A few years ago – during what in retrospect turned out to be a boom – you knew where you stood with City law. The market kept growing and, while the man in the street associated lawyers with courts and disputes, those in the industry knew success came from the other side of the equation. In short, you made the real money from deal-doing and associated disciplines, not the contentious side of practice.
Continue reading “Disputes revival has huge implications for City law”
Remember convergence? In the 1990s’ tech boom the concept was all the rage. It was the simple idea that rapidly-advancing communications would see once-discrete platforms and information systems like TV, the printed word and telephones merge and dynamically share data in an economically seismic fashion.
What happened next says a lot about human nature, business and the whimsy of prediction. The internet bubble burst and such utopian visions were suddenly crazy. One received wisdom replaced another. Except convergence was one of the most accurate forecasts ever made about industry – it just took technology another three years to catch up with the hype. The fundamentals prevailed.
Continue reading “Converging in on an end game for Global London”
There’s nothing like a bit of schadenfreude when matters go awry and the collapse of Cobbetts as an independent entity has proved no exception. Since it was confirmed that the firm was to become the first major UK practice to fail since the 2010 break-up of its local rival Halliwells, plenty have claimed the end was inevitable and a direct result of over-reach.
In 1992, Bill Clinton was elected US president; the Maastricht Treaty was signed and Legal Business published the financial data of 35 firms with revenues over £20m. Over the last 20 years, as the information age has developed, total revenues of the 100 largest law firms based in the UK have swelled from £2.7bn to £17.67bn, outperforming the domestic economy.
Continue reading “Twenty years on and the numbers still add up”
