July 25, 2023 • 38 mins
In this episode Rob and Murray are joined by Zulon Begum, oneof the world’s leading law firm merger and governance experts, and partner at UK powerhouse CM Murray for a conversation that spans the globe in about 30 minutes. Zulon, Rob and Murray provide their take on the pitch perfect communications around the putative Allen and Overy and Shearman and Sterling merger. Hear Zulon and Rob dissect the somewhat halting march towards liberalization in the Indian legal services market. And Rob tells us about a novel way for some firms to improve their Chambers rankings (hint, be bought out by the same PE fund that owns Chambers.) A big thanks to Zulon Begum for joiningus and sharing her prescient insights. We will definitely invite Zulon backsoon.
Contact Rob and Murray:
Robert C. Bata, Founder and Principal, WarwickPlace Legal
Email: rbata@warwickplace.com
Murray M. Coffey, Founder and Principal, M Coffey
Email: murray@mcoffey.net
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Unknown (00:00):
Robert, welcome to GMT, the podcast for globally minded
(00:05):
law firm leaders with your host.
Robert Bata, principal ofWarwick place legal and Murray
Coffey, principal of M Coffey,between them, Rob and Murray
have about three quarters of acentury's experience working
with some of the most notablelaw firms on the planet. This
podcast is designed to helpthose law firm leaders tasked
with growth make great decisionsabout whether and how to
(00:27):
implement cross border expansionfor their firms and what it
takes to succeed and now. RobBata,
Rob Bata (00:42):
hello, everybody. It's great to be back. I'm Robert
Bata, and I'm here with MurrayCoffey. As you know, we have the
GMT podcast that talks about allkinds of interesting things that
happen in the legal sphere, bothfrom the point of view of law
(01:02):
firms internationalization, lawfirm development, as well as
marketing and businessdevelopment, and how all of
those things intersect. Andtoday, we're very happy to have
Zulan Bagon of cm Murray, whichis a UK firm that specializes in
partnership issues, and Zulanparticularly has a great
(01:24):
reputation, not just in the UKbut around the world, as a not
just a partnership expert, butan expert on law firm mergers,
and because she does all thekinds of things that are really
relevant to What we do, thisshould be a very interesting
discussion today, and we'regoing to touch on a whole bunch
(01:44):
of different topics. We aregoing to be concise, but at the
same time, as thorough as wepossibly can be, and keep it to
a reasonable period of time. So
Unknown (01:58):
and welcome Zulan to GMT. We're really thrilled to
have you with us.
Thank you, Rob and Murray,really great to be here. Thank
you for having me superwell. Why don't we jump right
into it? And you know, talkabout the 800 pound gorilla that
is, is that is that it's kind ofsucking up all the oxygen, and
(02:21):
that is some recent, a recent,significant cross border merger.
And maybe we'll talk a littlebit about a failed merger, but,
but I think it's, I'll turn itover to you, Rob to kind of kick
us off on this. And reallyinterested in hearing what what
you and zule have to say aboutabout this, about the gorilla,
Rob Bata (02:46):
well, it's certainly fair to say that the discussion
has sucked a lot of the oxygenOut of commentary and in the
legal commentators field, in inprinciple, obviously, the ano
Sherman Sterling merger, if itgoes forward, will be a real
(03:10):
game changer, in the sense thatit will be one of the truly
Successful, integrated globalenterprises that really, so far
hasn't happened. You know, we'veobviously, there are many global
firms. A number of those arevarieties. They don't have full
integration. Sherman and anoboth have tremendous practices.
(03:34):
It, it's, it's really a homerun, if you will, for all for
mergers, there are some realquestions as to how many people
may yet depart. People have beendeparting, mostly from Sherman.
I think there's a real questionabout whether they're going to
(03:55):
be overlaps, and how that willaffect the various practices,
practice groups, practiceleaders, the vote, as far as I
can tell, has not yet beenscheduled. The expectation is
that the two partnerships willvote through the merger. And I
think the great significance ofthis merger is that it will get
(04:16):
a lot of other firms thinking,especially in my view, the
larger independent firms,including the independent firms
in Europe, which have beenfairly reluctant to do mergers
other than perhaps best friends,kinds of situations. And to that
extent, I think that this couldreally begin a process of major
(04:41):
international consolidation inthe legal field. Zulan, do you
think that's, that's accurateassessment? I
Unknown (04:50):
think so. I think Robert, you've really captured
it all. I think it's a majorstrategic goal for you know,
obviously they've been lookingfor. Opportunities in the US
market for quite a long time,and I understand they've been
looking for a merger for quite along time as well. I mean,
Melvin ear Myers a few yearsago, which didn't go through,
(05:13):
and Sherman probably was theright place at the right time,
having come through a failedmerger with Hogan Lovells and
having had some problems overthe last few years around its
leadership and its strategicdirection, where it's seen quite
a few partners actually leave.
So it was, it was, it was agreat strategy decision by, you
know, and also opportunistic inthat Chairman was available.
(05:35):
It's a great brand, but we're ina slightly weakened position,
and therefore that allowed Anato sweep in. And sounds like
this merger will be one thatwill go through. I understand
the vote is imminent, and itrequires a, I think, to a 75%
majority vote on both sides, butI'd be very surprised if it
(05:58):
didn't go ahead, given thedynamics involved. And I also
have to say that I'm prettyimpressed with the way it's been
handled, the marketing andcommunications around it. I
understand that the merger talksthemselves were kept with a very
tight group, and that meant itwasn't leaked and it was only
announced for the partners onthe morning that they made the
(06:21):
announcement to the market,which was, I think, on a Sunday.
And, you know, they had awebsite ready. They had a, you
know, press releases go out allat the same time. It was all it
looked like they had all theirducks in the road. And it seems
like, you know, looking at itfrom the outside, the perfect
merger execution strategy, whichwe always advise firms to do
(06:44):
when, when we're advising themon going going ahead with merger
that have a very good, you know,keep, keep the information
within the tight group to avoidleaks as far as possible.
Obviously, sometimes it'soutside of your control, but you
can do as much as you can inorder to control it. Also have a
strategy around consultingpartners at the right time,
(07:07):
because obviously you'll need tohave a partner vote at some
point. And also have a reallygood PR and communication
strategy all lined up right fromthe outset, so that if there are
leaks, or when it become, youknow, the time is right for it
to announce it you're, you'reabsolutely ready, and you have
everything to push button on,which seems like done.
(07:31):
I'll add, from my perspective,I've been watching this from,
from, you know, from a distance,pretty closely, because I it has
from, from jump. Seem like it'sbeen a very well executed in
terms of the communications andin terms of the media relations.
It looks like, I don't know thisfor sure, but it looks like
(07:51):
they're working with at leastone pretty significant media
consulting agency and myquestion, and I don't know this,
so I just lay this out there is,is, did they hire this agency to
(08:11):
represent the merged entity?
Because I've heard about, youknow, heard about that from a
financial standpoint, but from acommunication standpoint, having
a hiring a third party seems,there seems to be some benefit
to that, if that's indeed whatthey did. But you're right,
everything they did on this waswas executed perfectly. I was
really pleasantly surprised tosee that, you know, their
(08:33):
website was up, you know, almostcontemporaneous with the
announcement. And there's been afairly decent stream of
communication coming from bothfirms, you know, in the interim.
So, you know, Rob You and I havetalked about when the when the
when the message gets out beforethe firms are ready to which
(08:54):
maybe leads us to maybe a brieflook at a recent example of a of
a merger here in the states thatthat didn't quite go as as as
all the parties had expected?
Rob Bata (09:10):
Yeah, I would just add on the Sherman thing. Not only
was that really well executed,they were incredibly well
prepared. And one thing that Iunderstand happened was they
accelerated the announcement andeverything that went with it by
just three hours because theygot wind of the possibility that
(09:32):
there was going to be a leak,and they were ready to do that.
And the fact that they couldjump in and say, Okay, we're
going to we're going to movethree hours sooner than we
expected, but we're ready. Ithink that, in a way,
encapsulates how well they didthis. So the rest remains to be
seen, but picking up on whatyou've said here in the States
(09:53):
anyway, kind of the big the bignon news in. Merger world is the
firm of stroke and stroke andLevan, and the potential merger
with Nixon Peabody that had beenput out had been leaked as a
(10:14):
possibility that they wereperhaps merger discussions and
so forth. And as you and I,Murray, know that the our mantra
is, when there are leaks and ifthey, if they, if they persist,
that's often the death knell formergers. And in this case, it's
(10:35):
not even clear whether thosemerger discussions were going
on, there is some speculationthat one of the parties put that
out in order to suggest thatsomething is happening, or
something is a little bit moreconcrete than it really was. I
don't know the answer to that,but I think it's fairly clear
(10:56):
that the result of this, theseleaks, or if you will, the
placement into the news of of apotential merger is going to put
a lot of pressure on stroke,which has been consistently
losing large practice groups andas well as just individuals
(11:19):
through rival firms, and whileNixon Peabody seems to be doing
quite well and is in a verystrong position, there is a
sense, I think, in the legalcommunity, that if stroke
doesn't do something Soon, theremight be some dire consequences
(11:41):
for the firm. So it's too soon,of course, to predict the demise
of any firm, but one does haveto question, after knowing how
many firms they've alreadyspoken with for potential merger
and where this kind of cutacross cut across their their
bow. It it's not looking goodfor stroke, and that's just part
(12:08):
of it is, again, a lessonlearned. Don't Don't talk too
soon. Don't leak too soon. Don'thave things out there. Maybe
this was something that nobodywas responsible for. Somebody
got wind of something and itbecame news. But if somebody saw
fit to leak this in order toperhaps create some impression
(12:32):
that stroke was actually doingsomething in order to to
preserve itself, it was a badstrategy.
Unknown (12:41):
I agree. I see that happen in a number of mergers,
actually, especially wherethere's a distress or a slightly
distress firm, and it becomesweaker as a result of, you know,
being talked of as being in,being in potential merger talks,
which never take off. And thenit becomes viewed as being the
one that's been left on theshelf, and therefore there must
(13:01):
be something wrong with it. Soyou have to really, really plan
for this scenario and make surethat you're controlling the
narrative around it. And again,part of that is making sure you
have good NDAs in place, thatyou reiterate to your partners
their confidential,confidentiality obligations to
the firm and the fiduciaryduties to the firm around leaks,
(13:24):
because most leaks tend to comefrom individual partners, and as
I said before, trying to keepthe lines of communication to a
very small group so you cancontrol that. Obviously, as I
said, you would need to go outto a wider partner vote at some
point. But it sounds likestricken Nixon people he wasn't,
weren't at that stage, and theleaks were very premature. So
(13:46):
trying to prevent those is, youknow, absolutely especially for
a firm that's in distress,
Rob Bata (13:52):
I usually tell my clients, in fact, I invariably
tell my clients to think interms of concentric circles.
Have a very, very, very smallgroup, or sometimes just one
individual who who is involvedin getting a merger discussion
going, and then slowly expandthe circle, but very slowly, and
(14:16):
ultimately be ready to to go tothe press and to go to the
public with something that'spretty close to a finished
product, and but sometimes it'sinevitable. And as you've said,
it's very often a partner whowill leak, and usually that's in
order to sabotage it. And it'svery rarely a leak because you
(14:38):
want to be seen as an insider,or because you want to be seen
as you want the world to showthat your firm is doing
something really important.
It's, usually, it's, it's ameans of basically giving,
giving it the coup de grace.
Yeah,
Unknown (14:57):
sorry. Go ahead zone.
Go ahead please. And. Mean it.
There's also an issue aroundwhether management in a firm
feels they have the sufficientmandate to go out and negotiate
the merger. And it's importantthat you have that, whether
that's through your businessplan, ensuring that you as your
one of your strategicobjectives, you you've just, you
know, mentioned it or discussedit with partners, that merger is
(15:19):
on, potentially on the cards,and that you have the, you know,
the mandate in order to go outand have those discussions with
other firms without goingimmediately to some kind of
partner vote. And then that mayrequire some changes to your to
a firm's constitutionalagreements, for example, around
governance and what, what powersthe board or the managing
partner might have to do that?
Yeah, a lot of advancedplanning, I think, if that's
(15:44):
something that a firm wants toexplore,
Rob Bata (15:50):
but the point about having the right documentation,
I that's so crucial. So manypartnership agreements really
don't have proper provision forhow to deal with with
confidentiality, and, yeah, Imean, there'll be some
boilerplate language, but, butthose are the and I'm sure that
(16:11):
you've seen and you've probablycrafted many very good ones,
but, but that can be a problem.
I want to go back for a secondto the point earlier, about
Sherman and A and L, in terms ofwhat this means for the law firm
world, and what it's motivating.
(16:32):
And I definitely contend thatthat internationalization is
unstoppable and not withstandingpolitics and wars and so on and
so forth. We live in a globaland globalized world, and law
firms of varying degrees ofsophistication are deciding, and
will be deciding, to get biggeror to do mergers or to be more
(16:56):
global. Almost all business isglobal. If you're going to
represent businesses, you needto be fairly International. But
you know, not, not, not everyonehas to be everywhere, and also
depends on, on, on certain typesof practices. So, you know,
there are boutiques that don'thave to be global or very big,
(17:18):
but others, others do so aninteresting development. Just
the other day, I saw that thereis a probably one of the leading
Polish firms, vardinski andPartners, is it's a fantastic
firm, and ski is a good friendof mine, and I respect what he's
(17:43):
accomplished. Notwithstandingall of the international firms
in Poland and polish legalbusiness is pretty good, he's
managed to grow his firm andremain independent, and yet,
just the other day, 27 of hispeople left to join wolf Tice,
the Austrian firm, because as asthe group, the departing group,
(18:10):
has said they feel the need tobe part of something much
larger. And I think we're goingto see more and more of that.
We're going to see independentfirms having to defend the
decision to remain independent.
And of course, there are goodreasons that many of them have
for remaining independent, but Ithink they're going to be
(18:32):
working harder to defend thosepositions when lawyers with
successful practices, say Icould do so much more for my
clients if I were with a largerfirm, or if I were incredibly
able to say that I have anoffice in Paris or an office in
Brussels or an office inKazakhstan, or whatever it may
be. And so I think it's an itch.
(18:57):
I can't quite say that it's thebeginning of a trend, but it's
just an interesting kind ofdevelopment that's just happened
that when you put it up againstthe Sherman and A and O thing
makes you, makes you wonder alittle bit.
Unknown (19:11):
And verdinski is has historically been a very strong,
maybe the strongest, firm in inPoland, actually had the good
fortune of meeting, meeting panbardinski In Warsaw many years
ago. Quite a, quite a, quite a,interesting and an engaging
gentleman, that's for sure. He's
Rob Bata (19:29):
a good friend, and I just spent quite a bit of time
with him so that I was
Unknown (19:37):
just going to add to that, Rob, that I completely
agree with what you've said. Ithink it's especially if you're
a full service firm, fullservice independent firm in a
jurisdiction, it will becomeincreasingly difficult to stay
independent and stay a certainsize, given the move towards
consolidation on aninternational level. And
(19:58):
obviously, I. Clients have needsin various jurisdictions, and
preference, often is for onestop shops. And how do you kind
of manage that with the desireto stay independent? That's
going to be what firms are goingto have to weigh up. Yeah,
Rob Bata (20:14):
absolutely, I think that's right. So, so speaking of
that, what's the what's themarketplace looking like out
there. What's been going on inthe in the great big world out
there?
Unknown (20:28):
Well, I guess in the UK over the last six months, I
guess the probably the biggestmerger story was the distressed
acquisition of Inspire, anoutfit called axiom dwfm, who
went were not really, again,seemed like a reverse takeover,
similar to what Gordon dads didwhen it acquired in. Again, it
(20:50):
was a much bigger firm that thatwas acquired by a small, smaller
firm, and that firm has now beenacquired for another, by another
smaller firm. And I thinkthere's a various factors
involved. So, you know, it'soriginally before it was
acquired by Gordon dads. It wasin distress for various reasons,
and it was a traditional lawfirm, and then it went into an
(21:11):
ABS, a listed firm. Andobviously, listed firms in the
UK have their own challenges,and the market hasn't been great
over the last few years, andbeing listed brings its own kind
of additional reportingrequirements around
profitability. There's much moretransparency around that that
you don't get in a partnershipwhere you're able to keep some
(21:31):
of that information private andthen therefore protect, preserve
some of the firm fromeffectively public scrutiny,
which kind of gives you thebreathing space to maybe sort
things out. That's much moredifficult in a listed
environment. Obviously, inschool and dads had issues with
changes in management and someturmoil around that, which
(21:54):
probably all of whichcontributed to where it's got to
now, having been acquired byaxiom. And so there was that
news story in the UK onlyyesterday, dwf, another listed
firm. It was reported thatthey're in talks with PE firm,
inflection on potentially beingacquired by private equity, and
(22:16):
I assume maybe delisting, thoughit's not quite clear. Again, it
goes to show the difficulties ofbeing in the listed environment,
and that it's probably a bigculture shock for some of these
law firm partners going from aprivate partnership or ILP,
(22:37):
governance model, remunerationmodel, to being partly owned by
external investors. In a in alisted environment where you
have to share quarterlyinformation, have to allow
external governance within yourstructure, where remuneration
has is held by you know,external stakeholders as well as
(23:00):
your partners. All of that is,is still fairly new in the UK
market. And we have, at themoment, I think, still six
listed law firms. I wouldn't sayany of them are, have been
outstanding successes so far.
But again, it may be acombination of things that are
going in the mark on in the onin the market, capital markets
(23:20):
at the moment arounddifficulties in raising
investment, etc, but it's alsopartly down to individual
management and what is going onin each each of those firms?
Rob Bata (23:35):
Yeah, I think it's interesting. The market seems to
have responded pretty positivelyto the news about dwf, but it
remains to be seen whether,whether that that goes forward.
It's It's also interesting to methat well, as you say, the
market has not been kind tothese and dwf, of course, has
(23:57):
been in the market and and maybethere it, it's probably not as
difficult to transition for thelawyers within dwf to to to go
through another transaction likethis, because they've, they've
already been exposed to that,that way of life, but, but it is
(24:22):
interesting that dwf, which Ithink for a long time, was seen
as kind of being in distresswith lots and lots of debt, and
now there's a perception thatmaybe they're actually doing a
little bit better, and nowthey're sellable. I have some
skepticism about that, but it'salso the other interesting
(24:42):
thing, of course, is that theprivate equity firm that may be
acquiring them also happens toown chambers and partners. No,
Unknown (24:51):
really, I didn't know that directory.
Improve their rankings along
Rob Bata (24:58):
Absolutely. Yeah, maybe so. You know, everybody
will be in band one all of asudden. So outside of the UK and
the US, I think we're seeingexpansion into different
jurisdictions. Some of it, Isee, has been driven and on the
(25:19):
patent side, because the unifiedpatent court has now begun to
function as of June one. Soyou've had two UK firms that
have opened up in Dublin inorder to to make it easier for
them to handle UPC cases. Therehave been some openings
(25:42):
elsewhere in Europe. I thinkthat it looked just kind of
doing our little summary aroundthe world, the Middle East
remains strong. Kirkland andEllis now has finally decided to
open in Saudi Arabia. I thinkthat was widely expected. I
noticed, though, that Simmonshas announced that they're
they're pulling out of Qatar asof but that's not terribly
(26:10):
surprising to me. I'm not surethat that's been such a great
jurisdiction for for foreign lawfirms. I think it's they're much
more tightly regulated there.
And I just don't think that thefees there or the projects there
are as attractive or have asmuch potential as, for example,
in Saudi Arabia or in or in theUAE, with Abu Dhabi and Dubai
(26:30):
firms keep pulling out of China,mainland China. It's not, not
surprising. I think that Chinais turning inward a lot, and
foreign firms are struggling. Onthe other hand, firms are
opening in the new Greater BayArea of China, which is
(26:55):
essentially the Pearl RiverDelta that contains Shenzhen,
Guangzhou and Hong Kong, as wellas a few other mega cities, and
it's part of a larger Chineseproject to create A an enormous
(27:15):
economic zone, but I think italso has the potential and
perhaps the intention ofdiminishing the role of Hong
Kong. But just recently, homeand Fennec, hfw, as well as I
think Morgan Lewis, haveannounced that their opening
offices in this Greater Bayarea, so that needs to be
(27:40):
balanced against people pullingout of the rest of China and
going into this economic zone,and perhaps those who still feel
that Hong Kong really still hasA significant future, which I'm
one of those people without.
(28:03):
Making any political statementsabout it, I think that there's
still a lot that Hong Kong iscapable of accomplishing, and
there's a lot of cash there. Andthe financial business, the
FinTech business, cryptobusiness, and not to mention
arbitration litigation and soforth, remain very, very, very
strong. So going into theGreater Bay Economic Zone is one
(28:30):
way of keeping ties with HongKong for these law firms that
are doing that, and at the sametime kind of positioning
themselves to have a greaterrole in the Chinese economy. So
that's that's just my perceptionon that. Are you seeing anything
else along Murray go on? Well,
Unknown (28:52):
I think the other kind of big international news in the
last six months was about India.
Obviously, India has been a verytough market to get a foothold
in, because of the regulatoryenvironment and the resistance
to change among the professionthere and the government, as
well, being very resistant toopen up the market. So the Bar
Council of India issued aannouncement in March which seem
(29:16):
to say that international lawfirms which have reciprocal
arrangements with India. So forexample, if Indian lawyers are
recognized in your jurisdiction,then you would be entitled to
have your lawyers open apractice in India and practice
their own home jurisdiction lawthere. So effectively, what the
(29:38):
announcement seemed to say isthat foreign lawyers could open
offices in India and register toprovide foreign law services to
Indian clients, which was, youknow, very positively received
at the time, and lots of manyinternational law firms kind of
expressed interest in it. Butonly a few days later, the Bar
(30:00):
Council then turned around andissued a clarification to say,
actually, you can come and openan office and register over
here, but you can't adviseIndian clients, which seems to
be a tightening of the currentregulations, because I
understand lots of law firmsadvise Indian clients on foreign
law rather jurisdictions. So itseemed to go road back on it. So
(30:22):
it's created a whole environmentof uncertainty. And I doubt that
in this environment any law forinternational law firms will be
looking to, you know, head intothat jurisdiction very quickly.
I think there'll be no period ofwait and see and see if there's
any further updates as to anymore, whether any more
(30:42):
clarification comes out on thoserules, and also the rules
themselves were silent onwhether, more, you know,
international law firms could goin and establish associations
with Indian law firms or acquireIndian law firms. So it's, it's,
you know, it's a very ambiguoussituation at the moment,
Rob Bata (31:05):
yeah, I think so much of it is in the implementation.
And even in the originalstatement from the from the Bar
Council there, it did contain areference to the fact that,
basically, they can change theirmind about it anytime. So
(31:28):
foreign firms, having alreadyhad a little bit of a difficult
experience in India, and havingbeen having been told to pack up
and leave, I think are going tobe very cautious about getting
in. I of course, Danton didestablish some kind of an
association with a local firm,which they've tried to
(31:48):
characterize as an acquisitionor as a merger, but, but really
is not I think these are twostandalone firms, but that that
may be, that may be giving ussome kind of a roadmap of what
may be possible down the road.
But again, I think that mostfirms, especially firms that
already have very successfulIndia related practices, which
(32:09):
they conduct from the UK or fromSingapore or Hong Kong or
wherever else, are going tothink twice about whether or not
they want to do that, and thenwhether or not they want to take
on the really gigantic Indianlaw firms that that dominate the
high value transaction andlitigation space. I
Unknown (32:36):
agree, and I should add that the the announcement that
came from the Bar Council alsosaid that you'd have to re
register or renew your licenseevery few years, and of course,
it could change the its mind atthat point, so there was no
there weren't offering muchcertainty or permanency there.
Rob Bata (32:56):
Yeah, I think, I think this is part of what I think is
a very salubrious development inIndia, which is that the current
government, for, you know,whatever, whatever other faults
it may have, I think, isdefinitely very interested in
playing much more of a globalrole, and much more interested
in the growth of the Indianeconomy, which India, I Think,
(33:19):
will become the most populousnation in the world, not far
from now, and I think they willcertainly be the third largest
economy, and so and and someday,I suspect they won't be the
second so. So in that sense, Ithink this is consistent with
(33:41):
with the political environment,but as they say, the devil is in
the details. So we'll see.
Unknown (33:50):
I'd like to circle back to one point you made earlier,
Rob, and I'd be interested ingetting your impressions on the
zillion as well. You were sayingthat there are some firms that
are opening up to with, with thewith the unified IP courts that
have, yeah, in the you correct?
And I think, I think there wassome in Dublin, maybe there was
(34:12):
Dublin. Seem to be a spot thatthat firms are opening. Do you
think that represents anopportunity for some of the big
us, IP centered firms, to getmore engaged there, or does it?
Is it? Is it going to be alittle bit more of a walled
garden?
Rob Bata (34:33):
Well, I think it does.
I think you're now seeing IPpatents, patent defense, patent
prosecution, as being extremelyvibrant practices in the US. I
noticed, for example, that myold firm, which almost never
takes in lateral partners,O'Sullivan and Cromwell, just
(34:55):
brought in somebody who was, Ithink, the head. The US Patent
Office to to to lead theirpatents practice in Washington.
I think it's very, veryimportant for us firms, and I
would think that having accessto the unified patent court in
the EU is going to be animportant goal, yeah, for sure.
(35:18):
But of course, many of them,which already have offices in
the EU, I think, will be able todo that. They won't really need
to do anything special. If youlook at the firm of Powell and
Gilbert, which, which is one ofthe great IP practices in the
UK, they didn't have any otheroffices. So for them, it was
(35:39):
absolutely essential to open inDublin now, and I think the
same, same goes for for theother firm that opened, which I
think was Bristow of the UK. Sothe answer is yes. I think
people will be pursuing that forUS firms, in the past, they've
(36:02):
tended to focus on Germany,because Germany patents
jurisdiction can
Unknown (36:11):
All right, yeah,
Rob Bata (36:13):
now, now they don't really have to do that. They can
be looking elsewhere too.
Unknown (36:20):
Yeah, I would agree on that if you have, as a firm,
have a big IP practice, then youdo need to have a presence that
would allow you access to theUPC. And if that means opening
an office in the in an EU memberstate to do that, then it
becomes a strategic necessity,
Rob Bata (36:39):
right? Yep, is there, is there anything else that we
need to be discussing? I thinkthis has been such a great
session and and so on. Murray,both of you have such a such a
great way of, sort ofintersecting your knowledge in
in what we like to talk about.
It's been great fun.
Unknown (37:01):
Absolutely. Enjoyed it.
Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.
And I hope, I hope so on, maybesometime in the in the future,
we can have you come on back andwe'll take a look at some of
these issues that we talkedabout and update and see what's
see what's new, and hear moreabout what you're seeing from
from your perch. It hascertainly was, was really
interesting. Take her there.
(37:21):
I'd be really delighted. Andthere's always stuff going on
and stuff to talk about, so bereally delighted to join you
again inthe future. Thank you. It's been
a pleasure and an honor to hostyou on our podcast. Rob as
always, great. Great to see you.
Great to hear from you, andwe'll pick up on this a little
bit later. Now we'll closeGoodbye, everybody.
Rob Bata (37:46):
Goodbye. Everyone bye, everyone you.
Robert, welcome to GMT, the podcast for globally minded
(00:05):
law firm leaders with your host.
Robert Bata, principal ofWarwick place legal and Murray
Coffey, principal of M Coffey,between them, Rob and Murray
have about three quarters of acentury's experience working
with some of the most notablelaw firms on the planet. This
podcast is designed to helpthose law firm leaders tasked
with growth make great decisionsabout whether and how to
(00:27):
implement cross border expansionfor their firms and what it
takes to succeed and now. RobBata,
Rob Bata (00:42):
hello, everybody. It's great to be back. I'm Robert
Bata, and I'm here with MurrayCoffey. As you know, we have the
GMT podcast that talks about allkinds of interesting things that
happen in the legal sphere, bothfrom the point of view of law
(01:02):
firms internationalization, lawfirm development, as well as
marketing and businessdevelopment, and how all of
those things intersect. Andtoday, we're very happy to have
Zulan Bagon of cm Murray, whichis a UK firm that specializes in
partnership issues, and Zulanparticularly has a great
(01:24):
reputation, not just in the UKbut around the world, as a not
just a partnership expert, butan expert on law firm mergers,
and because she does all thekinds of things that are really
relevant to What we do, thisshould be a very interesting
discussion today, and we'regoing to touch on a whole bunch
(01:44):
of different topics. We aregoing to be concise, but at the
same time, as thorough as wepossibly can be, and keep it to
a reasonable period of time. So
Unknown (01:58):
and welcome Zulan to GMT. We're really thrilled to
have you with us.
Thank you, Rob and Murray,really great to be here. Thank
you for having me superwell. Why don't we jump right
into it? And you know, talkabout the 800 pound gorilla that
is, is that is that it's kind ofsucking up all the oxygen, and
(02:21):
that is some recent, a recent,significant cross border merger.
And maybe we'll talk a littlebit about a failed merger, but,
but I think it's, I'll turn itover to you, Rob to kind of kick
us off on this. And reallyinterested in hearing what what
you and zule have to say aboutabout this, about the gorilla,
Rob Bata (02:46):
well, it's certainly fair to say that the discussion
has sucked a lot of the oxygenOut of commentary and in the
legal commentators field, in inprinciple, obviously, the ano
Sherman Sterling merger, if itgoes forward, will be a real
(03:10):
game changer, in the sense thatit will be one of the truly
Successful, integrated globalenterprises that really, so far
hasn't happened. You know, we'veobviously, there are many global
firms. A number of those arevarieties. They don't have full
integration. Sherman and anoboth have tremendous practices.
(03:34):
It, it's, it's really a homerun, if you will, for all for
mergers, there are some realquestions as to how many people
may yet depart. People have beendeparting, mostly from Sherman.
I think there's a real questionabout whether they're going to
(03:55):
be overlaps, and how that willaffect the various practices,
practice groups, practiceleaders, the vote, as far as I
can tell, has not yet beenscheduled. The expectation is
that the two partnerships willvote through the merger. And I
think the great significance ofthis merger is that it will get
(04:16):
a lot of other firms thinking,especially in my view, the
larger independent firms,including the independent firms
in Europe, which have beenfairly reluctant to do mergers
other than perhaps best friends,kinds of situations. And to that
extent, I think that this couldreally begin a process of major
(04:41):
international consolidation inthe legal field. Zulan, do you
think that's, that's accurateassessment? I
Unknown (04:50):
think so. I think Robert, you've really captured
it all. I think it's a majorstrategic goal for you know,
obviously they've been lookingfor. Opportunities in the US
market for quite a long time,and I understand they've been
looking for a merger for quite along time as well. I mean,
Melvin ear Myers a few yearsago, which didn't go through,
(05:13):
and Sherman probably was theright place at the right time,
having come through a failedmerger with Hogan Lovells and
having had some problems overthe last few years around its
leadership and its strategicdirection, where it's seen quite
a few partners actually leave.
So it was, it was, it was agreat strategy decision by, you
know, and also opportunistic inthat Chairman was available.
(05:35):
It's a great brand, but we're ina slightly weakened position,
and therefore that allowed Anato sweep in. And sounds like
this merger will be one thatwill go through. I understand
the vote is imminent, and itrequires a, I think, to a 75%
majority vote on both sides, butI'd be very surprised if it
(05:58):
didn't go ahead, given thedynamics involved. And I also
have to say that I'm prettyimpressed with the way it's been
handled, the marketing andcommunications around it. I
understand that the merger talksthemselves were kept with a very
tight group, and that meant itwasn't leaked and it was only
announced for the partners onthe morning that they made the
(06:21):
announcement to the market,which was, I think, on a Sunday.
And, you know, they had awebsite ready. They had a, you
know, press releases go out allat the same time. It was all it
looked like they had all theirducks in the road. And it seems
like, you know, looking at itfrom the outside, the perfect
merger execution strategy, whichwe always advise firms to do
(06:44):
when, when we're advising themon going going ahead with merger
that have a very good, you know,keep, keep the information
within the tight group to avoidleaks as far as possible.
Obviously, sometimes it'soutside of your control, but you
can do as much as you can inorder to control it. Also have a
strategy around consultingpartners at the right time,
(07:07):
because obviously you'll need tohave a partner vote at some
point. And also have a reallygood PR and communication
strategy all lined up right fromthe outset, so that if there are
leaks, or when it become, youknow, the time is right for it
to announce it you're, you'reabsolutely ready, and you have
everything to push button on,which seems like done.
(07:31):
I'll add, from my perspective,I've been watching this from,
from, you know, from a distance,pretty closely, because I it has
from, from jump. Seem like it'sbeen a very well executed in
terms of the communications andin terms of the media relations.
It looks like, I don't know thisfor sure, but it looks like
(07:51):
they're working with at leastone pretty significant media
consulting agency and myquestion, and I don't know this,
so I just lay this out there is,is, did they hire this agency to
(08:11):
represent the merged entity?
Because I've heard about, youknow, heard about that from a
financial standpoint, but from acommunication standpoint, having
a hiring a third party seems,there seems to be some benefit
to that, if that's indeed whatthey did. But you're right,
everything they did on this waswas executed perfectly. I was
really pleasantly surprised tosee that, you know, their
(08:33):
website was up, you know, almostcontemporaneous with the
announcement. And there's been afairly decent stream of
communication coming from bothfirms, you know, in the interim.
So, you know, Rob You and I havetalked about when the when the
when the message gets out beforethe firms are ready to which
(08:54):
maybe leads us to maybe a brieflook at a recent example of a of
a merger here in the states thatthat didn't quite go as as as
all the parties had expected?
Rob Bata (09:10):
Yeah, I would just add on the Sherman thing. Not only
was that really well executed,they were incredibly well
prepared. And one thing that Iunderstand happened was they
accelerated the announcement andeverything that went with it by
just three hours because theygot wind of the possibility that
(09:32):
there was going to be a leak,and they were ready to do that.
And the fact that they couldjump in and say, Okay, we're
going to we're going to movethree hours sooner than we
expected, but we're ready. Ithink that, in a way,
encapsulates how well they didthis. So the rest remains to be
seen, but picking up on whatyou've said here in the States
(09:53):
anyway, kind of the big the bignon news in. Merger world is the
firm of stroke and stroke andLevan, and the potential merger
with Nixon Peabody that had beenput out had been leaked as a
(10:14):
possibility that they wereperhaps merger discussions and
so forth. And as you and I,Murray, know that the our mantra
is, when there are leaks and ifthey, if they, if they persist,
that's often the death knell formergers. And in this case, it's
(10:35):
not even clear whether thosemerger discussions were going
on, there is some speculationthat one of the parties put that
out in order to suggest thatsomething is happening, or
something is a little bit moreconcrete than it really was. I
don't know the answer to that,but I think it's fairly clear
(10:56):
that the result of this, theseleaks, or if you will, the
placement into the news of of apotential merger is going to put
a lot of pressure on stroke,which has been consistently
losing large practice groups andas well as just individuals
(11:19):
through rival firms, and whileNixon Peabody seems to be doing
quite well and is in a verystrong position, there is a
sense, I think, in the legalcommunity, that if stroke
doesn't do something Soon, theremight be some dire consequences
(11:41):
for the firm. So it's too soon,of course, to predict the demise
of any firm, but one does haveto question, after knowing how
many firms they've alreadyspoken with for potential merger
and where this kind of cutacross cut across their their
bow. It it's not looking goodfor stroke, and that's just part
(12:08):
of it is, again, a lessonlearned. Don't Don't talk too
soon. Don't leak too soon. Don'thave things out there. Maybe
this was something that nobodywas responsible for. Somebody
got wind of something and itbecame news. But if somebody saw
fit to leak this in order toperhaps create some impression
(12:32):
that stroke was actually doingsomething in order to to
preserve itself, it was a badstrategy.
Unknown (12:41):
I agree. I see that happen in a number of mergers,
actually, especially wherethere's a distress or a slightly
distress firm, and it becomesweaker as a result of, you know,
being talked of as being in,being in potential merger talks,
which never take off. And thenit becomes viewed as being the
one that's been left on theshelf, and therefore there must
(13:01):
be something wrong with it. Soyou have to really, really plan
for this scenario and make surethat you're controlling the
narrative around it. And again,part of that is making sure you
have good NDAs in place, thatyou reiterate to your partners
their confidential,confidentiality obligations to
the firm and the fiduciaryduties to the firm around leaks,
(13:24):
because most leaks tend to comefrom individual partners, and as
I said before, trying to keepthe lines of communication to a
very small group so you cancontrol that. Obviously, as I
said, you would need to go outto a wider partner vote at some
point. But it sounds likestricken Nixon people he wasn't,
weren't at that stage, and theleaks were very premature. So
(13:46):
trying to prevent those is, youknow, absolutely especially for
a firm that's in distress,
Rob Bata (13:52):
I usually tell my clients, in fact, I invariably
tell my clients to think interms of concentric circles.
Have a very, very, very smallgroup, or sometimes just one
individual who who is involvedin getting a merger discussion
going, and then slowly expandthe circle, but very slowly, and
(14:16):
ultimately be ready to to go tothe press and to go to the
public with something that'spretty close to a finished
product, and but sometimes it'sinevitable. And as you've said,
it's very often a partner whowill leak, and usually that's in
order to sabotage it. And it'svery rarely a leak because you
(14:38):
want to be seen as an insider,or because you want to be seen
as you want the world to showthat your firm is doing
something really important.
It's, usually, it's, it's ameans of basically giving,
giving it the coup de grace.
Yeah,
Unknown (14:57):
sorry. Go ahead zone.
Go ahead please. And. Mean it.
There's also an issue aroundwhether management in a firm
feels they have the sufficientmandate to go out and negotiate
the merger. And it's importantthat you have that, whether
that's through your businessplan, ensuring that you as your
one of your strategicobjectives, you you've just, you
know, mentioned it or discussedit with partners, that merger is
(15:19):
on, potentially on the cards,and that you have the, you know,
the mandate in order to go outand have those discussions with
other firms without goingimmediately to some kind of
partner vote. And then that mayrequire some changes to your to
a firm's constitutionalagreements, for example, around
governance and what, what powersthe board or the managing
partner might have to do that?
Yeah, a lot of advancedplanning, I think, if that's
(15:44):
something that a firm wants toexplore,
Rob Bata (15:50):
but the point about having the right documentation,
I that's so crucial. So manypartnership agreements really
don't have proper provision forhow to deal with with
confidentiality, and, yeah, Imean, there'll be some
boilerplate language, but, butthose are the and I'm sure that
(16:11):
you've seen and you've probablycrafted many very good ones,
but, but that can be a problem.
I want to go back for a secondto the point earlier, about
Sherman and A and L, in terms ofwhat this means for the law firm
world, and what it's motivating.
(16:32):
And I definitely contend thatthat internationalization is
unstoppable and not withstandingpolitics and wars and so on and
so forth. We live in a globaland globalized world, and law
firms of varying degrees ofsophistication are deciding, and
will be deciding, to get biggeror to do mergers or to be more
(16:56):
global. Almost all business isglobal. If you're going to
represent businesses, you needto be fairly International. But
you know, not, not, not everyonehas to be everywhere, and also
depends on, on, on certain typesof practices. So, you know,
there are boutiques that don'thave to be global or very big,
(17:18):
but others, others do so aninteresting development. Just
the other day, I saw that thereis a probably one of the leading
Polish firms, vardinski andPartners, is it's a fantastic
firm, and ski is a good friendof mine, and I respect what he's
(17:43):
accomplished. Notwithstandingall of the international firms
in Poland and polish legalbusiness is pretty good, he's
managed to grow his firm andremain independent, and yet,
just the other day, 27 of hispeople left to join wolf Tice,
the Austrian firm, because as asthe group, the departing group,
(18:10):
has said they feel the need tobe part of something much
larger. And I think we're goingto see more and more of that.
We're going to see independentfirms having to defend the
decision to remain independent.
And of course, there are goodreasons that many of them have
for remaining independent, but Ithink they're going to be
(18:32):
working harder to defend thosepositions when lawyers with
successful practices, say Icould do so much more for my
clients if I were with a largerfirm, or if I were incredibly
able to say that I have anoffice in Paris or an office in
Brussels or an office inKazakhstan, or whatever it may
be. And so I think it's an itch.
(18:57):
I can't quite say that it's thebeginning of a trend, but it's
just an interesting kind ofdevelopment that's just happened
that when you put it up againstthe Sherman and A and O thing
makes you, makes you wonder alittle bit.
Unknown (19:11):
And verdinski is has historically been a very strong,
maybe the strongest, firm in inPoland, actually had the good
fortune of meeting, meeting panbardinski In Warsaw many years
ago. Quite a, quite a, quite a,interesting and an engaging
gentleman, that's for sure. He's
Rob Bata (19:29):
a good friend, and I just spent quite a bit of time
with him so that I was
Unknown (19:37):
just going to add to that, Rob, that I completely
agree with what you've said. Ithink it's especially if you're
a full service firm, fullservice independent firm in a
jurisdiction, it will becomeincreasingly difficult to stay
independent and stay a certainsize, given the move towards
consolidation on aninternational level. And
(19:58):
obviously, I. Clients have needsin various jurisdictions, and
preference, often is for onestop shops. And how do you kind
of manage that with the desireto stay independent? That's
going to be what firms are goingto have to weigh up. Yeah,
Rob Bata (20:14):
absolutely, I think that's right. So, so speaking of
that, what's the what's themarketplace looking like out
there. What's been going on inthe in the great big world out
there?
Unknown (20:28):
Well, I guess in the UK over the last six months, I
guess the probably the biggestmerger story was the distressed
acquisition of Inspire, anoutfit called axiom dwfm, who
went were not really, again,seemed like a reverse takeover,
similar to what Gordon dads didwhen it acquired in. Again, it
(20:50):
was a much bigger firm that thatwas acquired by a small, smaller
firm, and that firm has now beenacquired for another, by another
smaller firm. And I thinkthere's a various factors
involved. So, you know, it'soriginally before it was
acquired by Gordon dads. It wasin distress for various reasons,
and it was a traditional lawfirm, and then it went into an
(21:11):
ABS, a listed firm. Andobviously, listed firms in the
UK have their own challenges,and the market hasn't been great
over the last few years, andbeing listed brings its own kind
of additional reportingrequirements around
profitability. There's much moretransparency around that that
you don't get in a partnershipwhere you're able to keep some
(21:31):
of that information private andthen therefore protect, preserve
some of the firm fromeffectively public scrutiny,
which kind of gives you thebreathing space to maybe sort
things out. That's much moredifficult in a listed
environment. Obviously, inschool and dads had issues with
changes in management and someturmoil around that, which
(21:54):
probably all of whichcontributed to where it's got to
now, having been acquired byaxiom. And so there was that
news story in the UK onlyyesterday, dwf, another listed
firm. It was reported thatthey're in talks with PE firm,
inflection on potentially beingacquired by private equity, and
(22:16):
I assume maybe delisting, thoughit's not quite clear. Again, it
goes to show the difficulties ofbeing in the listed environment,
and that it's probably a bigculture shock for some of these
law firm partners going from aprivate partnership or ILP,
(22:37):
governance model, remunerationmodel, to being partly owned by
external investors. In a in alisted environment where you
have to share quarterlyinformation, have to allow
external governance within yourstructure, where remuneration
has is held by you know,external stakeholders as well as
(23:00):
your partners. All of that is,is still fairly new in the UK
market. And we have, at themoment, I think, still six
listed law firms. I wouldn't sayany of them are, have been
outstanding successes so far.
But again, it may be acombination of things that are
going in the mark on in the onin the market, capital markets
(23:20):
at the moment arounddifficulties in raising
investment, etc, but it's alsopartly down to individual
management and what is going onin each each of those firms?
Rob Bata (23:35):
Yeah, I think it's interesting. The market seems to
have responded pretty positivelyto the news about dwf, but it
remains to be seen whether,whether that that goes forward.
It's It's also interesting to methat well, as you say, the
market has not been kind tothese and dwf, of course, has
(23:57):
been in the market and and maybethere it, it's probably not as
difficult to transition for thelawyers within dwf to to to go
through another transaction likethis, because they've, they've
already been exposed to that,that way of life, but, but it is
(24:22):
interesting that dwf, which Ithink for a long time, was seen
as kind of being in distresswith lots and lots of debt, and
now there's a perception thatmaybe they're actually doing a
little bit better, and nowthey're sellable. I have some
skepticism about that, but it'salso the other interesting
(24:42):
thing, of course, is that theprivate equity firm that may be
acquiring them also happens toown chambers and partners. No,
Unknown (24:51):
really, I didn't know that directory.
Improve their rankings along
Rob Bata (24:58):
Absolutely. Yeah, maybe so. You know, everybody
will be in band one all of asudden. So outside of the UK and
the US, I think we're seeingexpansion into different
jurisdictions. Some of it, Isee, has been driven and on the
(25:19):
patent side, because the unifiedpatent court has now begun to
function as of June one. Soyou've had two UK firms that
have opened up in Dublin inorder to to make it easier for
them to handle UPC cases. Therehave been some openings
(25:42):
elsewhere in Europe. I thinkthat it looked just kind of
doing our little summary aroundthe world, the Middle East
remains strong. Kirkland andEllis now has finally decided to
open in Saudi Arabia. I thinkthat was widely expected. I
noticed, though, that Simmonshas announced that they're
they're pulling out of Qatar asof but that's not terribly
(26:10):
surprising to me. I'm not surethat that's been such a great
jurisdiction for for foreign lawfirms. I think it's they're much
more tightly regulated there.
And I just don't think that thefees there or the projects there
are as attractive or have asmuch potential as, for example,
in Saudi Arabia or in or in theUAE, with Abu Dhabi and Dubai
(26:30):
firms keep pulling out of China,mainland China. It's not, not
surprising. I think that Chinais turning inward a lot, and
foreign firms are struggling. Onthe other hand, firms are
opening in the new Greater BayArea of China, which is
(26:55):
essentially the Pearl RiverDelta that contains Shenzhen,
Guangzhou and Hong Kong, as wellas a few other mega cities, and
it's part of a larger Chineseproject to create A an enormous
(27:15):
economic zone, but I think italso has the potential and
perhaps the intention ofdiminishing the role of Hong
Kong. But just recently, homeand Fennec, hfw, as well as I
think Morgan Lewis, haveannounced that their opening
offices in this Greater Bayarea, so that needs to be
(27:40):
balanced against people pullingout of the rest of China and
going into this economic zone,and perhaps those who still feel
that Hong Kong really still hasA significant future, which I'm
one of those people without.
(28:03):
Making any political statementsabout it, I think that there's
still a lot that Hong Kong iscapable of accomplishing, and
there's a lot of cash there. Andthe financial business, the
FinTech business, cryptobusiness, and not to mention
arbitration litigation and soforth, remain very, very, very
strong. So going into theGreater Bay Economic Zone is one
(28:30):
way of keeping ties with HongKong for these law firms that
are doing that, and at the sametime kind of positioning
themselves to have a greaterrole in the Chinese economy. So
that's that's just my perceptionon that. Are you seeing anything
else along Murray go on? Well,
Unknown (28:52):
I think the other kind of big international news in the
last six months was about India.
Obviously, India has been a verytough market to get a foothold
in, because of the regulatoryenvironment and the resistance
to change among the professionthere and the government, as
well, being very resistant toopen up the market. So the Bar
Council of India issued aannouncement in March which seem
(29:16):
to say that international lawfirms which have reciprocal
arrangements with India. So forexample, if Indian lawyers are
recognized in your jurisdiction,then you would be entitled to
have your lawyers open apractice in India and practice
their own home jurisdiction lawthere. So effectively, what the
(29:38):
announcement seemed to say isthat foreign lawyers could open
offices in India and register toprovide foreign law services to
Indian clients, which was, youknow, very positively received
at the time, and lots of manyinternational law firms kind of
expressed interest in it. Butonly a few days later, the Bar
(30:00):
Council then turned around andissued a clarification to say,
actually, you can come and openan office and register over
here, but you can't adviseIndian clients, which seems to
be a tightening of the currentregulations, because I
understand lots of law firmsadvise Indian clients on foreign
law rather jurisdictions. So itseemed to go road back on it. So
(30:22):
it's created a whole environmentof uncertainty. And I doubt that
in this environment any law forinternational law firms will be
looking to, you know, head intothat jurisdiction very quickly.
I think there'll be no period ofwait and see and see if there's
any further updates as to anymore, whether any more
(30:42):
clarification comes out on thoserules, and also the rules
themselves were silent onwhether, more, you know,
international law firms could goin and establish associations
with Indian law firms or acquireIndian law firms. So it's, it's,
you know, it's a very ambiguoussituation at the moment,
Rob Bata (31:05):
yeah, I think so much of it is in the implementation.
And even in the originalstatement from the from the Bar
Council there, it did contain areference to the fact that,
basically, they can change theirmind about it anytime. So
(31:28):
foreign firms, having alreadyhad a little bit of a difficult
experience in India, and havingbeen having been told to pack up
and leave, I think are going tobe very cautious about getting
in. I of course, Danton didestablish some kind of an
association with a local firm,which they've tried to
(31:48):
characterize as an acquisitionor as a merger, but, but really
is not I think these are twostandalone firms, but that that
may be, that may be giving ussome kind of a roadmap of what
may be possible down the road.
But again, I think that mostfirms, especially firms that
already have very successfulIndia related practices, which
(32:09):
they conduct from the UK or fromSingapore or Hong Kong or
wherever else, are going tothink twice about whether or not
they want to do that, and thenwhether or not they want to take
on the really gigantic Indianlaw firms that that dominate the
high value transaction andlitigation space. I
Unknown (32:36):
agree, and I should add that the the announcement that
came from the Bar Council alsosaid that you'd have to re
register or renew your licenseevery few years, and of course,
it could change the its mind atthat point, so there was no
there weren't offering muchcertainty or permanency there.
Rob Bata (32:56):
Yeah, I think, I think this is part of what I think is
a very salubrious development inIndia, which is that the current
government, for, you know,whatever, whatever other faults
it may have, I think, isdefinitely very interested in
playing much more of a globalrole, and much more interested
in the growth of the Indianeconomy, which India, I Think,
(33:19):
will become the most populousnation in the world, not far
from now, and I think they willcertainly be the third largest
economy, and so and and someday,I suspect they won't be the
second so. So in that sense, Ithink this is consistent with
(33:41):
with the political environment,but as they say, the devil is in
the details. So we'll see.
Unknown (33:50):
I'd like to circle back to one point you made earlier,
Rob, and I'd be interested ingetting your impressions on the
zillion as well. You were sayingthat there are some firms that
are opening up to with, with thewith the unified IP courts that
have, yeah, in the you correct?
And I think, I think there wassome in Dublin, maybe there was
(34:12):
Dublin. Seem to be a spot thatthat firms are opening. Do you
think that represents anopportunity for some of the big
us, IP centered firms, to getmore engaged there, or does it?
Is it? Is it going to be alittle bit more of a walled
garden?
Rob Bata (34:33):
Well, I think it does.
I think you're now seeing IPpatents, patent defense, patent
prosecution, as being extremelyvibrant practices in the US. I
noticed, for example, that myold firm, which almost never
takes in lateral partners,O'Sullivan and Cromwell, just
(34:55):
brought in somebody who was, Ithink, the head. The US Patent
Office to to to lead theirpatents practice in Washington.
I think it's very, veryimportant for us firms, and I
would think that having accessto the unified patent court in
the EU is going to be animportant goal, yeah, for sure.
(35:18):
But of course, many of them,which already have offices in
the EU, I think, will be able todo that. They won't really need
to do anything special. If youlook at the firm of Powell and
Gilbert, which, which is one ofthe great IP practices in the
UK, they didn't have any otheroffices. So for them, it was
(35:39):
absolutely essential to open inDublin now, and I think the
same, same goes for for theother firm that opened, which I
think was Bristow of the UK. Sothe answer is yes. I think
people will be pursuing that forUS firms, in the past, they've
(36:02):
tended to focus on Germany,because Germany patents
jurisdiction can
Unknown (36:11):
All right, yeah,
Rob Bata (36:13):
now, now they don't really have to do that. They can
be looking elsewhere too.
Unknown (36:20):
Yeah, I would agree on that if you have, as a firm,
have a big IP practice, then youdo need to have a presence that
would allow you access to theUPC. And if that means opening
an office in the in an EU memberstate to do that, then it
becomes a strategic necessity,
Rob Bata (36:39):
right? Yep, is there, is there anything else that we
need to be discussing? I thinkthis has been such a great
session and and so on. Murray,both of you have such a such a
great way of, sort ofintersecting your knowledge in
in what we like to talk about.
It's been great fun.
Unknown (37:01):
Absolutely. Enjoyed it.
Thank you. Yeah, absolutely.
And I hope, I hope so on, maybesometime in the in the future,
we can have you come on back andwe'll take a look at some of
these issues that we talkedabout and update and see what's
see what's new, and hear moreabout what you're seeing from
from your perch. It hascertainly was, was really
interesting. Take her there.
(37:21):
I'd be really delighted. Andthere's always stuff going on
and stuff to talk about, so bereally delighted to join you
again inthe future. Thank you. It's been
a pleasure and an honor to hostyou on our podcast. Rob as
always, great. Great to see you.
Great to hear from you, andwe'll pick up on this a little
bit later. Now we'll closeGoodbye, everybody.
Rob Bata (37:46):
Goodbye. Everyone bye, everyone you.
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