As US firms continue to pile into the already overcrowded London legal market, Frances Ivens finds out what launching a new office is really like

London is unquestionably one of the most congested legal markets in the world, and yet firms are still eager to get into the City. Opening in London is not only a huge strategic ask for any law firm but an operational one as well: making sure your lawyers have the premises and resources to work is a challenge in itself, particularly in an already overcrowded city.

The operational aspects are often hidden from spectators looking to track the rise and fall of firms in London but, as US firms continue to pile in to the City, here new entrants talk about the challenges they faced.

Cooley turned heads at the start of the year with its London office launch, hiring a total of 55 lawyers in the City to hit the ground running. However, the West Coast firm's move into the market was a long time in the making amid frequent press speculation about when the opening would take place. "It's fair to say we're coming in late to the market; I don't think it's fair to say we are playing catch up," Cooley's chief executive officer, Joe Conroy, tells Legal Week.

"In a quaint way our partnership is very conservative and we came to this notion that you, and probably everyone over here, will think is utterly uncontroversial, that we would need to be a global player slowly – over a period of time."

Cooley considered several options for entering the UK, including a merger, before deciding that the financial strength of the firm allowed it to open its own office. "The last-mover advantage gave us a sharper thinking around what our position would be – so you can get past the intimidation of being late," comments Conroy. "We need to create an environment where people are running in and not running out. We need people who are tethered to the mission." 

A clear mission and strategic reasoning are imperative to opening a new office, agrees the founding partner of Boies Schiller's London base, Natasha Harrison. "The key question is why a firm is looking to launch in London," she says. "Firms shouldn't be opening for the sake of planting a flag or simply because their competitors are here – there have to be proper strategic reasons and a strong business case behind opening an office in one of the world's most competitive legal markets. Having a clear and focused strategy is critical to success."

"You have to have a plan," adds Ropes & Gray veteran senior partner Maurice Allen, who is based in the firm's London office. Ropes is set to relocate its City office in the autumn, from 5 New Street Square to 1 New Ludgate, almost doubling its office space. "Everyone you hire wants to go somewhere where they can say 'you know what, they have figured stuff out, they have worked out where I fit in, they do have a plan' – it almost doesn't matter what the plan is," he says.

Taking the first steps
However, a plan will only get you so far. As many have found out, the logistical and operational aspects of opening an office can create multiple problems. "The operational side has probably been my biggest challenge, particularly as this is Boies Schiller's first international office," comments Harrison. "I put in place a lean but experienced support team, assisted by external consultants (tax, employment, IT, etc), and this enabled us to become fully operational within just a few months (although I still haven't finished buying the furniture for the reception area…)."

It is not uncommon for law firms that wish to launch new offices to appoint a partner to manage the opening, when they may have little or no experience of doing so. The question then arises of whether firms should bring in operations staff to manage the logistical aspects of a launch, leaving partners to manage the client-facing aspects of a new base.

"I am first and foremost a lawyer," says Harrison. "I cannot conceive of giving up the lawyering and only being involved in management. I believe that, by working full time as a lawyer, I properly understand the needs of our clients and this enables me to build the business successfully." 

Allen explains his firm's strategy: "One of the reasons Ropes chose us is because we had done this a couple of times." During his 30-year career, Allen has established a reputation as one of the City's most high-profile acquisition finance lawyers via stints at Clifford Chance, Weil Gotshal & Manges, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and White & Case.

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"When we first arrived at Ropes (in January 2010) we had a very rough plan and that has evolved over the last five years," Allen continues. "Now we have quite a coherent plan but it is different from the one we would have had five years ago."

The challenges are of course the same outside the capital. "What you need depends on the size of the office," says Richard Jones, director at Wragge Lawrence Graham & Co, describing the firm's move to its new Birmingham base last year. Wragges relocated all of its London practices to legacy Lawrence Graham's building at 4 More London Riverside – its new headquarters – while the firm's Birmingham office relocated from its former home at Colmore Row to a new eight-storey site at Two Snowhill.

"You do find some relatively small new office projects where an internal local team can run most of it," explains Jones. "But where you are trying to do something larger, and you want to deliver wider business objectives through the move, you need a professional group to make it happen.

"For our office move to Two Snowhill I was the project director, providing the link between a large professional team and our internal stakeholders, the management board and the wider business."

Size matters
One of the most obvious operational hurdles when establishing a new base will invariably involve real estate, particularly in London. Getting an office that is the right size and fitted out to a workable standard is a challenge for any firm.

"We ultimately chose Tower 42 on Old Broad Street because it provides us with flexibility and has support systems we can leverage off, thereby keeping our fixed overheads down," recalls Harrison.

"Because we were taking over part of Debevoise & Plimpton's former office space, we were also able to benefit from the existing legal fit out. However, we have already filled the space we originally leased, and have just agreed further adjacent space to meet the demands of our growing office."

Leases in London are getting longer and more expensive, which creates further complications for firms where the speed of their growth is likely to be unpredictable in the long term. One partner resorted to working out of their home dining room for a week, flanked by associates, to avoid having to extend the lease on the office's temporary space.

"One of the hard things for American firms when they come to London is that leases tend to be 10 or 15 years. When you start out you need to take enough space to grow but you don't know how big you are going to be," adds Allen. "At Ropes we thought it would be good to find a law firm that was already kitted out with an office where we would take a short-term let. We have extended that lease a couple of times and now that we know what size we want to be we can enter into a longer-term commitment."

The firm initially set up in Taylor Wessing's office at 5 New Street Square, which currently houses a total of 120 staff including lawyers, before taking out a 20-year lease on a larger 45,000 sq ft base at 1 New Ludgate. This building is owned by Land Securities, which also manages Ropes' current premises, and the firm was allowed to mould the new office to fit its requirements.

"The size of your office can have a real impact on your morale: you have got to use space creatively," says Allen. "You want reasons for people to move around the office and mingle so you create points for them to come together – break-out rooms and coffee machines."

Jones adds: "There are lots of issues around things like access to the building and back-office support. Partners have 24-hour access to the premises. Snowhill is mixed tenancy so we needed special landlord agreements about 24-hour security, confidentiality and access to the building."

All the small things
An office set-up can often be regarded as key to fostering the right culture within the firm; from car parking spaces to open-plan arrangements, it is important for an office to reflect the nature of the business it houses. "We always have Monday morning meetings with everyone from Danny the post guy to the partners – everybody comes and we talk about all of the news at the firm and what's going on. It makes a huge difference; we have really taken that into account for the new space," says Ropes' communications manager, Giselle Daverat.

"If you include all of the stakeholders in the decision-making processes then they feel that they have been involved in the process and they are more likely to look at the bigger picture," comments Ashurst's Glasgow managing partner, Mike Polson.
Wragges' operations director, Andrew Edington, adds: "From my experience, the biggest and most emotive issues are things like 'where's my desk' and 'what is the car parking like?'. These things are important for the people involved – planning and engagement needs to be at that level of detail.

"The first building I worked on, one of the main issues was waste paper bins and making sure people had one near their desk. It really is about getting the smaller things as well as the bigger things right."

Fitting in
Furthermore, when a new office is opened it is often paramount for the firm to consider how it will fit into its existing network; successful integration of its network can be a hallmark of a firm's offering to its clients. "We have invested time in building systems for London – wherever possible ensuring they are aligned with the US. We are fully operational, but there is still work to be done," says Harrison.
 
"Having an alignment with your head office is really important," suggests Allen. "With Ropes, the managing partner came over every week until very recently. It's a huge commitment but it meant we got things done; we understood the office and could pull things together – creating that connection. A lot of American firms make the mistake of the London office almost operating as entirely separate."

Making sure that its second international base wasn't regarded as a one-off satellite outside the US, Cooley has made assurances to its London office that it will be as well-integrated into the network as any other. "We don't want people to feel like an outpost. We want them to feel like they have their hand on the wheel to a certain extent – like they are driving their own practice and have a voice in the firm," explains Conroy. "We have done some pretty amazing things in terms of cultivating that in the office and demanding participation from London."

Making good on its word, the firm has appointed two London partners to its management committee and compensation committee, respectively, in a bid to promote inclusion across the Atlantic.

Only time will tell if Cooley's London legacy will live up to its launch, but from an operational perspective at least much of the hard graft is over. All that remains is the legal work.

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