Before we leap into the final category of firms in our taxonomy—”synergistic super-boutiques”—let’s recur to first principles and re-state what we’re trying to solve for.
The issue is what do firms do to (in Darwinian order):
- (a) avoid extinction;
- (b) eke out a marginal existence;
- (c) remain relevant;
- (d) continue to perform about as well as before;
- (e) take market share from competitors; and, at the top of the food chain:
- (f) significantly reinvent themselves so as to deliver value to clients heretofore not available.
We may be witnessing this dynamic playing out more quickly in the City of London than we do in the US (at least for now….), with the availability of outside capital in England and Wales accelerating the market’s winnowing genius. Just this past week I had breakfast with the former managing partner of an AmLaw 50, who spent a large portion of his time building his US firm’s London office, and who observes that the UK market has seen “a decade’s worth of change compressed into three years—and not all of those firms may know how to respond.”
The most successful “synergistic super-boutiques” combine world-class expertise and experience with a super lean cost structure that outsources all functions not provided by individuals who perform billable client services. They protect compensation structures that encourage collaboration and division of labor according to the sub-specialties of billing individuals both inside and outside the firm. Such firms deliver a combination of expert and trusted advisor legal guidance at the highest level of client-percieved added value. Firms organized in this manner can easily accomodate lifestyle practice benefits for professionals and paraprofessionals without sacrificing profitability because valuable professional time is not squandered. It’s fun, prestigious and personally rewarding to practice law in this kind of firm.