In a year in which the majority of Switzerland's law firms bunkered down to weather the economic downturn, Froriep Renggli seemed determined to buck the trend. In December last year, the firm opened an office in Madrid – the first Swiss firm to do so. The firm is in the habit of setting precedents, the opening of its London office being another Swiss first back in the late 1980s.

Jean-Marie Vulliemin, the Geneva-based Froriep partner behind the move into Spain, is passionate about the philosophy behind the Madrid office. The focus of 2002 was to develop the firm's Latin America practice group, which is made up of lawyers from both Zurich and Geneva, and is the first such regionally-focused group to be created in a Swiss firm. Having an office in Madrid will serve as a platform for developing business in Latin America – private client work in particular is a lucrative practice area – while Spain itself is recognised as one of the European Union's (EU's) fastest-growing economies.

The Madrid move is obviously not the beginning of Froriep's links with Spain. Vulliemin, who is half Spanish, has been active in Spain and Latin America for 20 years and has developed a wide network of contacts in Madrid. The reason for deciding to have a physical presence in the country is partly cultural, he explains.

"We lawyers have to go to the clients: we have to physically be in their country and in their culture," he says. "It is not only about trying to speak their language, but spending time with them, being able to speak with them about topics unique to their own way of doing business."

Indeed, the firm has an astonishing range of nationalities represented in its five offices – languages spoken by the firm's lawyers include Portuguese, Danish, Turkish and Arabic, in addition to the four Swiss languages. As the firm says in its brochures: "We believe that speaking their [the clients'] language, knowing their national, legal, political, social and commercial environments, is of a fundamental relevance for the clients to feel properly counselled. Therefore, we have always preferred to recruit and train lawyers coming from all cultural areas."

The example of Switzerland's banks is another inspiration for the firm. With these key clients evidently feeling the necessity of being close to their own client base, and of being innovative in keeping and winning new business, Froriep's partners decided to do the same.

Vulliemin is also passionate about the opportunities the opening of another overseas office will bring to the firm's young lawyers. He hopes to see junior lawyers given a chance to "share the dynamism of the Spanish business community", adding that he thinks a lot of Switzerland's lawyers are sitting too comfortably in the country at the moment.

"They are absolutely sure that nothing is going to happen to them," he says, suggesting that the perspective of some lawyers has shrunk so far as to make them rather insular. "Offering young people the chance to spend time in Madrid will give them the opportunity to experience risk, which is something that is not in Switzerland at the moment."

Cracking the Latin American market has traditionally been seen as the arena of US firms.

But Vulliemin returns to the question of culture when assessing the impact US firms have had on this market. "We saw a lot of firms going into Miami to open up the Latin America market. They say they are speaking Spanish, but they clearly still have a US mentality – it is not enough just to try to speak the language."

Vulliemin initially spelled out his plans to the firm's partners when he joined Froriep just over two years ago. As the partner that will divide his time between Geneva and Madrid, he says 80% of his work is now Spain and Latin America-related.

The Madrid office will not however be a fully-fledged operation. While Froriep's lawyers will be on hand to offer advice on Swiss law, the actual work will be done back in Switzerland, for reasons of client confidentiality, according to Vulliemin. The firm's partners are vocal in stressing that they are not trying to compete with any of the local Spanish firms.

"We are Swiss and we do not pretend that we are anything else," Vulliemin says. "We do not want to be competitors in the Spanish market – it is too expensive and too risky to try to compete with them."

Froriep's partners believe Switzerland still has a lot to offer, but that many clients do not know enough about its products. Switzerland certainly seems to have long been quiet in terms of marketing itself as a country with a favourable legal and commercial climate. What is more, the Spanish economy is growing, while the Swiss economy is stable but with few major growth opportunities.

"For Spanish clients, Switzerland has some legal products which are not known about enough – tax and private client issues, for example," Vulliemin says. He has also been involved in arbitration proceedings with some of Latin America's biggest football clubs – Switzerland is home to the international court of arbitration for sport and big money issues such as TV rights for the world's biggest clubs are often resolved under Swiss law.

Switzerland will always be home to a club of high net-worth individuals – Geneva in particular houses a huge number of such people, generating a lot of private client work for the city's lawyers.

As is usually the case for a new firm in town, Froriep is very much promoting itself as an independent entity. "We absolutely refuse to have any kind of institutional link with foreign firms – it is about individuals," Vulliemin says emphatically.

His way of working, he admits, is both risky and original. Through working with individuals from Spain's major firms, he says their services are backed by him on his client's behalf. "The liability is mine. If a relationship does not work, then they go on the blacklist," he says.

The firm is close to Spanish giant Garrigues, which itself has a large Latin America network.

Vulliemin, however, has his own contacts in the major Latin American jurisdictions: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru and Uruguay.

The firm's profile in Madrid will be kept small and discreet, Vulliemin says, and he wants the office to be professional, personal and small. "Not showing off," he adds, despite the office's desirable location in the heart of the city. Current plans are to have two-to-three lawyers based in Madrid, with Vulliemin dividing his time between Spain and Switzerland.

Having pioneered a London office, the obvious question is whether the architects of the Madrid plan think more Swiss firms will follow. "I hope for Switzerland that there will be more than just us there, but from a market point of view, of course I hope it will be just us," Vulliemin says.

Peter Merz, the firm's Zurich-based managing partner, says many of Froriep's competitors may be wondering why the firm has taken the step of setting up a Madrid office. He draws parallels with the opening of their first overseas office to explain.

"We were the first Swiss firm to open in London and, at the time, many Swiss firms were wondering what we were doing there," he says.

"When Bar and Karrer opened a London office as well, the questions stopped – it was seen as a form of approval that having an office in London made sense."

Merz says the Madrid move has inevitably generated a lot of questions about what the firm is doing there. He echoes Vulliemin's argument that Swiss firms have to go out to the clients and show what Switzerland can offer. Against a background of pressure on various fronts – pressure from the EU to open up its banking system to greater scrutiny, increasing harmonisation of the country's laws with the EU's – Froriep's move is likely to keep Switzerland on the map in terms of legal business.

Merz says the firm's plans for the coming year are to expand in certain areas, notably tax. With the opening of the Madrid office in December last year, the firm is now close to 50 lawyers, making it one of Switzerland's largest. Merz admits it is difficult to find and recruit the right tax lawyer, but says the firm needs a tax team of between three to five to "identify the new issues".

Like most firms of a similar size and ambition, Merz says the firm's partners always keep an eye on the accountancy firms' tax experts for potential recruits. Merz says he is also talking with competition lawyers at the moment in the hope of expanding the firm's competition team – new laws introduced into Switzerland this year will generate more merger activity in 2004 and a corresponding need for competition advice.

So, in a quiet year for Switzerland's firms, Froriep has been making the headlines. But how and where does it see itself in the market? According to partner Alessandro Celli, the firm is happy with its top 10 status, and does not necessarily want to be seen as "knocking on the door" of the big five. Celli says the firm does not want to find itself in a position where its clients do not feel able to instruct them on smaller, lower volume pieces of work as well as the top-level, high fee work. "You can have fun and earn money in the top 10," Celli says, indicating that the firm does not plan to expand to the size needed to take on Switzerland's top five in the size league table.

As to whether other Swiss firms will follow Froriep into the Iberian and Latin American market, no firm has yet indicated it has concrete plans to set up an office in Madrid. Vulliemin has undoubtedly been the driving force behind the move into Spain, with the firm's partners showing their trust in his depth of experience in the Iberian and Latin American markets by solidly backing his plans.

The firm's multicultural philosophy also lends itself well to expanding beyond Switzerland's borders – perhaps a feature that is not so pronounced among rival firms. Schellenberg Wittmer's Martin Lanz, for example, says his firm is conscious about looking beyond the country's borders for new clients, but that the firm's Spanish associate in Zurich can serve the Spanish market without physically having a presence in the country. "Spain is a more important market from Geneva than Zurich," he adds, referring to private client work.

While many of their colleagues do not doubt the business sense and reasoning behind moving into Spain, none seem to want to follow straight away. Perhaps it will take Bar & Karrer opening in Madrid to convince the others to migrate south.