Herbert Smith terminated its long-term European alliance and went off in an official huff this week, after receiving a massive slap in the face from its former best friends. 
 
Herbies had worked in alliance with German firm Gleiss Lutz and Benelux firm Stibbe for over 10 years. Certainly it all seemed very cosy as the firms shared work and know-how, practised under the same umbrella branding and even shared an office reception area. And a formal merger was a major part of Herbies' awkwardly-named "Project Blue Sky" strategic review. However when it put that proposal to its friends, it got a resounding nein from Gleiss and nee from Stibbe.

Cause if they liked it, then they should have put a ring on it

 
So Herbies announced it would be serving notice to quit the alliance. Tasty are they, those sour grapes? And with Europe gone and nothing in North America, Herbies looks a long way from the heady days in which it had the right to moan about not being considered a Magic Circle firm.

A spokesman said "we are now firmly in control of our international expansion and are pressing ahead with our plans to achieve this. We have the utmost respect for our Alliance partners and look forward to maintaining the good relationships we have developed with colleagues at Gleiss Lutz and Stibbe over the years."

According to Gleiss, their refusal to merger was to "preserve the values and ways of functioning that our clients and staff...value so much". Presumably that's rather than Herbert Smith's ways of functioning which include trainees getting biblical on the drinks trolley, managing out fistfuls of partners and paying Belfast-based solicitors £10 an hour.