One thing that will be very different this time around is the role of US firms in the City recruitment market. Thanks to rising profitability at UK firms and the falling dollar, it is obviously harder for Americans to attract good UK partners. Even more important, after five years of substantial growth - Legal Week research shows that 24 firms together hired nearly 300 partners in London over that period - many are now near critical mass. What also seems apparent is that the hiring practices of leading US law firms in London, obsessively focused on attracting senior transactional partners with transferable business to staff lean deal teams, have hardly been a runaway success. With the odd exception, the more fruitful have been polished, upwardly-mobile operators that have targeted similarly upwardly-mobile (meaning not too established) partners, as can be seen with White & Case.
What will also be different this time is that a lot of partners hired by US firms on lucrative three-year guarantees are now coming back on to the transfer market - many of whom will go to another US firm. And while we are on the subject of guarantees: why are they still in use? They have, in the majority of cases, been a dismal failure as a recruitment tool thanks to scaring off potential recruits wary of the pressure that comes with such a deal, while creating little incentive for transferring partners to stick around after they finish.
Perhaps more productive will be firms looking, in the words of one veteran consultant, for “Freshfieldesque hires”, meaning solid performers that no longer fit in with a restructured City firm. In theory, this should be the perfect time to pick up hard-to-get partners, though the problem is that it is so rarely the right time for these temperamental creatures to move; either they are too busy, or, worse, not busy enough and so dig in until their billings are up again, which means they’re too busy.
Oh well, the consensus is that firms looking for talent may have to make do with “anyone speaking Arabic” or international arbitration partners.