DLA Piper has continued its Nordic expansion, confirming a merger with Swedish law firm Grönberg Advokatbyrå. Continue reading “Strengthening Sweden: DLA Piper acquires 21 lawyer firm”
European retreat: Ashurst pulls out of Rome days after Sweden exit
In its second European closure this month, Ashurst is shutting the doors to its Rome office after five years, with its remaining lawyers relocating to Milan following a review of its Italian offering.
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Shutting down Sweden: Ashurst’s Stockholm outpost defects to local firm
Ashurst has closed its Swedish offering Ashurst Stockholm, with the entire team of 30 staff moving to fellow Stockholm-based firm Hamilton.
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Comment: Elite indies carve out role as the one-stop shop shuts in Europe
Much like British voters ahead of this month’s vote on EU membership, City law firms have been shaped in recent decades by mainland Europe, even as they have become increasingly ambivalent about that mingled destiny.
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The Euro Elite 2016
The inaugural Legal Business report on Europe’s top 100 independent law firms.
Navigation
Market Reports
- Germany – Weltmeister
- Italy – La dolce vita?
- France – Liberté, égalité, fraternité
- Iberia – Pushing boundaries
- CEE – The tiger by the tail
- Switzerland – Like clockwork
- Ireland – Back with a bang
- Baltics – All change
- Greece, Turkey and The Balkans – Bouncing back
- Nordics – Power, soft and hard
- Benelux – Perfect triptych
- Russia and CIS – Cold fronts
The Euro Elite top 25 – Wars of Independence
While the advance of global law firms has stalled in recent years, high-quality independents have regained their purpose. Welcome to the Euro Elite, our first study of the advisers redefining the Continent’s legal market.
‘There’s economic value in the culture of a firm,’ says João Vieira de Almeida, managing partner of Portuguese firm Vieira de Almeida & Associados (VdA). If that culture is driven by independence, his sentiments are echoed by managing partners from Paris to Prague.
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The Euro Elite – Main Table
Euro elite: focus Germany – Weltmeister
German independents maintain elite status in a fiercely competitive market, despite the attention of some formidable global players.
‘Our market is one of the most competitive in the world,’ asserts Tobias Bürgers, co-managing partner of Noerr, Germany’s largest independent law firm with 427 fee-earners. In 2015, Noerr increased turnover by 5% to €207.7m.
‘Over the last eight years, we’ve had 70% revenue growth. We’ve outperformed the market proportionately, relative to other firms,’ he adds.
Euro elite: focus Italy – La dolce vita?
A new generation is revitalising the performance of a trio of Italian leaders committed to remaining steadfastly independent
It’s been a hard decade for Italy, not least for its law firms: the product of a flat economy and relatively few deals. Even before the crisis, the economy had the lowest sustained growth of any OECD country. But there has been a recent renaissance, of sorts, with GDP optimistically predicted to rise by 1.6% in 2016, while concluded deals totalled €50bn in each of the last two years, according to KPMG.
Euro elite: focus France – Liberté, égalité, fraternité
Strong competition from UK and US firms in Paris and a penchant for tight, focused practices means French firms do not feature large among the Euro Elite.
With its lack of large full-service domestic law firms, the French legal market is unique when compared with other European jurisdictions. A traditional culture of non-partnership and a low threshold when it comes to international investment has created a legal landscape where the few larger French firms face fierce competition from smaller French boutiques, as well as the significant US and UK presence that dominates the Paris market.
Continue reading “Euro elite: focus France – Liberté, égalité, fraternité”