When three law firms combined to form Dentons in 2013, our goal was to create the world's first truly polycentric global law firm. Polycentric is a collective term we use for attributes such as having no dominant national culture or single global headquarters and embracing the diversity of our lawyers and professionals and the cultures in which we operate. Here are a few lessons we've learned along the way.

Law firms are like smartphones – it's better to create something new than to keep adding to an old model. Remember your first smartphone? It didn't look like your old mobile phone. It operated differently – and it did a lot more. When Dentons was created, the founding firms combined their strengths and best practices to create something unique. In future combinations, including our upcoming deal with Asia's largest law firm, Dacheng, we will reinvent ourselves again. This helps preserve our polycentric nature while guaranteeing that each successive combination partner is fully integrated with the firm.

Airlines should create a Rhodium miles card. The world is more connected than ever before – but it is no smaller. Maintaining a personal connection with key clients, potential combination partners and colleagues in more than 50 countries and 75 locations is vital. Since Dentons was founded, our global chief executive, Elliott Portnoy, and I have travelled more than a million air miles each – well beyond the platinum level of any frequent-flyer programme. An upgrade seems warranted. Rhodium may be five times scarcer than platinum but it is still more abundant than comfortable airline seats.

Clients prefer firms that move first. Companies entering unfamiliar markets face uncertainty about regulations, cultural norms and securing local counsel. Having a law firm they trust already on the ground reduces those risks. Clients appreciate the first-mover advantage Dentons and its founding firms provide. Dentons was the first firm to combine a Canadian outfit with a firm that has a significant US presence; one of the first western firms to provide legal services in Russia via legacy firm Salans in 1970; the first transatlantic combination of a European and US firm in 1998 when Salans merged with New York firm Christy & Viener; and, later this year, we will become the first global firm to combine with a large Chinese firm. We take risks so our clients don't have to.
 
Many global metrics are neither global nor metrics. To meet client demands we are in locations as varied as Calgary, Almaty, New York, London, Warsaw and Morocco. Yet some legal media insist on measuring the quality and success of leading firms with metrics such as global average profits per partner/lawyer. Because these rankings fail to account for the vastly varying economics of different legal markets or a firm's proportion of headcount in those regions, such indices are neither global in perspective nor meaningful as a metric.

The nature of our profession and our firms is evolving. Our indicia of quality and success should too. Dentons is the first polycentric global firm, but we won't be the last. 

No plant or animal is safe from a business dinner. Lunches and dinners meant to impress visitors may broaden your culinary horizons at the expense of your exercise regime. Every region has a local delicacy worthy of gourmet treatment; sea cucumber, giant beetles, tree fungus, lychees, goose feet, durian, horse tartar and stewed donkey have all been on the menu. In keeping with Dentons' polycentric philosophy, I embrace these cultural treats – but try to keep to my fitness routine.

Joe Andrew is global chairman of Dentons.