Organisations such as these are changing the landscape in Europe, particularly in work on commercial contracts, often seen as the bedrock of legal work in any big business. Mark Harris, Axiom’s chief executive and the FT’s Special Achievement Award winner in 2013, said in his acceptance speech: “The business of law is the most exciting part of the profession to be operating in right now.”
Axiom has achieved 1,216 per cent growth in revenues over the past 10 years and gains one of the top three slots in a special FT ranking for this year, the Top 10 game changers of the past 10 years.
In this ranking, which illustrates how the profession has evolved, no single law firm has fundamentally changed the way in which the profession operates, but all the firms listed have led the legal market in some way. Many reflect the impact of globalisation on the profession. Outside the financial crisis, the story of the past 10 years is one of how law firms have changed their domestic products into international ones. DLA Piper and Latham & Watkins, while operating in different market segments, have shown how to internationalise quickly and successfully. King & Wood Mallesons, the first leading international law firm to be headquartered in the Asia-Pacific region, reflects how the global centre of gravity has shifted towards that part of the world.
Other important trends in the legal market are reflected in the inclusion of Berwin Leighton Paisner for its LOD (Lawyers On Demand), which shows how the legal sector is not immune to the growing “gig economy” — the rise of career paths based on flexible, short-term stints of work. The impact of regulatory and legislative change is shown in the inclusion of Slater and Gordon. The first law firm to float in Australia, it has taken advantage of the UK’s Legal Services Act to grow its consumer legal business in England and Wales.
Being a first mover is not the only indicator of innovation in the profession. Sometimes coming from behind can be a strength. UK law firm Pinsent Masons, which was ranked 16th last year, takes first position in the FT’s overall index of top performers for the 2015 report.
Richard Foley, the firm’s senior partner, believes that being innovative in the legal sector is as much about having an entrepreneurial culture as it is about being first. “We make a value of watching and learning,” he says. “For us, there is a sense that if you can’t be first then you need to be second. We made boldness a core value of our business and a lot of what we have done is a consequence of that decision.”
One of the firm’s winning innovations is in the technology category, where its new cloud-based product Cerico helps clients deal with compliance. It is an important category of the FT report in which to show prowess.
If the story of the legal sector of the past 10 years has been dominated by the financial crisis, the rise of the client and globalisation, the one for the next decade is likely to be how the profession deals with new technologies. To take just one example, Watson, IBM’s artificial intelligence computing system, is set to change the way lawyers work far more radically than anything has done in the past.
This article is originally by Reena SenGupta, to see the full length version of the article just click here