By Ann W. Parks

Ted Burke (L’86), chief executive of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, speaks at Georgetown Law’s Global Law Firm Symposium April 17.

In 2007, an Australian law firm became the first in the world to be publicly traded on a stock exchange, prompting questions about lawyers’ business structures, the ethics of answering to shareholders and the nature of global competition in the legal world. At a symposium of the Georgetown Law Center for the Study of the Legal Profession on April 17 and 18, panelists and participants shared ideas on “The Future of the Global Law Firm” — a future where, it was speculated, U.S. firms may go public in order to stay competitive with their overseas rivals; where more and more routine work is outsourced to locations abroad and where megafirms with thousands of lawyers become so widespread that they transcend their affiliation with any particular country.

Andrew Grech, managing director of the Australian firm Slater & Gordon — the only lawyer in the room who looked up his firm on the stock exchange that morning — was on hand to describe how his firm met the challenges of going public. New South Wales’ Legal Services Commissioner Steven Mark was also present, describing how he worked with the firm to ensure that ethical and professional obligations continued to be met.

“My goal as a regulator is to reduce complaints against lawyers, not prosecute more of them,” he said.

Though U.S. firms are presently prohibited from going public — since nonlawyers cannot own law firms — change may not be far off. England and Wales recently passed the Legal Services Act of 2007, which allows for nonattorney ownership of firms across the pond.

“Lawyers chronically fear change,” noted Steven Krane of Proskauer Rose, who said that attorneys were once leery of telephones, cell phones, e-mail and even typewriters when they first appeared on the scene, because privileged information could be more easily leaked to third parties. The key question to be explored, he noted, is not why law firms should accept nonlawyer investments, but why shouldn’t they?

Thinking globally

Panelists tried to predict the future of the large U.S. law firm, discussing strategies, dynamics, trends and challenges faced by globalization. In a client-driven competitive market, how can a law firm best provide what a client needs? How can firms attract and retain good attorneys — when lawyers may no longer see a lifetime career with one firm as an attractive option? In a merger, how do you integrate two or more law firms with very different cultures?

“The way we integrated the firm was to celebrate the diversity and wrap ourselves around our clients,” said Lee I. Miller (B’69, L’72), a co-chief executive officer of DLA Piper. Miller was once was the managing partner of the Chicago-based Rudnick & Wolfe, which in a five-year space of time merged with the Baltimore-based Piper & Marbury, the California-based Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich and the London-based DLA to create a firm with more than 3,700 lawyers globally. “It’s an unbelievable experience and it’s energizing for the lawyers.”

Ted Burke (L’86), chief executive of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, noted the dramatic changes of the last 20 years, commenting that when he graduated from law school, Wall Street law firms had changed little in 70 years — they remained domestically focused, their employment model was the same, technology had not yet made a major impact and those that had 500 lawyers were considered very large. “At least as much will change in the next 10 years as in the last 20,” he predicted. “I think this symposium demonstrates that Georgetown is at the forefront in exploring this.”

Georgetown Law Professor Mitt Regan, who co-directs the Center for the Study of the Legal Profession with Professor Jeffrey Bauman, noted that in fostering such a discussion, the Law Center was, itself, taking an innovative step forward. “It’s our aim at Georgetown to take very seriously the study of the legal profession and global firms,” he said at the conference. “We are thinking about what it means to be educating global lawyers.”