Commercial Disputes Hiring

Commercial Disputes Hiring: US Firm Growth vs UK Firm Prestige – Why Are US Firms Not Achieving Top Tier Rankings?

The narrative in recent years has been that US firms in London are often growing, always hiring, and are a sought-after destination for fee-earners. To answer why this is, we only have to look at the headline terms: larger pay checks than the UK firms who are closing in on matching the hours required at these firms, impressive client rosters, being amongst colleagues with impressive backgrounds, leaner teams tied into a sense that you will gain broader experience and advance your career - all whilst having the associated prestige of being with a US headquartered powerhouse. There are many other individual reasons fee-earners may look at moving to such destinations but for senior litigators there are challenges limiting the volume of opportunities available.

For the most part, US firms have been growing in London and hiring in spells across the more traditionally profitable transactional practices (M&A, Private Equity, Funds, Energy, Banking and Finance). That said, they have also been following up with hires for their International Disputes practices. In this field however, they do not have the same volume of hiring activity and nor do they soar up the rankings the same way they do in with their high transactional deal volume and value. Put simply, it’s a different landscape for hiring in disputes with its own challenges for rapid growth, that seemingly prevents these elite firms from climbing to the coveted Tier 1/top rankings in the Legal 500 and replacing the likes of the Magic Circle, Herbert Smith and Hogan Lovells who frequently appear top of these lists (with the exception of Quinn Emmanuel, discussed further below). It is more so in Arbitration where US firms have had greater success and achieved higher rankings – the work is often cross-border in nature and is easily staffed across multiple offices, often with legacy clients originating from their US headquarters.  The key hurdle for most when growing commercial litigation practices in London is often time. The potential longevity of significant cases can nullify the impact of a new hire and the ambition of quick growth to climb the rankings, compared to faster paced transactional teams who can add to their deal flow volume in shorter timeframes from new hires.

Whilst there is a growing market-wide narrative of many senior leaders at well-established UK firms opting for a move to US models, these moves do not yet appear to be frequent enough to move the needle and launch those US teams up those rankings for commercial litigation. As such, there is not always a clear and established need for these candidates and hiring processes do not always move quickly either. Of the partners with their names published in the Legal 500 Hall of Fame, Commercial Litigation: Premium, only c.20% had moved over the last ten-year span.

One shining example and success story away from this trend of disputes hires in London is that of Quinn Emmanuel. Having founded their London office in 2008, the firm has seen it’s profits and revenue drastically increase in such a short timeframe. The caveat here is that many will know the firm specialises only in disputes and has seen the headcount growth to match several of the disputes teams at the other highly ranked firms. This aggressive hiring strategy combined with a focus on disputes helps them stand along in this category, so much so that it is starting to look difficult to refer to them as a ’litigation boutique’ anymore, either in London or on the global stage (now present in c.35 countries and across 4 continents).

We’re unlikely to see this recreated with another boutique to grow to their size in London in as short a time frame with similar profitability, but there’s no doubt that the firm’s lateral hiring strategy has played a key role in this success.  

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