Apropos the results of the readership survey, which found a high number
of respondents worried about the seemingly relentless consolidation of
the legal industry—apparently from both those participating in
the consolidation and those wanting to be left out—is
this cautionary
Legal Week editorial about the "hard place" Coudert Brothers finds itself
in, highlighted (but scarcely caused by) Orrick’s snatching its entire
London office away last week.
As Legal Week analyzes it, and as I have no reason to doubt, Coudert’s
current, and grave, travails took root a decade or more ago when it expanded
its Paris-based European network without quite coming to terms with the
question of how the relatively low profits per partner of the newly acquired
European offices would be squared with its (then) stronger US practice. Irreconcilable
differences over money—in a partnership as much as in a marriage—can
have fatal consequences, as some fear we are witnessing with Coudert.
I have good friends at the firm so I will not offer an opinion of the
diagnosis or prognosis, but I commend the story to all of you worried
about consolidation, whichever side of the fence you are on.
