Norton Rose's landmark merger with Texas' Fulbright & Jaworski celebrated its first anniversary earlier this month.

The tie-up was the culmination of a whirlwind few years for the firm following mergers with outfits in Australia (Deacons), Canada (Ogilvy Renault) and South Africa (Deneys Reitz), all since 2010.

This rapid expansion has certainly given Norton Rose Fulbright significant traction in some key international markets and resulted in referrals from member firms to the London base.

However, questions remain over whether such fast growth has come at the cost of a cohesive partnership culture, with some suggesting that Norton Rose will effectively become little more than a franchise. In contrast, its management is confident that its structure, size and direction will allow it to withstand any tests that might come its way.

Here longstanding chief executive Peter Martyr sets out to Legal Week some of the firm's next steps and discusses how he sees it fitting into the global legal landscape in the years to come.

Legal Week: What ambitions do you have for the firm in the near future?

Peter Martyr: "I'm a bit impatient and always want to go a bit faster than we go. I think any external observer would be impressed with what we've done but we could go quicker, and be more dynamic, but that's probably just me being over-ambitious.

"We have created huge opportunities for ourselves. We now have the chance to leverage client relationships in a huge way, and are getting opportunities to act for major global corporations that we would not have had before, such as the Royal Bank of Canada and GlaxoSmithKline, which we represent not just domestically but now all around the world."

LW: What type of firm does Norton Rose want to be? Does it aim to compete with the transatlantic elite?

PM: "That's a hard question to answer as the group we are seeing today may not be the same in the future. We've set out our stall, we've narrowed our focus on our key industries and our aim is to be doing the highest quality work in them. If that's an elite firm then we aspire to be an elite firm. That's how we define it.

"At the moment we are at the stage where we have created the platform and are building the systems, garnering clients and expanding our relationships. All of that makes our business footprint steadier, which gives us more ability to invest. It allows us to be more flexible so that we can build our own future, by reference to what we have achieved to date. Integration will be a five-year process – as our momentum grows in pace, more things kick into shape. There are myriad things we have to work on daily to get there."

LW: Can you tell us about any new client wins or panel appointments?

PM: "We won a place on the Medtronic panel and as counsel for McLaren. There are other major oil companies currently reviewing their panels, and we also hope to be on those. Our new client wins fall across all of our industry sectors. Our energy business is particularly powerful, and we have increased the number of financial institutions and pharmaceutical companies in our client base significantly. We currently have a large transport and resources pitch out to a large global company in the US, which we are optimistic about.

"One of the things that has been quite remarkable about doing these merger deals is the way in which clients have come to us rather than us having to go to them. They are looking for global providers, and have said to us: 'You look like you have the right set of skills; we haven't used you before, would you like to come and pitch to us?' We've been invited to some good pitches this year, all to Fortune 500 companies."

LW: How and where does the firm plan to expand next?

PM: "It's well documented that we are talking about opening in South Korea, Mexico and Turkey in due course. There are a few infills that we will do, but we have got so many opportunities within the current business that we could happily spend the next five years just ploughing that particular furrow.

"In New York we have a large handful of laterals who we're currently talking to. You can never just rely on doing merger deals or picking up a boutique for expansion. We have to have plans anyway to build the business out in its current form, which is what we started last year and are continuing to do. We are building our finance, insurance regulation and finance regulation practices there, and developing the office's links with Canada so that we can become a major US-Canadian avenue for work.

"I expect we will continue to make lateral hires in these spaces at the same pace during the next 12 months. I think the New York office will be quite a bit bigger and its standing will improve significantly between a year and 18 months from now."

LW: Would the firm look at opening a low-cost support centre, as some rivals have?

PM: "It is something we constantly review. We have the advantage of having quite low-cost locations, so we have the ability to operate more cost-effectively and efficiently as it is. But moving lower-quality skills to a lower-cost base may not necessarily be the answer.

"Our approach is to take a much more holistic view on this. We're not in a hurry to [outsource or near-shore] work and we want to get it right – it's possible to get it wrong over quite a short period of time and then you have to pay to unscramble it.

"Everyone seems to be thinking about offshoring work but that may be today's answer to yesterday's problem. I think we are looking at a more complex future in which there will be a range of measures we take to improve efficiency and value.

"Part of it will be cost control but I think wage arbitrage is a rather simplistic answer to what is a complicated question. There may be elements of that worth pursuing but these things tend to become fashionable and then suddenly unfashionable because technology moves on in an unexpected way. Already many firms are now discussing reshoring instead, for example.

"There are inefficiencies in the ways in which law is being delivered. There are elements of what lawyers do that don't really justify the value of the fee that is currently earned from it. It's our duty to look at all of those aspects of a matter and try to do them more efficiently."

LW: How do you see the future of the global legal market shaping up in general?

PM: "The world of law is changing dramatically. In the last two years we've seen more change than ever in the way it looks. What I believe will emerge in the short to mid-term is a group of 10 to 15 truly global firms seeking to cover the main markets of the world as well as develop deep relationships with clients and to do high-quality work.

At the same time there will be the Wall Street outfits that are particularly capital markets-driven. The two will develop alongside each other for a while, but we have taken the view that global is the right place to be.

We decided this early on because we're not a Wall Street firm and we don't have the option of pursuing that route.

"We are comfortable with how we're doing it. Because we were one of the early ones out of the traps and because we have done good deals, we will be in a strong position to cope with the changes that are going to occur in the legal profession.

"Not everyone is necessarily so sure about how they are approaching globalisation. There will be many changes that will take effect over the next five to 10 years, not least of which is competition from the accountants. I think you will see a number of mixed strategies occurring over the next few years. The important thing is to be clear about the one you're following.

"The future could be very different. The use of automation, artificial intelligence, where we have our offices, who does the work – all these sorts of [factors] are capable of changing lawyering significantly. Those that are the biggest and most capable of change, which I believe we have shown we can do, will likely be winners. That's the ambition."

All change – key recent developments at Norton Rose Fulbright

October 2014: introducing six-month trainee secondments between London and Johannesburg
April 2014: announced 46 partner promotions in first round since Fulbright merger
April 2014: closed Prague office
February 2014: launched global regulatory and investigations practice
February 2014: opened in Rio with the hire of BP's former assistant general counsel Andrew Haynes

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• Norton Rose Fulbright's Peter Martyr expected to make bid for fifth term as CEO