The cliché says that you have to start somewhere and so Goodwin Procter’s London branch did in 2011 with a solitary partner at a desk with a phone. While it arrived late to the City – fellow Boston outfit Ropes & Gray beat it by a couple of years and has enjoyed a very strong run since – now it is Goodwin’s turn.
City revenue grew 58% in 2018, more than three times the pace of the firm globally, hitting $66.8m in the same year it launched a European life sciences practice and amid a punchy 16% hike in global turnover to $1.2bn. Profit per equity partner saw a 14% spike to $2.46m and revenue per lawyer grew 10% to $1.25m, showing the firm has performed to every metric of success both in the City and in its other offices in Boston, New York and San Francisco.
On the foundation of that lone partner in 2011, ex-Ashurst corporate real estate veteran and now Goodwin’s European chair, David Evans, the London office has grown headcount by 22% to 94 fee-earners in the last year alone and now hosts 23 partners. It has suffered departures too – corporate duo Mark Soundy and Sarah Priestley left to launch their own private equity boutique in January, and tax partner Ben Eaton quit for Greenberg Traurig last October – but the arrivals have significantly outweighed the exits.
Samantha Lake Coghlan, London co-chair, says: ‘Our growth has been fuelled by a strategy of focusing on four core practice areas comprising real estate, private equity, life sciences and technology. These are areas where we lead in the US, and our aim is to mirror that in London and across Europe.’
Indeed, the way the firm has built these core practice areas out in London has been systematic, ticking off strategic hiring drives in the order that they are listed. Tackling the list in reverse order, Lake Coghlan believes there is plenty of room for further expansion, particularly in technology, which impacts all of the firm’s core areas. Goodwin started January 2019 with the hire of Taylor Wessing corporate partner Andrew Davis to its technology and life sciences practice.
More recently, in March, Simon Thomas joined from Addleshaw Goddard as a partner in the financial restructuring practice, with a view to servicing clients across real estate, private equity, debt finance and funds. But it was the hire in April 2018 of Dechert corporate partners Graham Defries and Andrew Harrow that launched Goodwin’s European life sciences practice, which quickly expanded with the hire last November of partner Sophie McGrath from Brown Rudnick.
The investments have already paid dividends, with Harrow co-leading on one of the office’s standout mandates for the year: the $200m initial public offering of British company Orchard Therapeutics, along with Michael Bison out of Boston. Defries and Harrow also last year advised Staten Biotechnology and its investor shareholders Forbion and BGV on its €430m collaboration with Novo Nordisk to develop treatment for cardiovascular-related conditions.
‘Real estate, private equity, life sciences and technology are areas where we lead in the US, and our aim is to mirror that in London and Europe.’
Samantha Lake Coghlan, Goodwin Procter
Another cliché is that you cannot make an omelette without breaking a few eggs and while Goodwin has largely gone about business quietly in London, the firm’s UK private equity practice might have been founded on that premise. Richard Lever left King & Wood Mallesons’ European operation in highly contentious circumstances in 2015 to set up the private equity practice at Goodwin and later picked off a set of six private equity partners from legacy SJ Berwin, led by the influential Michael Halford. Goodwin’s other London co-chair, Paul Lyons, points to another recent standout matter for the London office, advising GTT Communications on its $2.3bn acquisition of UK telecoms and cloud operator Interoute Communications, led by private equity partner Gemma Roberts.
And the corporate real estate practice, founded by inaugural partner Evans, who was joined quickly by Ashurst colleague and real estate funds partner Lake Coghlan, and then Linklaters global co-head of real estate Joe Conder, is more than holding its own. Standout matters include advising GreenOak Real Estate in the final close of its second European fund, totalling €656m of equity commitments and exceeding its target of €500m, with a team led by Evans out of London and Greg Barclay out of Hong Kong.
The investment in the technology practice is particularly beneficial to real estate. Says Lake Coghlan: ‘We are the only law firm to have a specialised transatlantic proptech proposition, which recognises the profound impact that technology is having on the real estate market.’
After creeping largely unnoticed up the Global London table to 28th spot, Goodwin finally has the London legal market’s attention. Growth from nothing is impressive, but to build on that and tread a path made by other thrusting US firms in London is going to be the real test.