international law firms

“Berlin is closer to Beijing than Brisbane is”

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“Berlin is closer to Beijing than Brisbane is. And it will always be so.”

– Andrea Myles, CEO China Australia Millennial Project (CHAMP)

I recently had the great fortune and pleasure to attend the opening ceremony of the inaugural CHAMP. Unlike many other events I attend, this one was driven by a group of young adults looking for ways to improve cooperation between China and Australia, principally from what I can tell in the areas of research and development (R&D).

Leaving aside the fascinating work being done under the CHAMP banner, two comments that Andrea Myles, CEO of CHAMP, said in her opening remarks really resonated with me.

The first was the opening quote to this post: “Berlin is closer to Beijing then Brisbane is.”

The second was this:

“China is Australia’s largest trading partner, but also the largest trading partner of 124 other nations.”

Yep, 124 other nations can claim that China is their largest trading partner.

So if Australia isn’t geographically closer to “Asia” than Europe is (and flying time from the UK to Thailand is roughly the same as Sydney to Bangkok), and if economically (from both a trade and investment perspective) Australia isn’t streets ahead of the rest of the world in the eyes of those conducting business in Asia, why in the world would so many law firms be “Driven here by the lure of Asia” – as the Australian reported last Friday (3 July) [“International legal firms see Australia as a hub for Asia” NB: subscription may be required to read this]?

Personally I’m not 100 per cent sure I understand the need for global firms to be in Australia if the only reason they are doing this is to create a hub for entry into the Asian market more broadly. I rather suspect better cases to that type of strategy could be made for Singapore (which historically it has been) and even Hong Kong.

Nonetheless, Patrick Sherrington, Hogan Lovells’ regional managing partner for Asia and the Middle East and author of the said article in last Friday’s Australian sets out his case for why he thinks this might be so.

These include:

“The Australian legal services market is characterised by its ­concentration, innovation and sophistication. Although globally the sector is generally characterised by low concentration, the market shares of the major players in ­Australia have been and remain particularly high, especially compared with the US, where no law firm accounts for more than 1 per cent of the industry.

This concentration yielded high levels of competition between those leading firms, which spurred innovation and sophistication throughout the market.”

Sorry, but having worked in the English, Asian and Australian legal markets during the course of my working life I can categorically say that the Australian legal market is no more innovative nor sophisticated than any other. While this might have been the case in the 1990s, I would venture that the US market is probably more innovative than the Australian market is at the moment and the stuff that the likes of A&O, Lawyers on Demand, Eversheds, and Riverview Law – to name but a few – are doing in the UK is streets ahead of where the Australian market currently is.

Sherrington then goes on to write:

“More critically, it [the GFC – my comment] affected the faith many leading national firms had in their business models. The hitherto boundless belief in the limitless growth of legal services in a country accounting for nearly 40 per cent of the Asia-Pacific legal services market was lost to the ­existential and strategic dilemma of how and where Australian law firms should operate in an increasingly global market.

Suddenly, market entry became a practical proposition for the major international firms. Since then we have seen the large national firms scramble for Asian and global exposure through ­alliances and combinations of varying intimacy.”

I’m of the view that flat, depressed markets in the UK and Europe more widely made the bigger English firms look up and think of other markets where they could still get growth. The mining boom that was going on in Australia at the time, plus historic highs of almost parity in exchange rates between the Australian and US dollars, meant that the Australian market looked very attractive at the time.

Ironically, a shift in the sands have now made these much less favourable reasons to be in Australia (the Australian dollar has fallen off to somewhere in the region of 75 cents now) and one has to wonder if the internationals would still be clambering to get here if the current market existed then.

Sherrington also notes that:

“We [Hogan Lovells] concluded that not having a focused high-end legal practice in Australia would be strategically detrimental to the ambitions of our long established practice in Asia and would have an impact on our ability to service global clients.

Australia is uniquely positioned to assist international law firms achieve growth in Asia. With the third largest pool of investment funds under management in the world, the largest stockmarket in Asia (ex-Japan) and the fourth largest economy in Asia, as well as being the single largest beneficiary of Chinese foreign direct investment since 2005, Australia is an ­integral part of the Asia region and also a global player.”

I think there is a lot to be said for the second part of this quote. Much less so for the first part. Having an Australian practice is one thing; having an Australian presence as a hub to Asia is a completely different issue.

If you have an Australian practice for all the reasons Sherrington sets out in the second part of the quote above, and you have a core client-base operating in Australia, then I commend you and wish you well.

But if what you are saying is this [Australia] is your hub for Asia, then I ask: “where does your senior Asian management sit?” Because one firm aside, nearly all of the senior “Asian” management teams I’ve seen sit offshore (ie, outside Australia).

A final comment of Sherrington’s is that:

“While the manner and mode of market entry will continue to ­differ between international law firms, it is a trend that will not be reversed.

The regional and global economic case for an Australian presence is too strong. It remains to be seen whether the flood of international entrants will reduce the concentration of the Australian legal service market.”

Sherrington and I will have to disagree on this one. I think it is a trend that could very easily be reversed – and to some extent already is.

And we should always remember that law is a very fickly business – who knows what might happen if you had a downturn in the Chinese economy and a European nation that was refusing to pay its debts.

Oh wait…

A tale of two Asias

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Two separate comprehensive reports on the state of the legal market in Asia have recently been published. While both look to have been very thoroughly researched, that, and the shared (as in, this) week in which they were published, is, however, about all the two appear to have in common.

As to the two publications in question: one was published by the UK’s The Lawyer and the other by The Asian Lawyer – part of The American Lawyer stable. As such, the two publication represent a fairly comprehensive review of how international firms are fairing in the ever competitive Asian market.

The Lawyer

Turning first to the The Lawyer publication, the executive summary of which you can read here and the full report of which you can purchase here.

On reading this publication, “teething troubles aside“, you are left in little doubt that international law firms have positioned themselves well for the uptake in demand in the increasingly important Asia-Pacific legal market. Importantly, those who made the decision to invest in Asia a decade or more ago would appear to be seeing that investment finally paying dividends, with international firms in the region recording 5.7 per cent growth [in headcount] between 2013 and 2014.

In addition:

  • international law firms now make up 16 per cent of the Asia Top 50 (which is the same make up as two years ago).
  • five (six if you include KWM) of the Top 10 Asia firms hail from China – but number two in the list, Dacheng, has approved a merger with Dentons and so arguably is now an “international firm”.
  • no doubt because of the abundance of Swiss Verein these days, Australian law firm Minter Ellison sneaks into Top 10 Asia firms despite not being financially integrated but rather because the firm is integrated under “one brand”.
  • continued prosperity for internationals in the region is seen on the back of robust M&A activity and 5+ per cent growth predications by the IMF .

Overall though, content and opinion in this report can largely be summed by the comment that Freshfields Asia managing partner, Robert Ashworth, “is generally bullish about the region“.

The Asian Lawyer

Turning our attention now to The Asian Lawyer publication (and please do because the graph in this article is fantastic!) and we find we get a very different picture being painted of how the market is shaping up for US firms operating in Asia.

The context of this post, based on results of The NLJ 350 Annual Survey of the [US] Nation’s Largest Law Firms, can be summed up from its title: “Signs of Slower Growth for U.S. Firms in Asia“.

Although the post starts out saying: “Asia has been a powerful magnet for international firms over the past decade” – with the number of Am Law 200 attorneys having nearly tripled in that time, the latest year-on-year stats show a near flat-lining in these numbers.

It is also no secret that a number of US firms have been looking closely at their Asia strategy – the latest of which is Latham & Watkins, but even the US arm of DLA Piper has taken a financial interest in the Asia business in the hope of moving things along following some turmoil in the region.

It should not, therefore, be a surprise that this post finishes on the note: “Are more dramatic cuts to Am Law 200 lawyer counts in Asia coming? Stay tuned“.

So who is right?

I think you’ll agree that the two publications are very contrasting and paint different pictures of international law firms operating in the Asia legal market.

In a world of two Asias, a question arises: “Whose version is right?“.

My answer to that question is – probably both.

There is certainly some – finally some cry out! – positive signs for international firms operating on the ground in Asia (as opposed to those who may still operate a fly-in/fly-out operation). The market looks like it might start to deliver on some of the rich rewards it has promised for a long time. But to do this firms have to come to the realisation that they need to get over two crucial hurdles:

  1. they must have a strategy for the whole of Asia and not just China, and
  2. while staffing maybe cheaper in Asia, headcount doesn’t tell the story of financial size or profitability.

What law firms can learn from Taylor Swift

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Unless you have been hiding under a rock, or living in a world of news blackout, you’ll of heard about Taylor Swift’s 21st June open letter (via Tumblr) to Apple (‘To Apple, Love Taylor‘).

As you will also undoubtedly known by now, the Tumblr post is Taylor’s way of explaining why she will be holding back her album – 1989 – from the new streaming service Apple Music (an album I understand she also doesn’t permit to be on another music streaming service, Spotify). And while I don’t particularly like Taylor Swift’s music (nor do I really participate in music streaming services), I have to applaud the reasons she outlines for her decision.

In particular, I like – and 100 per cent agree with – Taylor’s remark that:

“Three months is a long time to go unpaid, and it is unfair to ask anyone to work for nothing.”

Taylor’s right on the money there – so to speak, three months is a very long time to go unpaid.

But wait: what’s your law firm’s average lock-up days?

If you firm’s average lock-up days are anywhere near the industry average, then your firm’s lock-up is going to be somewhere between 100 and 120 days. Which means your firm typically gets paid 100 to 120 days after you have done the work for the client.

Aside from being a period of close to four (4) months to go unpaid for your work, you are also providing your client with an interest free working capital loan during this time – a period you will likely be paying interest to your bank on the working capital (overdraft) facility it has extended to you (otherwise known as a double-whammy)!

Simply put, that should be unacceptable and it is time law firms took a take a leaf out of Taylor’s book and started to tell clients (and some law firm partners I might add!) that four months is a long time to go unpaid!

Not possible? Will likely kill the client relationship?

Well, interestingly, in this case the giant corporate might of Apple has listened to Taylor’s complaint and has decided to back down. And I suspect your clients would be more than willing to listen to alternatives you could offer too – but you won’t know unless you have the conversation.

Only 33.3% of corporate counsel recommend their primary law firm to a peer

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Anyone who has been in law firm marketing and business development for more than five minutes will tell you that word of mouth referrals are worth their weight in gold. After all, who needs to do marketing if you have enough advocates championing your business with their networks? And aren’t these potential clients going to listen to their trusted contacts way more than they do you?

Of course they are. Which is why cultivating a referrer network has always ranked high among the “to do” list of business development managers.

That’s why for many of these business development and marketing managers it may come as something of an unwanted shock to learn that according to the latest post by BTI Consulting Group’s The Mad Clientist:

Only 33.3% of corporate counsel recommend their primary law firm to a peer

Which marks the second biggest drop in 15 years and which The Mad Clientist puts down to a change in ‘The Client Expectation Gap‘; namely no matter how great or bad, whatever work you just did for your client will be the yardstick your client treats as your new minimum performance standard.

A little unfair maybe: but if only roughly one in every three of your clients is willing to go into bat for you and recommend you to others in their network with like-minded legal issues, then your law firm has an issue and there’s no time to waste getting to work on the firm’s word of mouth referral program and make sure you ask as many advocates of the firm as you can find to champion you within their networks.

How well are we doing at exporting #Auslaw?

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Finally, some years after the Australian Government first announced and then consigned to the dustbin  its ‘Australia in the Asian Century‘ whitepaper, a fair amount is being written around the issue of exporting Australian professional – read, ‘legal‘ – services, including:

While it is undoubtable that the export of Australian legal and professional services is a trending issue on an upward trajectory, it is still probably a little early to say (as the College of Law post does) that “Australia is now trending on a global scale” (vis-à-vis the export of our professional services) – although, to be fair, the export of Australian lawyers (to which the College of Law would have a particular interest), particularly to the UK and New York, has been ongoing since the early 1980s and continues to this day.

Moreover, given that the Australian International Disputes Centre (AIDC) was established way back in 2010 (with the assistance of the Australian Government and the Government of the State of New South Wales) and still lags behind both the Singapore International Arbitration Centre and the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre, the export of #Auslaw has undoubtedly been a slow burn.

So while I for one applaud the latest chatter around an impetus to export #Auslaw, I hope that this time we are serious and take the time to have a robust conversation about whether or not we wish to seriously promote (and lobby) the export of #Auslaw overseas. And, assuming we decide we do wish to progress with the export of #Auslaw overseas, we put in place concrete national plans to move this initiative forward rather than taking the lacklustre state-based approach we have to date.

A quick test to help determine if you’re providing value to your client

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In today’s legal world you often here people talking about “doing more for less” and/or that they are providing “value” to their clients, without much of an explanation as to what constitutes “value” – with the best shot usually being:

“value, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder“.

Indeed many thousands, if not millions, of words have been written about making sure you “add value” – not to be confused with “added value”, which is a whole different subject – but very few of those written words have made any real attempt [from what I can see] to try and nail down a definition of “value” from a client’s point of view.

And while there is little doubt that every single person’s definition of value will be different – and in many cases, each individual person’s definition of value will alter depending on the circumstances they face at the time they are asked to define “value” to them – the following two-part questionnaire suggested by Nathaniel Slavin (of Wicker Park Group) in his recent post on the Bloomberg Big Law Business website, ‘The Perception of Value Differs Among Clients‘, probably goes closer than anything I’ve seen so far to answering this conundrum:

  1. Does my lawyer understand how I define success and all the myriad components that impact that success?; and
  2. Do they accomplish that goal in a manner, financially and otherwise, that helps us further our business goals?

And if, as a private practising lawyer, you can answer “yes” to both those questions – while you cannot be certain you are delivering “value” – you can be pretty sure you are delivering overall client satisfaction levels that are going to get you as close as you can possibly get to a modern day definition of “delivering value to your client“.

 

How about applying the “Moscow” process to your next costing letter

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Over the weekend I read a post over on the www.pmhut.com website by Chuck Snead – An Agile Primer: Agile Estimating and the “MoSCoW Process” – which contained an interesting process that I would like to share with you today.

Although the www.pmhut.com website (the “pm” here standing for “Project Management”) doesn’t do posts that relate directly to either law firm business development or marketing, I enjoy reading their posts as I find many of the concepts they cover can easily be applied to the industry. As was the case this weekend, with a guest post by Snead which threw up a very interesting acronym and concept that I had not previously heard of – the “MoSCoW Process”  – and which I now believe should be tailored to form part of any law firm costing/engagement/fee proposal letter process with your client.

So here goes.

Snead stipulates that:

MoSCoW is an acronym for prioritizing feature development along the following guidelines:

  • MUST have features that are required for the project to be called a success.
  • SHOULD have features that have a high priority, but are not required for success.
  • COULD have features which would be nice to have, but are not high priority.
  • WON’T have features that stakeholders agree should be in a future release.

Now let’s apply this to the law firm costing/engagement/fee proposal letter process you go through with your client and agree that your next costing/engagement/fee proposal will include the following:

  • a section in the letter setting out all of the actions/tasks that MUST be done in order for the client’s objective to be met [Category 1 critical]. Here, assign who will be given the task and either the fixed or estimated cost to achieve these tasks; next
  • a section in the letter setting out the actions/tasks that would it would be ‘nice’ (SHOULD) if they were done, but they are not critical to the achievement of the client’s objective(s)[Category 2 critical]. Again, assign who would be given the task if there is sufficient time/budget/desire, etc and either the fixed or estimated cost to achieve these tasks; next
  • a section in the letter setting out the actions/tasks that are [remote] ‘possibles’ (COULD) that may arise out of the client undertaking the action they are planning to take. It should be noted that this should be remote variables/possibilities [Category 3 – variables]. Again, assign who would be given the task if one of these remote variables were to arise and wherever possible attach a fixed fee or estimate against the task; finally
  • set out clearly in the letter those actions the law firm WON’T be taking (is not instructed to take). Now it could be the case that these actions are still needed in order for the client’s objectives to be met, but they will be undertaken elsewhere (eg, in-house or through an LPO) [Category 4 – won’t dos]. Note, this is not a ‘disclaimer’ or limitation on liability section per se, but assigning tasks so that each party knows exactly what is and what is not required of them.

Anyone else out there think we may just have a few less angry client complaints if we went through a process like this each time we took on a new matter?

This process might not be perfect, and it could well need a tweak here and there, but I do think it will go a long way to helping lawyers fully understand the scope and nature of the instruction(s) they receive from their client(s) and lead to less misunderstanding in the industry.

And if that’s the case, the result is a win-win all round.

‘Stupid is as stupid does’

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In the 1994 movie of the same name, Forrest Gump is asked:

“are you stupid or something?”

to which Forest replies:

“stupid is as stupid does”.

Some 20 years later (yes, it really has been that long!), in general parlance this phrase has come to mean that:

‘an intelligent person who does stupid things is still stupid’ – (Urban dictionary)

and I have to say that this thought went through my mind earlier this week when I read that a third of [UK] commercial firms are likely to raise their rates in a bid to boost their profits (Solicitors Journal 6 May 2015 – “Number of law firms planning to raise charge out rates increases“).

Leaving aside the issue of whether a direct raise in your rates will equate to increased profits (for example, the psychological impact of rising rates/budgets on fee earners with no increased salary (cost)) –  what in the world would make 26 (1/3rd) of so-called intelligent finance directors of the UK’s Top 100 law firms say “it is likely their firms will increase their charge out rates in order to improve profitability in the year ahead“?

As I have blogged countless times before (the most popular being: ‘Is it time for law firms to break with the RULES when looking at profitability?‘), hourly rates are but one of the metrics in calculating profitability. And it’s probably not even the biggest metric driving your firm’s partner profit levels, which almost certainly would be better achieved via an increase in your realised rate.

Putting this mathematically (admittedly not my strongest area), say my hourly rate is $100 and my realization rate is 90%, then I’m being paid $90-. Taking this forward I’ve decided to increase my hourly charge-out rate to $110-, but find that my realization rate has now fallen to 80%. If my maths is correct, I’m now being paid $88-.

In other words, in real terms, I’m losing money!

Don’t think this could happen? Then take a look at Charts 4 & 5 from the ‘2015 Report on the State of the Legal Market‘ published by The Center for the Study of the Legal Profession at the Georgetown University Law Center and Thomson Reuters Peer Monitor (at page 5)

chart 4

 

chart 5

Those charts don’t make for pretty reading.

So when, as the article reports:

“…firms realise this is not going to be an easy sell to clients who are likely to negotiate hard to keep fees down, so their approach to increasing charge out rates is likely to be softly softly, rather than gung-ho”

my response would be: “why bother?”.

Instead,

  • try keeping your charge-out rate the same over the next 12 months;
  • try not to give discounts;
  • try to increase your realisation rate (by 3 to 5 cents in the dollar);
  • try to reduce your lock-up days;

and see where you end up.

You may just find that has a better impact on your partner profitability numbers than the likely impact that is going to come your way when you go annoying and off-siding your clients with the almost obligatory 1 July 10% rate increase letter.

But I could be wrong…

Your law firm’s brand recognition: How much does it really matter?

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Earlier today Dr George Beaton (@grbeaton_law), Partner in Beaton Capital and an associate professor at the University of Melbourne, posted the following question to Twitter:

“Which firm is the ‘world’s strongest’? Skadden or Baker & McKenzie or Jones Day. Confusing”

George I

With a twitter pic link to an article on the Global Legal Post website that contains links to the following “Related stories”:

George II

Leaving aside the issue of financial strength, as George’s tweet clearly infers brand strength, the question I always ask when I see news items and survey responses of this nature is this:

Does it really matter?

And the answer to that really depends on what my firm’s overall strategy is.

Taking a step back, whenever I’m asked in my role as a business development consultant by law firm partners of the importance of such survey findings I will often respond by asking them the following question in return:

Imagine we are on a long distance flight on an important business route – say Sydney to London or Tokyo to New York. Now, say I give out a questionnaire to all 300 plus passengers on that plane asking them the simple question of whether or not they have heard of your firm. Would you prefer:

A. a greater percentage of passengers in first class to have heard of you?

B. a greater percentage of passengers in business class to have heard of you? 0r

C. a greater percentage of passengers in economy class to have heard of you?

Now if your firm’s business plan is to be doing “premium work for premium clients”, then my guess is you’d want a greater percentage of first class passengers to have heard of you. Similarly, if your business plan is to be working with the top ASX 200 companies, then I would hazard a guess you would want to be known by both first class and business class passengers, with the edge being on the greater brand recognition among the business class passengers. Finally, if your firm’s business plan is to be a leading B2C law firm, that I’m guessing you wouldn’t mind if your brand is widely recognised by the economy class passengers.

A very simplistic way of looking at this issue? Very much so.

But, at the end of the day, despite headlines that read ‘Top legal brands grow 45pc faster than others over last four years‘, I’m very much of the view that surveys of this nature fail to ask a more critical question, namely:

Do you regularly, or have you ever, instructed one or more of these firms you have heard of in the last three years?

Because, does it really matter if you have heard of me but never given me any work (ie, fed me)?

And all of this is before we get into the even more interesting discussion of whether or not you instruct individual lawyers (lawyer name [brand] recognition) – either at my firm or elsewhere – regardless of which firm they work for (lateral hire movements)?

After all, we have a long flight ahead of us…