Luck and judgement present Weil Gotshal with an unmissable opportunity in the City

Moments in the sun don't come round very often, especially in an English summer, but Weil Gotshal & Manges – partly through luck, partly through design – finds its London office currently basking in one of the few rays of light in the Square Mile.

Logically, this is where the firm should have been two years ago, when the practice had been bolstered by senior hires, a run of high-profile mandates and a private equity and structured finance practice that looked perfect for the times.

Ironically, when it should have been at the height of its powers, there was much whispering of internal discord and competing power bases. An office with this practice profile and internal tensions would not be one you would expect to ride confidently through the recession – yet that is what appears to be happening.

The luck element isn't hard to identify. The firm's much-touted restructuring practice has enjoyed an extraordinary 12 months, winning headlines roles on Lehman Brothers and GM and working on the sale of AIG. This means it has few of the cost pressures facing its US peers. And when the mothership is doing well, you get far more room to move at home.

But London is performing solidly in its own right. The end of 2008 saw the office bring in £58.3m, while profits jumped by 22% to £1.65m. And it is performing well against its UK budget this year. The firm has a UK roster that includes Mike Francies, Marco Compagnoni, Jacky Kelly and Peter King – a line-up most US rivals would kill for. Francies argues that the office reaching maturity had a stabilising effect – providing a balance missing when Weil in London was talked of as The Mike Francies Show.

And at the junior end, Weil has some of the most engaged assistants in the UK, according to Legal Week's 2009 Employment Satisfaction Report. Although much of the report centred around the post-restructuring mood at City law firms, it was Weil Gotshal that received the highest rating out of the 58 firms.

Speaking of work, there have been recent instructions from Kaupthing and Shop Direct and an appointment to handle finance work for BSkyB. The £1.2bn merger between Showtime Arabia and The Orbit Group headed up by Mark Soundy suggests the firm's recent Dubai launch is paying dividends.

The last two years have also seen the practice stretch beyond its private equity roots to put in more effort pitching to major corporates. Recent appointments to the Microsoft, Barclays and GE Europe panels show that headway is being made.

With many rivals retrenching and City rivals in defensive mode, Weil will not get a better chance to seize market share. But the extent to which that happens will be interesting. Weil is known for being a ditherer when it comes to strategic recruitment – perhaps due to a sense that the firm's UK strategy has, at least historically, been ill-defined. Francies concedes the firm would be foolish to waste this opportunity, commenting: "The next stage of growth will be the most exciting for us. We are well-positioned for the future."

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