successes through your team”. And that really spoke to me. I would really like to be the kind of leader who is there to empower others. I would like for my successes to come through the team. The better the team, the better the success and, frankly, the better the leader you are.’

Evagora concludes: ‘She’s only been in the role a few weeks, so it’s early days to identify a single achievement or a message, but we know she has an extraordinarily high profile in her field and as a woman in business. She’s a very impressive role model for our partners and the next generation.’

georgiana.tudor@legalease.co.uk

victoria.young@legalease.co.uk