The Long Arm of the Law: London's Law Firms in a Globalising World Economy

Beaverstock, Jonathan V.; Taylor, PJ; Smith, Richard G.

doi:10.1068/a311857

Cited by 104 publications

(93 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Law firm research has focused on the globalization of the law itself (Shapiro, 1993), the feasibility of international expansion of law firms from a geographical perspective (Beaverstock, Smith & Taylor, 1999Chang, Chuang & Jan, 1998) and the growth of US law firms regionally and globally (Ramcharran, 1999;Silver, 2000;Spar, 1997). A European study with a strategic perspective is Morgan & Quack (2005) who conclude that both 'institutional legacies' and 'path modification' are present in internationalization.…”

Section: The Growing Globalization Of Law Firmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delivering ‘effortless experience’ across borders: Managing internal consistency in professional service firms

Segal‐Horn

Dean

2009

Journal of World Business

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This article explore s how professional service firms manage across borders. When clients require consistent services delivered across multiple locations, especially across borders, then firms need to set up an organization that is itself sufficiently flexible to be able to support such consistent service delivery. Our discussion is illustrated by the globalization process of law firms. We argue that the globalization of large corporate law firms primarily takes place in terms of investments in the development of protocols, processes and practices that enhance internal consistency such that clients receive an 'effortless experience' of the service across multiple locations worldwide. Over the longer term the ability to deliver such effortless experience is dependent upon meaningful integration within and across the firm. Firms that achieve this are building a source of sustainable competitive advantage.

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Section: The Growing Globalization Of Law Firmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Delivering ‘effortless experience’ across borders: Managing internal consistency in professional service firms

Segal‐Horn

Dean

2009

Journal of World Business

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“…The presence of US firms in Europe focused on London, and they were reluctant to dilute partners' earnings by opening offices in other cities, though they were clearly interested in targeting the German market for legal services. The UK's City firms, as result of their experiences with the liberalization of financial markets and privatization of public companies, were becoming increasingly confident and aggressive in their internationalization strategy (Beaverstock et al 1999). Although German firms were, in international terms, still relatively small and inexperienced compared to the UK and the US, they had thrown off some of the shackles that had previously prevented their expansion.…”

Section: The 'Legal Big Bang' and The Emergence Of An International Mmentioning

confidence: 99%

Institutional Legacies and Firm Dynamics: The Growth and Internationalization of UK and German Law Firms

Morgan

Quack

2005

Organization Studies

162

159

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This article addresses the question of how economic actors (re)shape their organizational and institutional contexts as their activities internationalize. By focusing on law firms, we choose a professional activity that has been regarded as highly determined by the national distinctiveness of professional and legal systems and would lead us to expect strong institutional legacies on firm dynamics. The comparative study of the growth and internationalization of corporate law firms in the UK and Germany presented in this article, however, refutes this view. The results reveal that in both settings 'institutional pockets' of corporate lawyers existed whose entrepreneurial orientations and international reach were much stronger than among other subgroups of the profession. From the 1970s onwards, these lawyers and law firms engaged in redefining their organizational and institutional contexts with the aim of positioning themselves in ways that would allow them to seize upon the emerging international markets for legal services. They did so in different ways and at different times in each country. We conclude that internationalization of UK and German law firms bears traces of institutional legacies as well as signs of pathmodification, and that international markets for legal services may be more differentiated and less dominated by Anglo-Saxon law firms and conceptions of law than has been so far recognized.

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“…This stress on "globality" in many ways reflects the firms' strategic and organisational evolution as international businesses (see e.g. Beaverstock et al, 1999;Coviello and Martin, 1999;Spar, 1997). In their early days, GPSFs entered foreign markets in order to serve home-country clients abroad.…”

Section: Becoming Global and Pursuing Global Integrationmentioning

confidence: 99%