The good news is that these firms are (still) on a roll, and they have been for a long time. The bad news is that New York’s share of global capital markets activity has almost certainly peaked, and having 85%—100% of your lawyers in Manhattan may not be the one and only real decision you need to make to thrive as one of these firms.
In other words, though the Great Reset seems hardly to have mattered to these firms—indeed, may have played to their “flight to quality” strengths—the global tectonic shifts taking place as capital increasingly focuses on the East and the South and less on the West and the North, may mean their fundamental footprints need revisiting. (10% of Harvard Law School students in the class of 2015 are foreign-born.)
To answer that question requires looking quite a ways out, and having plausible forecasts about such things as the velocity of globalization, the probability of enduring regional conflicts or intermittent paralysis-by-terrorism, the long-run demographic trends on various continents, and more.
Since few possess that crystal ball, permit me to suggest where we seem to actually be in the market right now. I sense a potential generational divide. It’s not complicated: If I were 55 or 60 years old and a partner in one of these firms, I would instinctively, roundly, and rightly (so far as my own future is concerned) dismiss any of these worries. My effective time horizon is five or ten years, and all should be smooth sailing for at least that long (reputational markets are extremely sticky, if nothing else).
But if I were 40, with a time horizon of a few decades? Wouldn’t I be wondering, “what’s the plan here, guys?”
I don’t know about you, but that’s exactly what I would want to know. The problem is that the answer is far from obvious, but a bigger problem by far—if true of any of these firms—would be if they’re not thinking as hard as they can about answering that question.
