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Overview
Recent years have seen Bird & Bird establish itself firmly in the ranks of ambitious, upwardly-mobile City operators, with the firm sitting just outside the UK's top 20 by revenue. The 157-partner firm’s defies easy comparisons, though its technology focus and internationalism have some similarities to Osborne Clarke, while its practice is sometimes bracketed alongside more corporate-driven firms like Olswang and Taylor Wessing. Its other obvious benchmark is the only other substantial law firm to build itself around intellectual property (IP), the highly-rated boutique Bristows.
Having grown quickly in recent years, Bird & Bird’s turnover for 2006-07 was £115.6m - representing an increase of around a fifth on the previous year - with partner profits respectable but showing room for improvement at £458,000.
"Bird & Bird is basically a lifestyle firm," argues the outfit's opening contributor on the Legal Week Wiki, "though if you want to do IP somewhere other than a boutique, it’s still probably the one for you."
Unusually, Bird & Bird has grown through its core IP practice and focused on related industry sectors, rather than building around corporate. Likewise, the firm was a pioneer of international expansion after beginning an aggressive programme of growth in the 1990s – a move that many rivals saw as the preserve of larger firms.
With the firm maintaining substantial growth for the last five years - even if profitability has not quite kept pace with its top-line growth - Bird & Bird appears to have carved out a significant and lucrative position for itself in Europe’s legal market. Perhaps unsurprisingly for a firm that that is not driven by its transactional practice, the firm has also maintained a decent reputation for its treatment of staff, work-life balance and culture.
History
Despite its expertise in trendy tech/venture capital stuff, Bird & Bird traces its roots back to 1846, when Bird & Moore was founded. It was to be sometime before the firm began to focus on its core specialism of IP, with the firm winning its first reported patents case in 1909 - ‘Z’ Electric Manufacturing Co v Marples Leach & Co, a dispute over filaments for incandescent electric lightbulbs.
In 1958 the firm started to show the first signs of its expansionary style after acquiring the practice Richard Furber & Son Windsor & Brown. Nine years later the firm merged with Ranken Ford & Chester, one of London’s oldest law firms.
But the firm’s recent direction was set to a considerable extent during the 1980s, as telecoms liberalisation got underway in the UK. Bird & Bird promptly won its first telecoms client and swiftly built a commanding profile in the sector, thereby starting to broaden its practice across the TMT spectrum and laying the groundwork for what would become a pioneering move for a law firm to focus on industry sectors (though everyone does it now).
In common with numerous City rivals, the theme of the following decade was expansion, though Bird & Bird was one of the smallest UK law firms to attempt such aggressive foreign growth. It first launched an overseas outpost in Brussels in 1991, followed by Hong Kong in 1995 and Paris in 2000.
At this time the firm came close to securing what would have been a potentially market-shifting deal - a merger with expansive US law firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. The move would have given Bird & Bird greatly improved access to California’s coveted clutch of technology clients and tied the UK firm with one of America’s most ambitious legal practices. However, the deal - which was not supported by some of Bird & Bird’s key practice groups - was ultimately not to be.
The firm’s response was to redouble its international efforts, committing itself to European expansion and in 2000 securing a merger with eight-partner Swedish firm Gedda & Ekdahl. An opportunistic launch in Germany came in 2002 with the hire of an eight-partner team from the fracturing Andersen Legal network.
The firm, which had been one of the worst-affected law firms in the early 1990s recession, was to show admirable pluck to keep investing through the post-2001 collapse in its core TMT market, with continental Europe continuing to see substantial investment. By the start of 2008, the firm had a built a network of 14 offices, covering much of Europe’s major markets and mainland China.
The firm has also remained in expansive form in the UK, notably boosting its outsourcing practice in 2006 with the hire of a three-partner team from Barlow Lyde & Gilbert. The firm looks set to remain on its current course, having in February 2007 re-elected chief executive David Kerr (pictured above right) - a key architect of the firm’s strategy, having led Bird & Bird since 1996. At the same time, Sweden managing partner Michael Frie took on the role of chairman from Hamish Sandison, becoming its first chair based out the UK.
Bird & Bird also in early 2007 moved into expanded office space in the City, transferring its main address to an upgraded site on 15 Fetter Lane.
News, deals and analysis on Bird & Bird
Culture
Bird & Bird, like many law firms, describes itself as “open and collegiate”, arguing that it puts a strong emphasis on high staff retention. The firm also claims to offer a “healthy work-life balance that avoids the City excesses of very long hours”.
Aside from the usual marketing puff, neutral observers and independent research do largely back up this rosy view of the firm, which gets good reviews for its treatment of staff and team development. The firm also gets credit for avoiding job cuts during the dot.com crash, unlike several of its TMT rivals.
Key departments
IP remains absolutely core for Bird & Bird, covering the full gamut of contentious and commercial work and patent enforcement. Other big areas for the firm are IT, media, sports, telecoms, life sciences and - perhaps appropriately - aviation. Recent recruitment in outsourcing has further bolstered an already strong team.
The firm has spent recent years looked to develop its transactional expertise, even if the firm is generally felt to have been less successful at the TMT/corporate cross-sell then firms like Taylor Wessing and Olswang.
Recent signs have been that the firm is focusing less on its public sector clients, however.
National/international coverage
As mentioned above, Bird & Bird has developed an overseas network that is surprisingly comprehensive for a firm of its size, operating a total of 14 offices across Europe and Asia. With offices in Dusseldorf, Frankfurt and Munich, Germany represents the firm's largest operation outside the UK, with more than 100 lawyers practising under the Bird & Bird banner.
The firm launched in Munich - Europe's key technology centre - in 2003, a year after planting its flag in Duesseldorf with the hire of an eight-partner team from the local arm of Andersen Legal. The Frankfurt launch came in 2005. France and Sweden, two of the first European markets the firm entered, are also particularly strong practices.
More recent launches include Rome and Madrid, both in 2005. With more than half of its partnership based outside the UK already, the firm is expected to maintain its expansive international form. However, lawyers attracted by the chance to travel should remember that the firm’s core IP/IT practice is less conducive to foreign work than transactional practise, as much of this work is handled by locally-qualified lawyers.
In early 2008, the firm announced it was expanding its Scandinavian footprint after brokering a merger deal with Finnish independent Fennica Attorneys, making Bird & Bird one of the few international firms with a presence in Helsinki.
Key clients
Major clients of the firm include BT, Sanofi-Aventis, Nokia, Dun & Bradstreet, Ericsson, EADS, Lenovo, Reckitt Benckiser, Yahoo! and Interoute.
Leading partners
As you would expect from a firm that is a leader in many of its chosen fields, Bird & Bird has a wide crop of highly accomplished technical lawyers and client favourites. The firm’s leading partners include:
- Paul Briggs (aviation);
- Trystan Tether (finance);
- Ruth Boardman and Hazel Grant (data protection);
- Trevor Cook, Morag Macdonald, Isabelle Leroux and Wolfgang von Meibom (IP);
- Howard Rubin (media);
- Jan Byok (public law);
- Justin Walkey and Felicity Reeve (sport; Reeve pictured below);
- Graham Smith, Stephane Lemarchand and Stefan Bernhard (IT); and
- Marjolein Geus and Johan Tyden (telecoms).
Career prospects
The firm maintains a tricky balancing act in that much of its partner expansion has gone on lateral recruits, with the firm adding 41 new partners since May 2006 (23 laterals and 18 internal promotions). Despite this - and the fact that the firm has not made up many partners in London in recent years - the firm is viewed against its peer group as offering decent partners chances.
Likewise, the firm has a reputation for general career development that is well above average, including training and offering client contact to assistants. It should be remembered, however, that less than half of its partnership have full equity status.
Salaries
The firm is tight-lipped on this subject, presumably as Bird & Bird has never really tried to match ‘City rates’ on offer at larger law firms more focused on corporate and banking work. (Top rates currently see newly-qualified lawyers start on around £64,000.) However, Bird & Bird does offer a bonus, which in some cases is reported to be generous.
(Any details on the firm’s salary structure would be appreciated - Wiki Ed.)
Recruitment
Main contacts are:
- Lynne Walters (graduate recruitment); and
- Vicky Tinham and Andrea Leighton (general recruitment).
Click here for more careers information.
Work-life balance
Good - though with the firm’s practice focus, you would expect Bird & Bird to stand up well against many of its top 50 rivals on the lifestyle front. Likewise, the firm is viewed as one of the least hours-centric of London’s major law firms.
Awards/third-party citations
Global IP Law Firm of the Year - Chambers Global Awards 2007.
Its international credentials were further underlined the same year, after winning two awards from French publication Decideurs - International Law Firm of the Year and IT/Communications Team of the Year.
Pro bono/corporate social responsibility
The firm is seen as a solid rather than spectacular performer when it comes to pro bono opportunities. It describes its pro bono activities thus:
“For the past 15 years, our UK office has been working with the community of Toynbee Hall (a community in East London) providing pro bono advice through its Legal Advice Centre on a huge range of issues often relating to debt, accidents and minor legal disputes.
"A particular success story recently involved partner Lorna Brazell (who leads this initiative), who helped support the beneficiary of an unsigned will receive the gains of a secret stash of antique diamonds. A number of assistants are involved in our arrangement with the Red Cross in the UK and also Spain (via our Madrid office), which covers legal advice on a variety of issues. The cases we get involved with are often quite complicated - for example, we have helped The Red Cross on a leasing arrangement and more recently we helped on copyright matters relating to a film they were thinking of producing as a result of a high-profile fundraising event.
"We also provide pro bono advice to the in-house legal team at Oxfam International, a confederation of 12 organisations working together in more than 100 countries. Bird & Bird lawyers in the UK and also the Netherlands have provided advice to Oxfam on a number of trademark issues.
"Our Swedish office was involved in pro bono work for the victims of the Tsunami through the Swedish Bar Association
Cross-border pro bono work. Lawyers from our offices in the Hague and Dusseldorf are involved in a cross-border case between the International Sports Federation for Persons with Intellectual Disability and the International Paralympic Committee, which concerns the discriminatory exclusion of intellectually-disabled athletes from the Paralympics. This case has been ongoing for over five years and we are about to start litigation in the District Court in Bonn.”
Diversity
For information on Bird & Bird's diversity policy and a few stats, click here.
