Uneasy lies the unsupervised crown

In our cover story (‘Under the weather’, page 24) Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe chairman Ralph Baxter arguably needs a merger in London to turn around the fortunes of an ailing office and restore faith in the firm’s global ambitions. Clyde & Co’s management team of Michael Payton and Peter Hasson will continue to successfully lead a firm transformed by the largest ever combination of two UK outfits when its takeover of Barlow Lyde & Gilbert completes this month (‘Dynamic duo’, page 32). Meanwhile at crime and regulatory specialist Kingsley Napley (‘Making headlines’, page 44), managing partner Linda Woolley says her firm came close to considering a merger two years ago but she definitely isn’t interested in one now.

What is more interesting than attitudes towards consolidation in London is the varying approaches to management structures at each of the firms we’ve profiled. Woolley enjoys a strong mandate to run the firm, with the faith and backing of the partnership behind her. In fact, between 2004 and 2007 she was joint managing partner with two others before the firm realised having too many leaders was cumbersome.

Contrast this with Orrick. Baxter has personified the firm’s meteoric rise since becoming chair in 1990. However, his Midas touch appears to be waning, particularly in London, and calls for him to make way for new blood are getting louder. But Baxter shows no signs of bowing out, although plans to introduce a global managing partner may assuage some protests.

But if Baxter has been around a long time, then his tenure is eclipsed by that of Payton at Clydes, who has been at the top of the firm for 27 years. While Payton has worked on claims linked to some of the biggest events of the last few decades, his highlight as a law firm manager must be this year’s deal with BLG. However, he hasn’t been able to do it all on his own – our feature gives a glimpse of his double act with the firm’s non-lawyer chief executive Peter Hasson, who has been known to curb Payton’s enthusiasm with some hard-headed realism.

The autocratic nature of their management style appears to be met with little resistance. Payton and Hasson have been together for 14 years and are an object lesson as to why two heads can be better than one.