Comment Editorial Board

COMMENT EDITORIAL BOARD ANDREW HEDLEY, DIRECTOR, HEDLEY CONSULTING Global firms should worry more about brand experience than single profit pools he rise in international mergers over organisations. Baker & McKenzie and, until business operating under a single name the past two years has raised a 31 July 2010, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu, and set of brand promises. T number of interesting issues about are examples of firms that have long It is also interesting to observe that this the way in which law firms can best service operated under this legal structure. new class of global law firm is positioned clients on a global basis. The key issue defining success for to service the ongoing top-end commercial One of the more introspective these new organisations is not how needs of international corporates. While questions asked by some in the profession they share profit per se but whether their M&A transactions will clearly feature in is whether these unions are real mergers ability to generate sustainable growth in their service mix, they are fundamentally or not. If we take merger to mean the overall profit terms to the benefit of all relationship firms. sharing of profits from a common pool on member firms is improved as a result of This means that consistent service a global basis, the answer clearly is no. the union. delivery, across their full geographic However, if the measure of a merger is the The drivers for this will be factors footprint, is a strategic imperative if they effective delivery of a unified brand and such as the articulation and delivery of a are to develop clients to use the wide consistent client experience, a different consistent brand experience, leveraging range of legal services on which their yardstick applies. the combined client bases of the economic model depends. It is clear that a full financial union is antecedent firms and actions to open up, We can all think of firms that meet the generally not on the agenda. The use of through joint efforts, new markets that criterion of a single profit-sharing system Swiss Verein structures which retain the would have been impossible previously. but fail miserably to operate as a unified independence of member firms – such as What makes such things possible business in every other sense. Contrast at DLA Piper, Hogan Lovells, SNR Denton goes much more toward shared vision, this with a global organisation delivering a and Squire Sanders Hammonds – has common strategy, aligned cultures and consistent brand experience and there can called some to question the veracity of the the acceptance of a converging operating be no doubt as to which any client would organisations so formed. model for service delivery than any arbitrary regard as a ‘real firm’. The Swiss Verein is not, of course, single profit pool. These are the ways in new to global professional services which a client will judge the reality of any – [email protected] THE EDITORIAL BOARD ANDREW HEDLEY BEVERLY LANDAIS DaMIEN BEHAN DaVID DaVID PESTER FRANK MAHER IAN JEFFERY Director CEO IT Director MCLAUGHLIN Managing Partner Partner Managing Partner Hedley Consulting Devereux Chambers Brodies Finance Director TLT Legal Risk Lewis Silkin Simmons & Simmons JEREMY ALLIN JO LARBIE JOLENE MICHAEL ROCH MICHAEL ShaW NEIL CaMERON PAUL BRENT Chairman HR Director OVERBECK Partner Managing Partner Technology Marketing Director Lester Aldridge Bircham Dyson Bell Chief Marketing Kerma Partners Cobbetts Consultant Boyes Turner Officer Neil Cameron DLA Piper (USA) Consulting Group 6 MANAGING PARTNER, FEBRUARY 2011.

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