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Our view...
"The biggest, but ever so slightly blue collar", sneers one competitor of the world's largest law firm. CC (the product of a merger in 1987 between Coward Chance and Clifford Turner) may have been looked down on as the new kid on the block by the more established members of the magic circle, but
its policy of rapid global expansion has made it a dominant name on the international market. Freshfields and Linklaters
et al may consider themselves slightly grander on the corporate finance front, A&O may pip
it at banking, but there is no denying that CC is one of the top corporate firms in the world. In securitisation
it is pre-eminent.
There are inevitable problems with a firm of CC's size. Lawyers can feel as if they just lurch from huge transaction to huge transaction with
no time to consolidate what they've learned, and worry that by being
jack-of-all-trades they end up master of none. Long hours and mega-deals,
however, are features of life at all large firms - CC at least was the first of the big boys to follow SJ Berwin's lead
at the turn of the millennium and award its associates decent pay hikes (sparking a trend from which the whole City benefited, thank you very much).
It has, rather belatedly,
followed Allen & Overy's lead in hiking up pay yet further in the
current boom. Noone's going to complain about the figures on the
right. And all assistants are eligible for hefty bonuses, partly as a
reward for hours spent on
pro bono, training and knowledge development. Clifford Chance claims this will put
its top performers amongst the highest paid City lawyers.
It's not always been so rosy. Some
assistants were shown the door in the last recession,partners saw their average
profit share fall by 10% and one quarterly payment was delayed twice,
due in part to partners missing their billing and cash-collection
targets. Cashflow was further impeded by the cost of moving to new
London and NY offices - estimated to have come in at around £100m.
The Canary Wharf investment (and lack
of subtenants willing to rent parts of the building) also helped
to reduce
2003-04 profits. But they were back up again in 2004-05 and have
soared ever since. And from an assistant's point of
view it was a worthwhile investment. The offices may have cost a
fortune, and they may be in Docklands, but they are stunning. There's
an enormous gym, with ranks of the latest equipment and plasma screen
TVs, subsidised personal trainers, masseurs and beauticians on hand,
several restaurants, a swimming pool with views over London and - to
complete the hotel-like effect - even a gift shop.
Overseas, the States remains a thorny issue
for CC. Three years after it became the first big firm
to pull off a merger with a decent US outfit (Rogers & Wells),
a long-running row about partner remuneration came to the boil and
resulted in the loss of 17 of the aggrieved US partners. And
further trouble came from
across the pond in the shape of a well-publicised 13-page memo from
CC associates in the New York office to the partnership, outlining a
variety of grievances. CC has since made significant efforts to improve life in the NY
office: having come bottom in
The American Lawyer magazine's annual survey of associates in 2002,
it leapt 31 places to come
128th out of 159 firms in the 2003 poll, and managed 105 in 2004,
56th in 2005 and a respectable 42nd in 2006.
On the upside, its Spanish outpost is flourishing after
they advised Barclays on its £803m acquisition of Banco Zaragozano, a deal
which was widely seen as marking a coming of age for the relatively
new European office. It is currently the sixth largest practice in
Spain.
CC managed to elbow Linklaters off the coveted top spot in the
semi-annual Mergermarket tables which rank firms according to the
value and volume of European M&A work undertaken. CC won on both counts, with 96 transactions totalling £59.4bn. This success was largely attributed to David
Childs, who was CC's notoriously tough global head of corporate until
he was elevated into the dizzy heights of chief operating officer in
late 2003, then to global managing partner in May 2006.
The firm has the predictable raft of
high profile clients, recently advising Deutsche Bank on their purchase of Northumbrian
Water and Safeway on their sale to whoever the competition laws eventually
allow. And it's not just big corporate work - it was appointed as
the official advisor to the Hutton inquiry, instead of the
Government's Legal Services, who would usually take the job but in
this case would not have helped the vexed 'independence issue' very
much. It was also the first
UK firm to sign up to the Solicitors' Pro Bono Group and Bar Pro Bono
Unit's joint agreement which ties it into doing a certain amount of
work a year for free.
CC is spearheading the growing
campaign to replace the silk system for barristers with a 'kite mark'
of quality which would be available to all lawyers. So if you fancy
being in the vanguard of attempts to break down the divide between
solicitors and their bewigged relations, it might be the place to go. And
at the other end of the scale, trainees determined to avoid litigation
can do so - as long as they take a week's course
at Nottingham Law School and take part in the firm's pro bono scheme
(at one of the local law centres with which CC is associated) for one
evening a week for six months.
Working at a firm of this size brings the usual pros and cons. You will spend long hours as a small cog in a very big wheel, but then first class cash, support, training and work,
a truly international reputation and opportunities to work abroad provide ample compensation.
And, of course, there is that swimming pool...
For
more information about Clifford Chance
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here
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