Nordic rivals

Rivalries are rarely more intense than the enmity between the Finland and Sweden ice hockey sides. Sweden took the plaudits in the recent Winter Olympics with a straightforward 3-0 win, but when it comes to legal market superiority, the Finnish have clearly roughed up the Swedes.

At the end of April, Finnish firm Roschier secured yet another senior name in Stockholm, this time by hiring Björn Winström as a partner just hours after he had been appointed counsel at Linklaters. His hire took Roschier’s headcount in Sweden to nine partners and 50 lawyers. It’s enough to challenge the longstanding hegemony of Sweden’s traditional legal giants, Mannheimer Swartling and Vinge. Stockholm-based Axel Calissendorff took over as Roschier’s senior partner in 2009, yet another indication of how the firm’s emphasis has shifted westwards to the Swedish capital.

Of the Nordic nations, the Swedish market has undergone the greatest transformation over the past five years. Linklaters, which blazed into Sweden with its headline merger with Lagerlof & Leman in 2001, has now shrunk to just eight partners in Stockholm. At the same time, the gentle influx of international firms such as the UK’s Ashurst, and the arrival of Finnish leaders Roschier and Hannes Snellman, has created an effervescent recruitment market. It’s a far cry from the staid market of the 1990s. Indeed, few could ever have imagined that firms from the much smaller Finnish economy would end up competing for the premium work in Stockholm.

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