‘We needed to move on’: Why Fieldfisher has turned its back on the dating game

Victoria Young speaks to the management duo about the transformed mid-market player

‘We’ll be the first to admit the firm of five years ago wasn’t delivering what the partners wanted,’ says Fieldfisher managing partner Michael Chissick. In 2012, Legal Business took a close look at Field Fisher Waterhouse and at the time the mid-market law firm was desperate for a suitor. Three years, two failed merger talks and several high-profile partner exits later, and Fieldfisher has undergone a reboot far beyond its change of name.

Senior partner Matthew Lohn agrees with Chissick’s assessment, adding: ‘We were siloed both structurally and operationally.’

Merger talks with both Lawrence Graham and Osborne Clarke (OC) ended in June and November of 2012 respectively. Additionally – and most publicly – the firm was also engaged in high-profile disputes with its former head of intellectual property (IP) and tech Mark Abell, as well as former head of privacy Eduardo Ustaran. Abell was suspended from the partnership after he announced he was joining Bird & Bird and subsequently brought a claim against the firm, which was settled. Ustaran, who moved to Hogan Lovells, locked horns with the firm over his notice period.

Chissick says: ‘We had a bout of departures about three years ago which were necessary to unite the firm and make it what it is today… it has made us a stronger, cohesive firm.’

The management team at Fieldfisher acknowledge there were divisions within the firm and this wasn’t only in terms of strategic direction and performance – the firm was physically split between two buildings. A shift into Riverbank House in 2014 reduced the firm’s floor space from about 120,000 sq ft to 82,000 sq ft and, as the firm moved to open plan, management began to literally break down walls. Lohn and Chissick say the move has played a symbolic role in the transformation of a firm in recent years from unsettled to self-assured.

‘The departures three years ago were necessary to unite the firm. It made us stronger.’
Michael Chissick, Fieldfisher

The office move was part of a wider transformation programme, internally dubbed ‘the strategy on a page’, which involved improving its technology, rebranding and its acquisition of Heatons in Manchester. As Chissick notes: ‘Instead of changing one thing at a time, we changed about half a dozen things, and they all linked in together.’

He adds: ‘We moved here two years ago, we rebranded as Fieldfisher, and we did what we needed to move on and send a message, internally and externally, that the firm was changing.’

Don’t look back

Fieldfisher’s renaissance over the past few years can be measured by steady financial growth, picking up in the last two years. While revenue stood at £95m in 2012/13, it improved by 9% to £104m the year after and the firm’s most recent result for 2014/15 was up by another 9% to £113.3m. On a five-year track, Fieldfisher’s 2015 revenue figure is up by 23% over the past five years.

Chissick says: ‘We expect to hit £120m in revenue this year and it has been going up pretty steadily by 10% on average. That is translating into profit.’

Profits per equity partner have also been on a steady climb: from £398,000 in 2012/13, rising 4% to £412,000 in 2013/14 and leaping 23% to £506,000 for the most recent financial year.

In comparison, mid-market peer Olswang, which sits four places above Fieldfisher in the Legal Business 100, has also incrementally lifted revenue – by 6% to £117.6m for 2013/14 and 8% to £126.7m in 2014/15 – all during a particularly rocky time for the firm. Meanwhile, Fieldfisher’s former suitor OC has rocketed its revenues over the past three years, with a 20% turnover boost two years ago and a more modest 6% over the 2014/15 financial year at £151m from £142m.

Chief executive of OC’s international practice, Simon Beswick – who held the managing partner role during the 2012 merger talks – says various parts of Fieldfisher’s business have changed since.

‘They had deeply rooted practices that didn’t sit comfortably and were vying for leadership,’ he notes, describing Lohn as the ‘stabilising force’ and Chissick as the ‘driver’ within the leadership team.

While the pair have different management approaches, Chissick says their yin-yang style is good for the firm. Lohn praises Chissick’s drive, adding: ‘It is more than ambition. It is his ability to deliver on it that sets him apart in this business.’

Chissick has been given a greater ability to get things done following a structural change that saw management split into two boards: an executive committee run by Chissick and a governance board headed by Lohn. But while Chissick has the freedom to choose who is on his committee, which is responsible for strategy implementation, the supervisory board, which Lohn chairs, holds Chissick’s committee to account.

Lohn comments: ‘Michael is given a task to do and in real terms the firm has said: “We are not going to hamper you.” This is a big change to how we were before the governance review. We had stakeholder-type governance, which was holding the firm back.’

Going it alone

Both leaders claim past merger talks came mostly because the firm’s lease was due for renewal in 2011. Now the firm has moved, they say there is no need to combine with anyone.

‘We’ve moved here, we’ve invested in laterals and our IT systems, so we can’t suddenly turn around and change our minds about merging – it’s fair to say that we are enjoying ourselves and this is where we are,’ comments Chissick.

Lohn adds: ‘Having gone through merger talks, we are not going to be doing it again soon, that’s for sure. We were going through what I would call a re-grounding period and the good thing about talking to other people is that you come out with a better insight into yourself.’

The firm will continue to play the lateral hire game to expand, having added 36 laterals since 2013. Earlier this year, the firm added a trio of partners from IP specialist Rouse, led by veteran patent litigator Diana Sternfeld, and also hired Watson Farley & Williams partner Daniel Marhewka in May last year to launch the firm’s corporate practice in Munich.

Chissick notes: ‘When you see great firms like Wragges [merging with Gowlings] or BLP [Berwin Leighton Paisner] talking to Greenberg Traurig, that’s good for us as it reduces the number of quality, independent, mid-tier firms. Picking up on our laterals, I believe a lot of the talent in London has had enough of US law firms and there is a flight of talent to the mid-tier.’

Lohn says: ‘We may be similar to Olswang in terms of global reach and size, but our specialist focus, for example in derivatives and structured finance, means we are regularly instructed by global investment banks. It’s becoming a very different, fragmenting market and it’s clear there are now different markets, across different sectors.’

‘We were going through a re-grounding period and the good thing about talking to other people is that you come out with a better insight into yourself.’
Matthew Lohn, Fieldfisher

Financial services is one area where Chissick believes the firm is ‘a real unrecognised powerhouse’ and says it is one of several sectors that the firm has really focused on, along with corporate, energy and technology. While the firm lists nine sectors on its website, he says these have been the real focus. It is this more concentrated approach that the firm hopes to use to attract new talent in developing areas and a departure from the much-trumpeted ‘virtuous triangle’ strategy that ran up to and including the merger years, where the firm declared a focus on clients that were able to feed work to its corporate, TMT and regulatory practices.

Chissick argues that the firm is now viewed as a stable, quality mid-tier player. ‘It is interesting, if you look at Gowlings [WLG] and BLP – they are doing different things and we are sticking to our knitting. Others are still waking up to the fact there are only going to be a few independent law firms with clear strategies and we are going to be one of those players.

‘If you look at where the market is going, we are dealing with national firms, accounting firms and alternative providers, such as Axiom and Lawyers On Demand. It is not sustainable for every leadership in the top 50 to commit themselves to growth forever and a day. We often grow by stealing off competitors, so of course growth is good, but as long as we can keep driving the business, and it is profitable and we are outperforming our peer group, that is important to us, rather than being the biggest or fastest-growing.’

Fieldfisher now makes around 25-30% of its revenues outside the UK, an improvement on 2011/12 when international turnover was £20m, or 20% of the total. Key locations include Düsseldorf, which has grown to five partners from scratch in 18 months, while Lohn and Chissick report that the Brussels office, which opened in 2007, is performing strongly. The pair concede Munich ‘needs a bit more TLC’, now that it is down to three partners, with its last litigation partner Sibylle Schumacher leaving the branch for Pinsent Masons late last year.

Another notable office is Silicon Valley, which was bolstered by the arrival of OC partner Mark Webber in August 2014. Opened in 2012, the office is focused on tech companies wanting to come to the UK and, Lohn says, does a lot of fast turnaround work, such as visa and immigration clearance.

Despite more than a quarter of the business coming from overseas, Chissick and Lohn are coy about further expansion plans. With offices in Africa, Japan, the US and the Middle East they say they are not looking at anything else outside of Europe in the near future.

‘We haven’t got anything ready to go now, but it wouldn’t be a surprise in the next 18 months. We can’t say we won’t be doing anything in another jurisdiction – we are looking to grow steadily and surely. The Fieldfisher way is much more about finding the right teams and integrating them, not the Dentons approach and having lots of flags.’

‘The Fieldfisher way’ now means standing independently and not seeking security in a white knight. You can almost hear Gloria Gaynor’s disco classic I Will Survive playing in the background.

victoria.young@legalease.co.uk