UK Law Firms Research Articles

‘It’s Both a Blessing and a Curse’: Law Firm Attitudes to Qualifying Work Experience in England and Wales

With the advent of the Solicitors’ Qualifying Examination (SQE), Qualifying Work Experience (QWE) allows for flexibility in the journey to qualification as a solicitor in England and Wales that was not previously permitted by the Period of Recognized Training. This development was heralded as a lever to widening access to the profession, with the potential to assist those who may not have been recruited onto traditional graduate-level training programmes in securing a qualified legal role. This paper discusses the findings of empirical research conducted by the authors with a view to understanding the perceptions of, and attitudes towards, QWE of those responsible for recruitment in UK law firms. It reveals a friction between the perceived, and actual, value of QWE obtained via non-traditional routes and exposes the threat that law firm stances on QWE pose to the regulator’s aim of widening access to the profession.

How Technology Is (or Is Not) Transforming Law Firms

In this review, we explore the impact of technology on US and UK law firms, focusing in particular on the recent machine learning wave of artificial intelligence. Technology has not so far ushered the end of law firms as we know them. Adoption of artificial intelligence/machine learning is in its early stages in the sector, and its impact has been constrained by the scope of use cases for which it is so far well-suited. Technology is nevertheless transforming law firms, in the sense of leading to material changes to their current forms, in the following novel ways: ( a) deployment not only in the back office but in the front office, affecting lawyers’ core tasks of advising clients; ( b) opportunities for lawyers to pursue alternative career paths with different skill sets across the profession; and ( c) emerging options for law firms to adopt business models creating value from nonhuman capital and nonlegal human capital.

Client-Related Factors and Collaboration Between Human Assets

Collaborations between individuals in firms have important implications for the development of relational and human capital. In knowledge-intensive contexts where collaborations are formed to deliver services to clients, collaboration decisions can involve nontrivial tradeoffs between short-term and long-term benefits: individuals and firms must carefully manage the tradeoffs between leveraging existing relational and human capital for the reliable performance of repeat collaboration and creating new relational and human capital through new collaboration. Building from the premise that servicing clients is central to collaboration decisions in human asset–intensive firms, we examine how client-related factors shape collaboration decisions among lawyers (partners) in UK law firms providing M&A legal advisory services. We focus on three key client-related dimensions that we predict govern collaboration decisions: the depth of individual- and firm-level relationships with the focal client, key client attributes that reflect the client’s status and its use of different firms to undertake its outsourced work, and client-driven individual- and firm-level resource constraint. Our empirical findings support our proposition that client-related factors influence the pattern of collaborations between individuals in firms. We also reveal how client-related factors at the individual level can have opposite effects on collaboration decisions from those at the firm level. Overall, our findings contribute to research on relational capital, strategic human capital, team formation, professional service firms, and the microfoundations of strategy.

Covid-19: and the Impact on Print

AbstractIn this article Michael Maher writes about the declining print needs for law libraries within UK law firms in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. The article begins by looking at the initial financial impact Covid-19 had across UK law firms. The second part of the article covers how home-working patterns have become the preferable option to working in the office. Finally, the author takes a change management approach, addressing what information professionals need to do to best manage and embed the change so as to continue to play a key part of the future, post-pandemic, law firm business.

Brand Name Nomenclature of UK Law Firms

Law firms are often required to use the last names of their partners; they are prohibited from using brand names that can distinguish their law firms. This limitation often forces them to use different naming structures to abide by their naming regulations. This paper explores the naming nomenclatures of Top 200 UK Law Firms to understand different naming structures adopted by these firms. The result highlights twelve different naming structures. The study presents theoretical and managerial implications relevant for researchers with interest in branding, law practitioners and brand managers.

Up or Aside? Micro-Foundations of Institutional Change in the Career Structure of UK Elite Law Firms

We investigate institutional change as the co-occurrence of deinstitutionalization and institutionalization, while accounting for its determinants at multiple levels of analysis to further our understanding of how individual characteristics aggregated at the organizational level and organizational characteristics together account for the erosion and emergence of practices within the field. We empirically explore this question in a multi-level dataset of UK law firms and their employees, looking in particular at how the practice of equity partnership faded away and how non-equity partnership emerged as a new practice. Our results contribute to the literature on institutional change and the micro-foundation of institutions.

‘They are your testimony’: Professionals, clients and the creation of client capture during professional career progression

The relationship between professionals and clients has received considerable interest, more recently through the concept of client capture. However, little is known to date about the mechanisms through which professionals become captured by their clients. Drawing on 50 interviews investigating the promotion of lawyers to partnership in seven UK law firms, we contribute to existing understanding by exploring the creation of client capture during professional career progression. We propose that by bestowing clients with influence over who gets promoted to partnership, lawyers lose professional independence in defining the future of their firm. In addition, we illustrate how lawyers make themselves indirectly dependent on their clients by perceiving partnership as influential to client work. By doing so, they rely on their clients to legitimize partnership as the ideal career path. Based on our findings, we argue that career progression acts as an enabling mechanism for the creation of client capture as, by succumbing to the desire to advance their careers, professionals also become prone to client capture. We discuss the implications of our findings for professional–client relations and client capture, professional careers and the changing nature of professional work.

African Extractive Economies and Connected Histories of Globalization - A Case Study of the Africaa Bar in Paris

With the 2008 global financial crisis and Chinese economic growth, the African continent has re-emerged as a source of mineral riches, a boon for the expansion of global markets, and a new site of legal globalization. Yet - discussions on these developments tend to reflect the protracted political and development ‘dependency’ of African states, with lawyers involved in corporate dealings on the continent either denounced as mercenaries at the service of neo-colonial ‘looting’ or idealized as missionaries of the rule of law. The ‘Africa’ Bar in Paris - the empirical focus of this presentation - emerges as a microcosm of connected and enduring histories that position lawyers operating on the African continent in a ‘cross-roads’ space between politics and economics, shaped by the legacies of the ties between Paris the metropole and its former African colonies. A key intermediary site for corporations seeking to extract natural resources on the continent and invest in its emerging markets, Paris was also a beachhead for the expansion of US-led globalization of corporate law in Europe from the 1980s. On the basis of biographical interviews, this presentation traces the social and professional structure of this ‘Africa’ Bar in Paris. Dominated by predominantly French, male, lawyers operating in the Paris branches of major US and UK law firms, this Bar operates under the contradictory shadow of the clout of the Francafrique and the restructuring of commodities markets under the impetus of financialization and global regulatory frameworks. These on-going developments highlight the continuous connections between corporate and state power in the trajectory of the state and legal markets on the African continent and help trace the stakes of an open research agenda on extractive economies, knowledge, law and politics on the African continent.

Outsourcing Law Firm Libraries to Commercial Law Library and Legal Research Services. The UK Experience

The recent global and Euro zone financial crises and the emergence of competition from alternative providers of legal services have provided impetus to law firms globally to adopt new low cost models of legal service delivery in order to compete for commercial legal work. Outsourcing has played an important part in these new lower-cost models of service delivery. Since 2009, ten large and leading UK law firms have completely outsourced their law libraries to one of two commercial providers of law library and legal research services.Little is known about the providers and users of these services or how the services work in practice because of concerns of commercial confidentiality. Opinion is divided on whether library outsourcing is a temporary response to the need to reduce costs in a financial downturn or an inevitable, irreversible consequence of the changing information needs of lawyers. Opinion is also passionately divided between outsourcers and law librarians in the UK on the quality and benefits o...

Knowledge Management in Law: a Look at Cultural Resistance

AbstractKnowledge management is still a difficult issue within law firms. One of the potential barriers to widespread adoption of knowledge management in law firms has been cited as cultural resistance. In order to better understand this obstacle, a Delphi survey was conducted with key knowledge management experts in US and UK law firms. There were six factors that focused on elements of cultural resistance. This article, written by Elana Zeide and Jay Liebowitz, highlights the findings.

Developing the legal information professional

PurposeLegal information work has expanded with the growth in knowledge management and emergence of a new type of knowledge/information manager, the professional support lawyer. This study aims to investigate competency requirements for library‐based information work in UK law firms, including the specialist subject knowledge required, methods of development and the impact on information professionals of professional support lawyers.Design/methodology/approachThe investigation used a pragmatic mixed‐methods approach, including a mainly quantitative questionnaire, administered online to 64 legal information professionals, followed by eight semi‐structured interviews and a focus group with four participants. A literature review informed the questionnaire design and contextualised the findings.FindingsThe survey confirmed a broad range of competency requirements and clarified the specific subject knowledge needed. Participants favoured a varied combination of formal, and informal learning. Most participants also wanted specialised professional education for the sector.Research limitations/implicationsThe nature of the sample and use of categorised questions were limiting factors, partly compensated by inviting open‐ended comments and follow‐up interviews. A larger study using qualitative methods with professional support lawyers and fee‐earners would provide a fuller more rounded picture.Practical implicationsThe findings indicate that the subject knowledge needed for legal information work in law firms is more extensive than for other sectors and suggest that information science departments should strengthen and extend curriculum content to reflect this need.Originality/valueThe study has advanced the understanding of the competency, education and training needs of UK legal information professionals, challenging assumptions about academic/professional qualifications and illuminating the blend of competencies needed.

“Fee earner vs fee burner”: internal divides in law firms

PurposeThis article aims to explore and define the implications of the predominant divide in law firms between fee earners, i.e. lawyers contributing to law firm revenue, and support staff, i.e. employees in back office functions not directly contributing to revenue. To identify steps to improve retention rates among support staff.Design/methodology/approachA survey was delivered to support staff across four law firms among the top ten UK law firms, out of which 154 valid responses were collected. For the analysis, responses were clustered to identify emerging themes. Additional interviews were also conducted with the aim to clarify emerging themes and deepen understanding of the issues raised.Findings“You are either a fee earner or a fee burner” sums up the prevailing attitude support staff experiences in law firms. Throughout the responses – regardless of topic – the divide kept resurfacing again and again. In order to retain and motivate talented support staff, law firms will need to revisit their management of support staff and rethink the management of attitude towards them.Research limitationsLaw firms are just one professional services sector under increasing competitive pressure, other professional service firms with similar structures, such as consulting or accounting firms have not been included in this research.Practical implicationsWhile support staff ensures the delivery of business critical services in law firms, they are often seen as a disposable cost rather than a business relevant part of the organisation, which leads to frustration and low working morale. Several measures are suggested in this paper to address the management of support staff.Originality/valueThis paper addresses an important gap in our knowledge of law firms and legal profession more generally: The work and working conditions of non‐fee earning staff.

Innovating for Success – the Future of Law Librarianship

AbstractWithin UK law firms, marketing or business development departments have traditionally been responsible for the provision of business information. Sue Lamond, from Addleshaw Goddard, explains how her firm differs in that the Information Services department is responsible for this provision. The department compiles company and sector profiles and analyses, and is directly involved in the pitch process for new work from clients, supporting client partners' information and development needs.

The Englishman's Word as the Foreigner's Bond

IMPERIALISM WAS already a dirty word in the 20th century and yet traces of 19th century colonialist attitudes survive in Anglo-American jurisprudence in the 21st century. The dominance of English as the language of international business combined with the commercial power of the United States has provided a platform for those attitudes to be globalized via the imposition of English and American law (particularly the law of the State of New York) to regulate the relations of citizens of neither nation for whom English is, at best, a second language. These two systems of law are increasingly a favoured artificial choice of law to govern contracts in international commerce. Of the two, English law appears to be stealing a march, backed by the particular success of UK law firms in ‘going global’ combined with a fear in the international business community of becoming embroiled in US-style litigation. In that environment,...