Summer2013


City of London Solicitors’ Company Prize 2013


Each year the City of London Solicitors’ Company awards a Prize of £600 to a trainee who has completed one year’s training with a City fi rm and who shows the most promise as being a future City Solicitor. All applicants must have achieved a Distinction on the LPC and the winner is chosen on the basis of an essay on the “single key issue or challenge facing City fi rms in the next fi ve years and the best solution to it” and a short interview with the Master of the Company and the Chairman of the CLLS Training Committee. We are delighted that Tom Wood was awarded this year’s Prize and his essay is reprinted below.


Breaking beyond the City: how firms can go Global


“Who’s going global?” is the hot question in the legal press. It anticipates the next seismic shift in legal services, as some City firms look to leap from London- based practices with international offices to fully integrated, “global” firms.


Academics once suggested there was a limit to globalisation’s impact on the legal industry, owing to differences between jurisdictions and the shortage of global legal products. That view has been revisited in recent years, however, as the effects of the credit crunch filter through. Segal-Horn, for example, has shown how greater market competition and cost drivers in the post-Lehman world have outweighed the obstacles to globalisation, as firms – and their clients – have moved in search of new sources of revenue.


The result of this process will be a two-tier international market. Topping the pile will be an elite core of global firms, with a monopoly over the biggest deals and blue- chip clients, comparable to the big four accountancy firms. Beneath will be a larger body of “business firms”, with an expanded business-services offering but lacking that truly international dimension.


Of course, success may be found in either tier. But what appears certain is that the elite line-up will be fixed within the next 5 years. Once reputations are cemented, the elite club will be impenetrable (much as the “Magic Circle” has proved in London). The biggest problem facing ambitious firms, therefore, is making the cut.


Opening out What must a firm do to book a place at the high table?


Expansion is the obvious first step. “Best friends” are no longer sufficient; global firms need their own feet


on the ground, and shared profit pools help collapse geographical divides. This has characterised the legal market in 2012, with several notable mergers, tie-ups, and UK invasions by US firms.


However, international presence alone does not make a firm truly global. The second key ingredient is an integrated service model. Clients expect different advice across jurisdictions, but they are increasingly intolerant of discrepancies in the delivery of advice. Therefore, while there may be few global legal products, firms must achieve a consistent standard of client service worldwide.


Such service must be underpinned by a common culture, which unites international offices through shared values and objectives. Firms suffer most where egos and personal ambitions outgrow the priorities of the firm. Accordingly, values need to be instilled at all levels from the training stage, ensuring that fee earners and support staff develop with the same values at the heart of their practices. First into the elite club will be those firms which – having expanded geographically – succeed in creating a single culture across their offices, projecting a united front to clients.


Finally, firms may need to loosen their ties to the Square Mile. City-centricism may be damaging in a world where the economic engine has shifted East. Moving headquarters may be a logistic nightmare, but it shows clients firms are willing to transcend their roots to get closer to the action. So, while it may be premature to talk of London’s decline as a services hub, firms may need to become a bit less “City”, a little more “Forbidden City” if they are to join the new world order.


Tom Wood, Herbert Smith Freehills LLP City Solicitor • Issue 80 • 11City Solicitor • Issue 82 •1 9 C CityS Solicitor • •Issue80••


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16