The KnowTalk blog is moving to its parent website www.theknowlist.com
All the usual features will remain, with other KnowList services just a couple of clicks away.
The final frontier – Sydney Law firms have not always shown great astuteness when following global economic developments. Legal expansion always seemed to be governed by a fanatical effort to plant flags in maps. From Budapest to Bangkok, firms rushed in to pick up the best legal talent available, without necessarily considering the long-term financial implications of welcoming new partners whose hourly rate was half of that of their London colleagues. Yet two events this week had a striking correlation.
China was officially announced as the world’s second largest economy and Clifford Chance revealed that it would open branch offices in Sydney and Perth in May. Unlike the herd mentality of the 2000s, Clifford Chance’s move is strictly strategic and not about matching or beating the competition; Allen & Overy and Norton Rose have recently launched their own Australian practices.
There are a number of issues at play. Firstly, Australia’s principle trading partner is China, currently the engine of the global economy. China’s fervent growth is dependant on plentiful natural resources and Australia has the means to oil that engine. For law firms, this represents a new quandary. Australia never really ranked high on the wish lists of London managing partners, because the market was already well developed and competitive. Yet top law firms in London and New York are intent on working on the headline transactions around the world. In the current climate in which the East is powering ahead of the West, these firms can find themselves a little bit isolated in their global headquarters. Europe and the US, of course, are still in a mess.
The growth in trade within the Asia Pacific region often has little or no connection with London or New York. The reasons for instructing a Magic Circle or top Wall Street firm are diminishing. So having a physical presence in China and Australia makes a lot of sense. The advantage of having a new Sydney office doesn’t stop there. Having a new group of Australians within the Clifford Chance ranks will make very little difference to its culture. Antipodeans have proliferated through the firm for well over a decade, but now it has direct access to well-educated and internationally minded lawyers. It also gives the firm a slightly lower cost base from which to grow its Asia Pacific practice.
The major sticking point is whether billing rates can get close to London rates. Partners get twitchy when their colleagues aren’t handsomely contributing to the profit pool. From a geographic and time zone perspective, it also gives Clifford Chance a better chance of servicing the Asian economic phenomenon. Sydney is just three hours ahead of Beijing. The Chinese working day is not hard to accommodate from Australia.
Let’s put this in perspective. New York is currently 13 hours behind Beijing. When a New York lawyer is having her breakfast, her Chinese client is probably having dinner with the family. It’s one reason why New York’s position as a premier legal centre, could become a little tarnished. Even London has a big advantage by mere virtue of being on Greenwich Mean Time.
So what does this mean for the future of global legal services? We can safely assume that the proportion of a global law firm’s operations will continue to increase in the Asia Pacific region and there is no reason why Australia can’t be that key component. From an economic perspective, Australia is closely attuned to the new world order and it is awash with top legal talent that can be relatively easily assimilated into the global law firm. If firms can get billing rates to a satisfactory level, then Australia might become that vital new frontier.
Welcome to our new regular opinion feature, Something to Crowe about…, by Chris Crowe a journalist who has been writing for and about the legal profession for over ten years and, we are proud to say, the KnowList’s editor.
Belfast or bust
So Allen & Overy and Herbert Smith are moving back-office functions to Belfast. It’s been a while since a business decision such as this has been met with so much vitriol. Inevitably hard-working individuals will lose their jobs and others will understandably be reluctant to relocate from South East England to Northern Ireland. Yet underneath this, the doom surrounding Belfast’s massive public sector cuts may be alleviated in some way by this private sector investment.
The bile-spitters will inevitably point to the almost £3 million in funding that A&O and Herbies are to receive from regional development agency Invest Northern Ireland. If this is about cost savings, why do they need a government handout?
Emotions aside, this is a business decision and firms are still rightly or wrongly judged by their profit per equity partner (PEP). It’s the same as corporates being evaluated on their stock market performance. If firms can boost profits, it heightens their status, and reputation enables all kinds of things, not least better recruits.
What this decision by A&O and Herbies confirms is that law firms are willing to make bold moves to save costs, if only to demonstrate to clients that they are doing everything they can to lower their cost base and as a result, their fees.
Of course, some have outsourced back-office functions to India. CMS Cameron McKenna made the brave move to outsource all its support services to Integreon last year and there have been plenty of other similar decisions, whether it be a classic outsourcing model or not.
London has arguably become the world’s premier financial and legal centre, and it seems only fair that there should be a redistribution of wealth to the provinces. If Bristol and Belfast are to benefit, then at least there is a positive side to the story. Of course, these moves by A&O and Herbies are not driven by altruism, but they do confirm what TheKnowList has been predicting for some time. Outsourcing, reorganising back-office functions and other cost savings are becoming the norm and not just the domain of a brave few. Bile-spitters may just have to swallow hard.
TheKnowList has been asked to develop an annual UK event ‘KnowLegal’ that will run at the end of September 2011 and be supported by smaller quarterly networking forums in December 2011, March 2012 & June 2012.
The event will be driven by the industry in terms of format, content & location, and the supporting networking forums will be run regionally.
TheKnowList is keen to work with the industry to change the professional landscape by developing forums and events in collaboration with those who will be attending and benefiting from them. Our goal is not to prescribe what we think the industry needs or wants, instead we wish to understand what the industry requires on both sides, law firms and vendors and then deliver what is needed as a high quality but enjoyable forum with intelligent, thought provoking and useful content.
The event will be run by an Executive Board of 12 vendors & an Executive Advisory Panel of 10 law firms who will have final say on content and format.
This Executive Board of 12 vendors will remain in place each year with 3 guest board positions as agreed by the core group of 12.
The key elements of the event are:
* Inaugural event – September 2011
* Follow on regional networking forums in Dec , March, and June
* Invitation Only (100/120 attendees)
* 2 evenings & 1 full day of legal and technical content (minimising time out of office)
* Legal content relevant to IT professionals
* Guest list formulated by core sponsors
* Guests will provide a list of who they wish to meet
Additional Partners Strengthen Global Presence of DocAuto
ATLANTA — February 10, 2011 - DocAuto, the leading provider of software solutions for Autonomy iManage WorkSite, announced today its further expansion into Australia and Asia with the signing of channel partners ACP Solutions Pty, Ltd. in Melbourne, ServTouch Holdings Pte, Ltd. in Singapore, and Trinogy Systems Pty, Ltd. in Sydney.
These additional channel partners will strengthen the presence of DocAuto in the Asia Pacific region helping the company to address growing demand for its industry-leading software solutions.
About ACP Solutions
ACP Solutions provides a range of synergistic products and services that can help most businesses improve their productivity in handling both electronic and physical documents.
About ServTouch
ServTouch is a leading technology solutions & support services provider in Asia Pacific.
About Trinogy Systems
Trinogy Systems is a specialist IT consultancy and solution provider servicing the information management needs of organizations in Australia, New Zealand and S.E. Asia.
About DocAuto, Inc.
DocAuto provides a comprehensive suite of software solutions for Autonomy iManage WorkSite that reduce risk, improve user experience, and optimize performance. Trusted by hundreds of firms and over 100,000 WorkSite users worldwide, DocAuto provides industry-leading software, domain expertise, and dedicated customer service. Founded in 1997 and an iManage Developer partner since 1999, DocAuto is the leading provider of enhancements for Autonomy iManage WorkSite that make matter-centricity easy, flexible, and secure.
For more information about DocAuto, call 800-DocAuto or email sales@docauto.com.
FloSuite Ltd., a Microsoft Gold Partner and leading developer of adaptive BPM and Case Management Solutions, today announced IBB Solicitors as its latest new legal client.
IBB Solicitors is a leading UK top 200 law firm based in the South East of England with approximately 150 staff. The firm provides expert legal advice to West London’s corporate community, from European HQs of multinationals to UK plcs and large privately-owned businesses, as well as looking after the personal interests of local business leaders and their families.
IBB’s investment in FloSuite will see a gradual move away from Lexis Nexis Axxia as the firm’s Workflow and Case Management solution. The decision to purchase FloSuite followed on from IBB’s successful deployment of a new best-of-breed document management system. The firm decided to look for a single, flexible framework solution that could address system integration, workflow, document assembly, case and general matter management requirements, and found only FloSuite could fulfil all these needs.
IBB Solicitors’ IT Manager, Ian Barrows, said: “Whilst some law firms have been reducing their investment in IT over the past couple of years, we have continued to implement solutions that will help us provide the best experience possible for our clients and that can deliver a clear return on investment.
“We investigated the solutions that were available in the marketplace and amongst the key requirements that emerged for us was to find a product that was proven in the legal market and was Web-based, but that retained close integration with Microsoft Office. We also needed the ability to push and pull data and documents from multiple sources. Flexibility and configuration tools also really stood out as being important: we wanted to enable solutions to be deployed and adapted by our own staff, but without us having to build everything from scratch, as is the case with a generic workflow engine.”
He added: “After an in-depth review, we found that only FloSuite could deliver all of these things within one product. We are now planning to deploy FloSuite to manage case inception, time recording, and multiple case and matter management solutions that will replace our existing legacy system across these areas, as well as expanding the use of this technology to all our employees.”
FloSuite’s Director of Sales, Russell Wood, said: “We are delighted to welcome IBB and other new clients to the FloSuite user community. We will be announcing over the next couple of weeks further new client wins, exciting expansion plans and major product releases.”
Here are the video highlights of this years awards.
We hope you like it……
