Two of
The logic isn’t hard to fathom, since Herbert Smith is one of the few major firms to operate without a managing partner. Bringing in the well-regarded corporate partner David Willis, seen as a natural for an implementation brief, has obvious advantages. It spreads the load and allows the firm to represent its key constituencies of litigation and corporate, a feat the firm has not had the greatest success with in recent years.
Not all the omens are positive, however. Herbert Smith is still facing the challenge of committing itself to international expansion at a later stage than most of its peers and at a point when the markets will be less kind to an investment strategy. Perhaps more fundamentally, Herbert Smith feels less like a cohesive partnership than some of its peers and more like a tribal collection of teams. There will also be those who wonder if replicating Allen & Overy’s model of senior partner as executive chairman and managing partner as chief operating officer (COO) will deliver the necessary cohesion. And questions have already been asked concerning how Willis will work alongside the firm’s existing COO, Norman Green.
Dilemmas are also presenting themselves over at
Also of note is succession, meaning who will replace Geoffrey Green as senior partner when his term ends later this year. There has been discussion of the option of Green doing an interim two-year term before handing over, most likely to Charlie Geffen, though the firm stresses there will be no formal debate on the matter by its board until the autumn.
But while Ashurst downplays succession issues, it is apparent there is not an abundance of willing and widely-supported candidates. How these issues play out at both firms will be, well — interesting; I cannot shake the feeling that the fortunes of this duo will end up saying a lot about the future of
