United States: Penetrating the UK Market: US Law Firms in London

A Levick Strategic Communications White Paper

There are approximately 90 US law firms with offices in the UK, according to the US Chamber of Commerce in London. Of these, it may be safely said that as many as 60 have taken relatively aggressive approaches to expanding their business there. But, according to several highly placed sources, it may also be said, with some certitude, that a half-dozen of these firms would just as soon cut their losses and go home.

The significant point is that being "aggressive" in the UK no longer means what it did a few years ago. In 1994, Kilpatrick & Cody (now Kilpatrick Stockton) could credibly promote itself with the tag line, "In Business with the World," and support that claim with five lawyers in three European cities. By 1994, it was clear that the race would go instead to firms committed to building up critical mass. The closing of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal’s London office in 1999 symbolized the sea change. Only the seriously growth-minded firms would endure.

Below are the seven American law firms that have been most successful in raising profile in London. Levick Strategic Communications represented five of these seven firms in their efforts to do so.

When Weil, Gotshal recruited Maurice Allen from Allen & Overy, it was the first instance of an American firm - not only landing a prestigious practitioner from a UK firm - but one with a substantial book of portable business. The firm was not aggressive about presenting this information to the press, but the lesson was clear, and worked its way into London legal mythology.

While the firm was not aggressive with the media, Mr. Allen was. He maintained a close relationship with all of the legal press, including Legal Business editor Martha Klein. Focusing both on his practice area and the business of law, Mr. Allen appeared in the media with great frequency. As a result, a powerful message dominated the legal media – that high-profile British lawyers will walk across the street to join an American firm. US firms could now play with the Magic Circle firms in their own backyard.

Weil, Gotshal stayed hot in the lateral market for months. Mr. Allen’s subsequent departure to White & Case did not hamper the firm – Weil, Gotshal has grown by 25% since his departure -- in large part because the advantage of being first overcame other perceptions.

The Chicago-based powerhouse, little known in London, placed a blind ad in the Times of London to hire a London-based solicitor for 1 million pounds. Where Weil, Gotshal had been subtle in its recruitment, McDermott, with no overt press strategy, was bold. Like the famous Womble Carlyle Bull Dog advertisement of a half-decade earlier (which announced to the Georgia market that the prominent North Carolina firm was moving into its neighborhood), this one advertisement created a media firestorm. For a month, the guessing game went on – who is this cheeky law firm? – throughout the UK market. McDermott’s ploy brought it six weeks of free press: four during the whisper campaign, and two featuring the firm after its identity was finally revealed.

The global behemoth was in London and much of Europe for 23 years without making much of a peep in the media. Even veteran UK legal journalists were barely aware of the firm’s presence. Most disturbing, the firm was not being included in the all-important tables researched and published by the City’s key legal magazines, even though its size and work did indeed justify inclusion.

The solution was to combine old and new media strategies.

First, to exploit the cutting-edge technology of the day by broadcasting a series of roundtables on the Internet and in new markets. The initial roundtable was the first-ever Internet broadcast on a legal subject; it took place in San Francisco and received substantial media coverage.

Next, the firm hosted the first legal roundtable in the German market, involving every major firm in the country along with German Bar representatives, resulting in a feature story in Suddeutsche Zeitung, the major German daily. The coup de grâce was Europe’s first Internet broadcast of a legal conversation, which took place in Jones, Day’s London office. It resulted in 23 separate stories, including five features, the most abundant of which was a new American Lawyer supplement, London Calling, initially developed exclusively to cover the roundtable. Simultaneously, Jones, Day’s then-managing partner in London, Stephen Fiamma, met with numerous reporters in the London market and talked - not about the firm - but about the intersection of UK and US tax issues, which was the issue journalists wanted to investigate. It wasn’t long before the formerly invisible firm was showing up in every major newspaper and on the most important broadcasts in London.

The result was that, within six months, Jones, Day went from no recognition to Number Two on the list of Most Important Global Law Firms in London, according to the Legal Week tables. Recruitment shot up through the roof. The firm has not had a recruitment or visibility problem in Europe since that time. In fact, the process has proven so successful that the firm is also ahead of the curve in the Asian market, never letting its presence fall from reporter notice.

How could a strong firm little known in the UK make its opening there a matter of any interest?

Shaw Pittman has over 100 practice and sub-practice areas listed on its web site. The firm took a page from the Starbuck’s marketing playbook when it opened its London office in 2000, and marketed only one thing - IT/outsourcing, at the time a relatively new and sexy area. Interest in this highly differentiated practice was such that the media was calling Shaw Pittman’s new office before the name of the firm was painted on the door. Quite literally, reporters had to be escorted to the office. Within six months of opening this office, Shaw Pittman was listed as the Number One IT Outsourcing law firm in London. In informal surveys of UK law firms, Shaw Pittman is always named as the IT/Outsourcing firm most likely to be short-listed as a competitor for business in this area.

Before its epochal merger with the UK’s Rowe & Maw in 2002, Mayer, Brown & Platt had had growth plans in mind for its London office, but little visibility and a lot of indecision about what to market.

Choosing first to work with a UK marketing and PR firm, Mayer Brown found them strong on planning and message development, but short on media placements – that is, actually getting them into the media on a regular basis.

Refocusing, Mayer Brown found a "voice" in its securitization practice. Without making undue claims as to the volume or profitability of that practice, the group positioned itself as go-to third-party commentators for journalists, making themselves available to comment on virtually every securitization matter. Few other lawyers with securitization expertise in London had bothered to establish relationships with potentially interested media, neither the legal nor the financial press. Within six months, the firm was regularly sought after by reporters on securitization issues, to the point where they are regular speakers at conferences and now frequent commentators on a wide variety of legal issues.

It should be noted that prior to Mayer Brown’s vertical media strategy, of identifying the trade press read by clients and prospects, few indigenous British firms – with the notable exception of Eversheds - pursued media coverage aggressively outside of the legal media. Eversheds leadership in using a more traditional "American" media tactic paved the way for other law firms, such as Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw to follow.

Arnold & Porter’s differentiation problem centered on recruitment. Why would someone want to work here rather than someplace else? Moreover, there was a palpable resistance at this point (1997) on the part of British lawyers to joining what were perceived as the sweatshop cultures of most large American law firms.

The solution was to drive home the perception that this firm is so strong in specific highly desirable legal areas that there are incalculable career benefits for lawyers who are good enough to practice in those groups. The practice areas chosen were telecommunications, antitrust, and intellectual property. On a weekly basis, each practice group was featured, either with third-party commentary on breaking news stories, or in stories featuring partners, in the relevant trade, legal, and national UK press.

These placements were shown to potential recruits to create a positive message about the kind of focused professional opportunity they would enjoy at Arnold & Porter, as well as the mentoring they could expect from the London partners. In the recruitment market, a perception of opportunity replaced a perception of servitude.

Arnold & Porter received the Chambers Global Award for the Antitrust Law Firm of the Year in North America in 2001. The firm was described as a "powerhouse of a practice" with "perhaps the deepest bench of talent anywhere," an "international reputation," and an ability to advise on the largest transactions. In the last three years, Arnold & Porter’s office in London has tripled in size.

Steptoe & Johnson’s 2000 merger with Rakisons shows what a concerted effort can accomplish in a situation that does not have the glaring macro-significance of the Clifford Chance/Rogers & Wells merger.

Rakisons was only a 50-lawyer UK firm, yet the merging firms were able to define larger message points implicit in the merger that have continued to garner significant media interest. First, the merger partners successfully overcame compensation and other cultural problems that have deterred other transatlantic mergers. As such, the Steptoe expansion had a professional relevance that made it interesting, despite the relatively small size of the deal, and the fact that it was not the first.

Second, even more important, the firm resolved to focus in on one all-important practice group - telecommunications - as proof positive that the merger had generated an immensely greater platform for the UK lawyers, as well as cross-selling opportunities. A post-merger roundtable on telecommunications regulation drove home this global, cross-disciplinary message with a vengeance. Not only did clients and potential clients participate, but UK telecom regulators were also a crucial part of the discussion. They articulated their most crucial concerns about the state of their industry. As a result, Steptoe, by virtue of leading the discussion, was positioned at the very heart of the issue. Far from an American interloper, the roundtable, which was published as a five page feature in Communications Week International, showed a law firm intimately conversant with the most vital concerns of a major UK clientele.

The success of the merger was further reinforced by global placements, including a conspicuous appearance by London partner Tony Wollenberg in American Lawyer, commenting on global gaming law and e-commerce. Such reach-and-repetition confirmed perceptions that, far from a local London outpost, Steptoe now had prominent UK-based partners doing significant legal work in cities like Washington and Las Vegas. The inexorable message was that the merger had achieved the transatlantic integration and depth that it was intended to achieve.