At a lunch last week, one London law firm leader told me that his firm wanted to grow significantly to around £400 million in revenue in order to have a big enough balance sheet to compete for lateral hires.
It was a seemingly innocuous comment but it felt like déjà vu, oddly reminiscent of Shearman & Sterling’s strategy be a $3 billion revenue firm also in order to be able to compete for laterals. The Allen & Overy-Shearman merger is set to finish being voted through this week and it will have achieved its aim. For now at least.
