BUSINESS OF LAW INNOVATORS
DIANA NEWCOMBE
AND
STEPHEN HOPKINS
A Tool for Growth
Peter Martyr
Norton Rose
London
Eversheds
London
Martyr pioneered the use of vereins in ambitious cross-border tie-ups.
SEEKING TO HELP CLIENTS manage vast
volumes of commoditized legal work, Eversheds partners Stephen Hopkins and Diana
Newcombe (pictured)—the latter now an
executive at the North Australian Health
Practitioner Regulation Agency—in 2007
conceived what the United Kingdom–based
firm calls its Global Account Management
System (GAMS). The bespoke online platform allows general counsel of clients such
as The Boeing Company, Smiths Group plc,
and Severn Trent Water to approve the
scope and fees of each matter before lawyers start working on it. The platform provides real-time updates on progress and
costs once they do. The system enabled one
client, Tyco International Ltd., to consolidate
its legal services portfolio for Europe, the
Middle East, and Africa—some 1,000 live
matters across 70 countries—into a single,
$15-million-per-year contract with Eversheds. By slashing its legal advisers from
over 280 local law firms in the region to just
one, Tyco says that it cut its legal spending
by 52 percent.
BOIES TOOK A CALCULATED risk when
he left the partnership of Cravath, Swaine
& Moore in 1997. Perhaps it’s not surpris-
ing then that sharing risk with clients has
become a hallmark of the firm that Boies
has led since leaving Cravath. As other Am
Law 100 firms began experimenting with al-
ternative fee arrangements, Boies, Schiller &
Flexner was already weaning itself off the bill-
able hour—drawing more than half of its rev-
enues from alternative fees in 2010. (Granted,
the firm’s non-hourly fees were bolstered by
a reported nine-figure contingency fee from
a successful antitrust suit filed on behalf of
American Express Company against Visa Inc.,
MasterCard Incorporated, and eight banks.)
Of course, Boies and his firm are in the envi-
able position of being able to charge clients
up-front “engagement fees”—sometimes
more than $10 million—to take them on. The
calculated risk-taking at Boies Schiller ex-
tends even to associates. Junior lawyers who
work on contingency fee matters at the firm
can opt to either share in the potential upside
or simply have their hours counted toward
traditional bonus thresholds.
Boies, Schiller & Flexner
New York
THE UPPER ECHELONS of the global legal market
are becoming increasingly populated by a new
breed of law firm: the Swiss verein. Almost every major cross-border law firm merger of the
past three years has used this corporate holding structure, which allows participating members to join forces while retaining their existing
forms as separate financial and legal entities.
Norton Rose isn’t the first law firm to convert
to a verein. Baker & McKenzie and DLA Piper
made the switch earlier, while Hogan Lovells,
King & Wood Mallesons, Squire Sanders, and
Dentons have also used vereins to expand. But
under global CEO Peter Martyr, Norton Rose
became the firm that most aggressively exploited
the structure to achieve its strategic ambitions.
With what global cochair Steven Parish describes
as “incredible vision and a real eye for detail,”
Martyr has completed no fewer than five verein
mergers in the past four years to engineer a remarkable turnaround for the firm.
Less than a decade ago, Norton Rose was
in danger of sliding into insignificance. The
London-based firm had formerly been a major
competitor to the Magic Circle, but a series of
ill-judged strategic decisions had left it floundering in an increasingly competitive midmarket.
That all changed in 2009, when Norton Rose
announced that it would combine with Deacons, one of Australia’s largest firms. Just over 12
months later, it garnered more headlines by pulling off a three-way tie-up with Canada’s Ogilvy
Renault and South Africa’s Deneys Reitz. In early 2012, it added another top Canadian practice,
Macleod Dixon. This summer, it finally secured
a long-sought-after American deal, combining
with Fulbright & Jaworski to create a 3,800-law-
yer giant that ranks among the world’s 10 largest
law firms by revenue and trails only DLA Piper
and Baker & McKenzie in attorney head count.
The moves have catapulted the firm onto
the global stage. In The American Lawyer’s 2010
Global 100 survey, which ranks the world’s
100 largest law firms by revenue, Norton Rose
placed 67th. In 2012 it was 14th, with revenues
of $1.32 billion—an increase of 175 percent
in just two years. With aggregate revenues of
around $2 billion, the new firm, Norton Rose
Fulbright, would have ranked sixth in 2012.
“Peter has had a fundamental impact at Norton Rose,” says consultant and former Clifford
Chance managing partner Tony Williams. “
Using the verein, he’s been able to position the
firm as a very serious global player.”
