Editor's comment: CC's brilliant plan

CC needs to remember its own lessons

Twelve years of covering business has taught me one over-riding lesson about what separates winners from losers: a brilliant plan badly rolled out will always be trumped by a bog-standard strategy well executed. This seems particularly relevant for Clifford Chance (CC) as the firm reflects on a punishing financial year and a decade in which it has struggled to deliver on the promise of its 1990s incarnation. Because CC had a brilliant plan, one that defined what was happening to global legal services at the time and one that rivals borrowed from - first grudgingly and then openly. The firm that published Vision for the Future in 1997, the manifesto for the global law firm, looked to have realised that vision within just two years.

Then came a prolonged and painful attempt to integrate New York's Rogers & Wells and something changed. The partnership, in a way that became increasingly plain over the following years, became ambiguous about the bold vision it had previously articulated, in particular the extent to which CC was ready to be led. It is hard to pin much blame on former leader Peter Cornell or current head David Childs. If the job of an astute managing partner is to reflect the partnership's mood and push it slightly beyond its comfort zone, both men probably led CC as much as it was ready to be led.

But in the meantime, rivals borrowed from CC's playbook and then executed it better. More than that, they have unambiguously embraced it. Decision-making has been speeded up, firmwide standards have been imposed and global brands built. Central management has increasingly been left to get on with managing major law firms and, while the results haven't always been pretty, usually this approach has worked. As our in-depth analysis, which is only available to Legal Week subscribers, argues this week, CC needs to fully accept that before it can regain its former confidence.

Despite the challenges facing the firm and the brutal impact the recession has had on its practice, CC will almost certainly get the chance to regroup. Global law firms once established are hard to dislodge. A strong brand, an extensive international network, an unsurpassed banking client base and a group of excellent partners buy you a lot of time. The only thing that could seriously threaten the firm's position in the next three years would be a mass walk-out of top partners in the City. Though it would be surprising if the firm didn't lose a few stars after such a turbulent period, there is currently little sign of a mutinous mood. But CC will only regain its former place once it reconciles itself to the model it pioneered. I suspect the global legal market will be a more dynamic place when that happens.

Clifford Chance on the Legal Week Wiki