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Society's international work is focused are those between the EU and Asean (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations), the EU and Mercosur (Brazil, Argentinia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela), and between the EU and India. The Law Society is also working with the Korean Bar Association and the FCO on the implementation of the EU-South Korea free trade agreement since it came into force. There has also been huge interest in jurisdictions that are geographically convenient and professionally more open. October 2012 saw the merger of Herbert Smith and Australia’s Freehills, which followed Allen & Overy’s decision to open in the country in 2010.

As Herbert Smith Freehills’ joint chief executive David Willis explained, the merger’s significance is regional – giving it ‘the platform to become the leading global law firm across Asia Pacific, a region likely to see continued substantial growth and to become an increasingly important part of the global legal services market’.

Allen & Overy’s Morley offered the same reason on opening, arguing that in addition to seeing possibilities in Australia’s domestic market, the office ‘enables us to service the needs of our existing clients in another key market and adopt a fully integrated approach to the Asia-Pacific region’.

Progress can be slow in such negotiations however. It is now a year since a high-powered delegation including then-justice secretary Kenneth Clarke, the Law Society and the Bar Council committed to a ‘roadmap’ to liberalise India’s £2.6bn legal services market.

The delegation had spent three days in Delhi speaking with Indian lawyers, ministers and officials, including Salman Khurshid, law and justice minister. The parties agreed jointly to ‘thrash out a timetabled roadmap to pave the way for the legal sectors in both countries to benefit from greater access to India’s legal services market’. Progress on that agreement has been slow, notwithstanding some helpful judgments in the Indian courts.

And despite a good meeting between the Law Society and its equivalent Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil in September, those managing law firms could be forgiven for feeling that, while globalisation forges ahead, their own sector is being artificially held back.

But in the meantime, Bateman stresses, there is not a total block on benefiting from opportunities in more closed markets. ‘It is worth noting that, notwithstanding the slow progress of market access and liberalisation of services negotiations, there are huge business development opportunities for UK lawyers to work with lawyers overseas,’ she says. There are chances ‘to set up and offer English legal services and international advice in places such as in Brazil’, she adds.

In jurisdictions with partial access, growth in commercial arbitration provides particular opportunities for UK lawyers. In arbitrations many are competent to advise clients in-country. Though of course, disputes from the coveted BRIC countries may equally be headed to London. In a 2010 survey, Queen Mary’s (part of the University of London) School of International Arbitration and law firm White & Case talked, Continued on page 10

‘The centre of gravity for the legal industry is becoming more diffuse,’ says David Morley, and super-hubs will rival cities like Hong Kong

Stephen Green estimates that 100,000 more SMEs need to start exporting for the first time

£450bn

Predicted value of global legal services market in 2013

14%

What UK firms generate of the global 100’s gross revenue

photos: ALAMY/Jonathan Goldberg/REX