Just a few years ago, Italy’s leading law firms looked like the exception to the rule in global legal markets.
Where the top US and UK law firms had elsewhere swept all before them, Italy’s blend of individualism, rainmaker-friendly pay and nepotistic capitalism let the country’s leading law firms shrug off the foreign invaders with nonchalant distain. And even when London firms could recruit top Italian partners they struggled to integrate them within their blander, institutional confines - causing tensions that led to a string of departures at the local offices of top UK firms.
