Since the 1980s, it’s been clear who is in charge at large City law firms: corporate and banking partners. The reason is fairly obvious – unlike the US and many foreign markets, City law firms make most of their money from transactional work and their corporate practices have become the dominant power blocs at most top 25 (and a good number of smaller firms). Partnership remuneration may be relatively flat and law firms are supposedly consensus-driven.
There’s some truth to that, but not all partners are created equal. The direction of most City law firms is set by a relatively small group of partners, the vast majority of whom are drawn from transactional disciplines. When managing partners talk about getting buy-in, getting this group on board is what they mean. That ambitious law firms must lead off their corporate teams has become a cliche so utterly prevalent that it is hardly ever acknowledged, let alone queried. Yet current market trends raise the question of whether this influence is in some cases justified or even productive.
