Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) has an image problem. Given the number of firms struggling to differentiate themselves in the the City’s crowded legal market, there’s nothing unusual about that. The difference with BLP, as underlined by the announcement of the end of its alliance with Kramer Levin, is that the firm’s problem is largely about how it sees itself. Out there in the market, BLP is typically lauded as an object lesson in how to take a firm upwards, but BLP insiders are plagued with doubts over whether the firm is really good enough to be mentioned in the club of the UK’s leading 10 or 15 firms.
That painful sense of self-doubt is clear from BLP’s hyperactive Wiki entry, which is shot through with internal debate between two camps. On one side the true believers argue that the firm has already arrived, having substantially upgraded its transactional practice in recent years. On the other, a larger group (probably rightly) frets about the distance the firm still has to travel before it can be mentioned in the same breath as an Ashurst or even Travers Smith and DLA Piper.
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