That has been the mantra for all business owners all over the world and law firms are no exceptions
In a spree to get a chunk of the global market share, medium and big UK law firms are now busy tying up with American law firms through trans-Atlantic mergers. This will allow the UK law firms to gain more business from the global legal circuit thereby increasing their profits and extending their virtual global foot prints.
UK’s 25th-largest firm Hammonds, is supposed to be negotiating with Squire Sanders & Dempsey, an Ohio-based firm. This merger is supposed to create a practice with revenue of about £400 million. That seems to be a big number! On the other hand SJ Berwin is negotiating with New York-based Proskauer Rose.
Undoubtedly, the financial crisis has badly hit the demand for commercial legal services in UK. This is driving even middle-sized law firms to enter into synergies with US law firms. But then again we have no reason to believe that all such trans-Atlantic mergers taking place at the moment are defensive mergers. In fact, many of such actions are being taken as a part of growth strategy.
If all that is all right on two sides of the Atlantic, I wonder why people press the panic bell when the concept of legal off-shoring comes in. It’s just another way of a virtual merger or virtual collaboration, isn’t it?
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