Only the lonely

The popularity of speed dating in the City continues its inexorable rise. It’s less taboo now, and no longer considered the preserve of the romantically desperate. Single professionals are too busy trying to keep their careers on track to waste endless evenings with unsuitable dates, so the idea of quickly vetting a number of potential partners in one evening seems to be time well spent. After all, for many, the conventional route to dating just means it takes longer to get your heart broken.

This fast-track approach to relationships has even spilled over into the business world. According to an article in The Wall Street Journal in May, headed ‘AIG: “speed dating” for directors’, American International Group’s quest to solve a big problem – finding new directors for its board – led to three of its trustees, several board members and Treasury officials interviewing prospective directors in quick succession. And with mid-market law firms Speechly Bircham and Campbell Hooper finalising a relationship in June that went from footsie under the table in March to full marriage three months later, it seems that speed is now of the essence for law firms under pressure to adapt to the market. As one partner told LB: ‘A client actually said to me: “It’s funny how when lawyers have to do it for themselves and aren’t charging they can move a lot quicker.”’

The merged firm will remain Speechly Bircham, with 88 partners and 250 lawyers. Combined turnover will reach around £60m, putting it near the top 50 of the LB100, and the management of both firms have their sights firmly (some might say over-ambitiously) set on trying to compete with the likes of Field Fisher Waterhouse, LG and Stephenson Harwood.

‘If you’re a £60m firm, then you’re more able to compete against the nationals, for example,’ says Speechly Bircham managing partner Michael Lingens.

For years it has been fashionable for smaller practices of around 30 partners or less, either in the City or the West End, to remain resolutely single. Buoyant property and mid-cap corporate and AIM work, mixed in with a little media, private client or employment work, kept the likes of Campbell Hooper ticking along. Low costs and low leverage meant that profitability levels ensured any ideas of being swallowed up by a larger firm stayed firmly in the background. As Martin Wright, chairman of Campbell Hooper, recalls: ‘I remember that we tried to speak to a couple of property boutiques about a year ago, but they said: “You can’t afford us because we’re earning between £600,000 and £800,000.” That was during the property boom.’

How things change. Firms that may have given suitors the brush-off a couple of years ago would now bite their hands off. The question is whether anyone would want them. In last year’s LB100 survey, the likes of Forsters, Howard Kennedy, Russell-Cooke and Wedlake Bell showed alarming dips in PEP, while revenues remained fairly static, or at best average. There is unlikely to be better news in our 2009 survey in September. For property-heavy firms outside the LB100, the situation is likely to be significantly worse. This is why, after a good year of talking about anticipated consolidation in the lower mid-market, we’re finally here. Those with something to offer need to move quickly to find their soulmate before the best matches have gone off with someone else.

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