The Charge Of The Lawyer Brigade

Ed. note: This is the latest installment in a series of posts from Lateral Link’s team of expert contributors. Michael Allen is Managing Principal at Lateral Link, focusing exclusively on partner placements with Am Law 200 clients and placements for in-house attorneys.

Last Friday, we witnessed what many thought was impossible — the United Kingdom voted 51.9% to 48.1% to leave the European Union after 43 years, thus beginning the long and tedious process of negotiating the aptly-named Brexit. Estimates of how long the political, legal, and financial untangling will take are unknown, but experts predict a minimum of two years with extensions being available to ensure the terms of the agreement are met.

One factor of the U.K.’s decision to leave the EU is how much extra work will be needed from attorneys to retool contracts and regulations, not to mention the time-consuming task of consulting with clients on the extensive impact of this change. The U.K. legal market contributes £20B ($27.4B) annually to the country’s economy, with London serving as the hub of the global professional services sector. Regulatory framework and banking laws will need amending or updating, and U.K.-based law firms have already set up hotlines and are coordinating efforts to handle the influx of client calls. We’ve received memos, emails, and marketing decks on how firms and companies are setting out to handle the short- and long-term implications of the U.K. serving notice.

As the British are leaving, predictably law firms in the United States and Europe will be impacted and are scrambling to ensure the questions and needs of clients are met during this uncertain time. While it is possible Britain will delay its exit from the EU until all of the financial and regulatory details are worked out, we can be certain it will be a priority to ensure the stability of the U.K.’s economy while still adhering to the financial EU rules in place.

Several firms are already positioning themselves as Brexit experts. Allen & Overy, Baker & McKenzie, Clifford Chance, Skadden have all launched whitepapers, hotlines, webinars and more to establish themselves as leaders in the post-Brexit marketplace. The turmoil and uncertainty generated in the wake of the vote, has financial and corporate entities looking to firms for indications on the implications of the Brexit vote.

According to our data, the firms with the most regulatory attorneys include an array of names such as Buckley Sandler, Wiley Rein, Epstein Becker, Steptoe & Johnson and Crowell & Moring. There is little overlap between this list and the list of the largest players in the British market which includes, Norton Rose, Hogan Lovells, Dentons, White & Case, Squire Patton Boggs, Reed Smith and DLA Piper.

(Click on the images below to see the complete graphs.)

How Brexit will affect lateral movement is unclear so far. We anticipate however, that the firms establishing themselves as authorities on the matter, will be able to poach lateral attorneys with the promise of extra work — especially partners — and ergo, extra pay. Firms with a heavy presence in London, but meager regulatory offerings are already scrambling to grow these practices to “remain in the game,” so to speak.

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