Lagarde: led the changesBaker & McKenzie’s North American practice has radically shaken up its financial structure after agreeing to become a single regional profit centre and alter its controversial ‘formula’ system for rewarding individual partners.

The deal, which covers 700-lawyers across 11 US and Canadian offices, will see the creation of a single profit pool for its North American partners and the end of local accounting and administration, covering a practice with revenues of £253m in 2001.