Several years ago, I attended an event in Paris at which Christine Lagarde, the then chairman of Baker & McKenzie, was also present. At one point a young French lawyer from a local firm approached her as if she was seeking an autograph from a film star. At the time I was vaguely aware that Lagarde’s leadership of a US law firm had made her into something of an iconic figure within the French business community. The reverential tones of the encounter that I witnessed seemed to confirm this.
Since then, Lagarde’s fame has spread well beyond the confines both of the legal community and France’s borders, particularly in recent weeks.
