Once lawyers get off the bandwagon, getting them back on is no easy feat. The empty vehicle in question is the practise of taking equity in clients in place of fees, a tactic used by technology-focused advisers aiming to bolster their ranks of cash-poor high-growth clients.
Despite UK lawyers experimenting with the model in the dotcom boom, advisers have run a mile from such deals during the sector’s prolonged slump. Such reluctance was understandable when no UK firm had actually made any money – a sharp contrast to the Silicon Valley firms that propped up their profits for years via client investment.
