London office set to be New York firm's first base outside US 

Specialist litigation firm Boies Schiller & Flexner is set to open an office in London this summer, in a move that will gift the elite US firm its first base outside of its home country. 

Boies already has lawyers working on projects in the City and has been planning a London launch for several months, approaching multiple UK-qualified litigators. 

The launch is now slated for July or August. The firm declined to comment on how many partners it intends to staff the office with or on relocations from the US. 

According to The American Lawyer rankings, Boies Schiller is among the most profitable firms in the US, with average profits per partner standing at $2.7m (£1.8m) in 2012. 

The New York firm counts some 44 equity partners out of more than 100 partners across nine offices in the US. It is understood that the City launch is partly linked with a large caseload for key client Barclays, which instructed the firm to defend it against Libor-related class actions in the US, including more than 12 suits consolidated into a multi-district litigation in New York.

Barclays has increasingly turned to Boies Schiller since the firm successfully defended the bank in a $13bn (£8.6bn) case brought by Lehman Brothers over the purchase of the bankrupt entity's North American broker dealer unit.

"Boies Schiller has been actively considering the London market for some time, and the firm hopes to establish a presence in London in the near future," said New York-based partner Duane Loft. "We are currently working in London on behalf of our clients."

Since forming in 1997, Boies Schiller has taken on some of the most high-profile cases in the US, with chairman David Boies representing Al Gore in the dispute surrounding the 2000 Presidential election, while other high-profile clients include Terra Firma chief Guy Hands.