French independents are holding their own against overseas competitors. Heather O’Brian looks at the differing strategies among the country’s leading firms
Nixon Peabody has become the latest US law firm to fall under the spell of La Ville Lumiere. This autumn it opened a Paris practice with 26 lawyers from UK firm Taylor Wessing, including 13 partners. They joined other recent newcomers Kirkpatrick & Lockhart Preston Gates Ellis, which has set up a labour and employment practice in the French capital, and Bryan Cave, which established a small Paris outfit this summer after opening Italian and German branches in 2007.
