“We were the biggest fish in the ocean other than the referral networks, so we decided to use the same form to compete,” says Dentons’ chairman Joe Andrew of the launch of the Nextlaw global referral network.

The new network, which launched last month with some 283 member firms – including Scotland’s Shepherd & Wedderburn and MacRoberts, and Portugal’s PLMJ – has put Dentons in unashamed, direct competition with independent referral networks such as Interlaw and Lex Mundi.