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June 24, 2010
Do you really need Big, Myopic, Prissy and Slow in 15 cities?
Managing Partner, eastern European branch office, BCM firm (photo: 20th Century Fox)
Is there any reason to keep using your US or UK-based law firms that expanded in the past few years all over the globe like spastic hamburger franchises?
And often mediocre, and unresponsive, we might add. Sure, some branch offices are better than others, but... If you are in-house counsel working for a great company, and doing business everywhere, is there any reason to keep engaging your US or UK-based law firms that expanded in the past few years all over the globe like spastic hamburger franchises?
When those firms expanded internationally, they diluted their talent and "gene" pool, and their value to your company, and you know it.
Larger firms, to get larger, acquired lawyers and smaller law firms in the US and abroad they wouldn't have looked at twice 15 years ago.
(from several past WAC? posts beginning in 2006)
Our firm's international group, the International Business Law Consortium (IBLC), is an alliance of higher-end corporate law firms all over the world, including 20 US members.
Hull McGuire PC has been busy helping mold this group for 12 years. We know each other well, see each other often, and work together regularly. Our last full meeting was in March 2010 in Argentina; the next, in October 2010, will be in Austria. But smaller teams and configurations of IBLC lawyers (and member accountants) constantly form to work for clients.
There are IBLC members in 100 cities worldwide. Forty firms are particularly active. Member firms range between 5 and 450 lawyers (mean is about 40), all of whom who could work at any mega-firm now or of yesteryear--and so they charge accordingly. Not low-price. But most firms compete on service, not price. Don't look for "deals"--what's offered is value. There are other international groups, perhaps as many as 400; the IBLC is one that works.
Posted by JD Hull at June 24, 2010 11:59 PM