The profile of Osborne Clarke Spain is growing – the last year saw double-digit growth in revenue, lateral hires and the opening of a new office, but the political situation in Catalonia is causing concern at the Barcelona headquarters
Osborne Clarke is a firm that is making notable progress in the Spanish legal market. The revenue of the firm's Spanish offices grew by 13 per cent in the last year, largely driven by a buoyant M&A practice – notable instructions included advising Spanish healthcare company Grifols on the €1.7 billion acquisition of Hologic's blood screening business. Meanwhile, the firm also made a significant lateral hire in its Madrid office when it recruited Pérez-Llorca M&A partner Vicente Conde. In addition, the firm also took the step of opening an office in Zaragoza to complement its existing Barcelona and Madrid operations. It seems beyond question that the firm's profile has risen in Spain in the last 12 months – indeed, Osborne Clarke was placed 11th in the 2017 Iberian Lawyer brand ranking, which was published at the end of last year.
"Last year was a great year," says Osborne Clarke Spain
managing partner Núria Martín. "M&A is
strong and companies are investing in Spain, but while M&A is
the biggest practice area, real estate is also very active."
However, the firm's strong focus on tech businesses is also
reaping dividends. "We are very focused on technology,
including the digital health, mobile payments and retail technology
sectors, but technology is becoming fundamental to all
sectors," Martín says. "The US has a lot of
technology companies that come to Europe – they go to the UK,
France and Germany, as well as Spain." Martin says the firm
has also been advising Spanish companies investing abroad, with the
acquisition of companies in the US and Asia being one of the more
prominent trends. In addition, the firm also has notable expertise
in the pharmaceuticals sector. "We´re strong in
pharmaceuticals and we effectively act as in-house lawyers for some
clients." Martín says Osborne Clarke Spain does not
disclose its revenue, but the total revenue of the firm's
worldwide operations was €250 million last year.
Inspiring
leader
There are indications that Martín's leadership has
played a fairly significant part in the firm's recent
successes. She was recently named on the Iberian Lawyer InspiraLAw
Top 50 Women List, an accolade that recognises the most inspiring
women in the Spanish and Portuguese legal sectors, as selected by
500 of their peers. So, having been recognised as an inspiring
leader, what is Martín's leadership philosophy? "We
want the firm to be profitable, but we also want an excellent
working environment," she says. "We want to provide a
good service to clients, but we don´t want to lose focus, we
don't want to fight on prices, if we can't do it at a
certain price, we won´t do it at all."
Martín adds that, while a key objective is improving the
firm's efficiency, it's also important to offer flexibility
to lawyers. "With help, it's possible to have a family and
a career," she says. "Unless you're working on a
transaction that involves different jurisdictions (and different
timezones), we don't want people staying long hours – we
don´t want to see people working weekends, we want to see
people leaving at 8pm or 8.30pm, otherwise they get stressed and
disillusioned." Work-life balance is crucial, argues
Martín. "We have to be respectful of people's lives
outside work, we have to make them believe they can have a career
and a family."
Empowering women
Ensuring diversity at the firm is another priority, according to
Martín. "We have to reflect our clients and be
adaptable in order to do business everywhere in the world,"
she says. However, this strategy can create difficulties, as
Martín admits. "In an international structure,
maintaining the culture is a challenge," she says. On the
subject of diversity, empowering women lawyers is a major objective
at Osborne Clarke, according to Martín. "We have an
international female partners forum which aims to develop the
skills of women lawyers," she says. "The aim is to
support high potential women, help them into leadership positions,
and speed up the promotion of women." It is worth mentioning
at this point, that in the firms' Barcelona office –
where Osborne Clarke Spain is headquartered – 60 per cent of
the lawyers are female. "In the past, there were more male
lawyers than female lawyers, but now, when we do interviews, the
most talented lawyers we get are female."
Martín explains some of the issues women can face when
trying to achieve a balance between their family life and
professional life: "Often, at the start of our careers, we
love our work and are passionate about it, but when we start having
a family, we begin to have doubts about whether we should be
devoted to our work or have a part-time job; it is not always easy
to find a balance and we should be able to offer it." This is
where the idea of flexibility comes in. "If you decide to
always work part-time, it will be difficult to reach a leadership
position and if you're working on a transaction, you can't
control your hours, but we try to ensure that office meetings are
held early in the day rather than at 8pm, for example," says
Martín.
Catalonian question
Osborne Clarke Spain currently has 78 lawyers – of which 18
are partners – divided between its Barcelona, Madrid and
Zaragoza offices. Barcelona, with 45 lawyers, is the biggest
office, but the Madrid office – currently home to around 30
lawyers as well as being the base for the firm's banking and
finance, public law and antitrust practices – is growing
following the recent hire of Conde as well as another corporate
lawyer at counsel level. The Zaragoza operation is much smaller in
terms of headcount, but there are "plenty of interesting
companies" in the city, according to Martín.
"Zaragoza is a distribution hub, there are international
companies there generating tax work, but the office is also
referring work to our offices in Barcelona and Madrid – there
are local companies that want to open subsidiaries in Italy, for
example, as well as other European countries," she says.
Martín says she hopes that the political situation in
Catalonia will not have an effect on the firm, but she acknowledges
it is possible that business will be impacted. "It may have an
impact, real estate transactions have slowed down
considerably," she says. However, Martín adds that,
with regard to M&A activity, the outlook is more positive.
"There has been no change in M&A activity, investors are
continuing with their plans, but if the situation is not resolved
it may have an impact in the future." Indeed, some
Barcelona-based lawyers express concerns that, while companies may
simply be moving their domicile out of Catalonia at present, the
knock-on effects could include companies' future personnel
hires being made in Madrid or Valencia, rather than Barcelona.
Passion and dedication
Continuously innovating is one of the main challenges law firms
face, Martín says. "We have a permanent innovation
team, the focus is on clients, we design bespoke technology for
clients and this is how we try to differentiate our firm from our
competitors because the market is competitive," she says.
Martín says that Osborne Clarke's strengths include the
firm's "future-focus and in-depth industry
knowledge". She adds: "We try to remain one step ahead
and we try to anticipate problems - you need to continually change
and move all the time. We have genuine sector speciality and we
offer commercial and practical advice, as well as passion and
dedication."
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