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Global firm pinpoints hot spots for aggressive growth strategy

A global law firm has revealed its growth strategy for Australia, the importance of client demand, and why ongoing integration has been key to its success.

user iconGrace Ormsby 12 December 2018 Big Law
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It was only six years ago that global law firm Clyde & Co opened up its doors in Australia and established itself in the domestic market.

Its Australian growth trajectory has seen an increase in staff numbers from six partners back in 2012, to 27 current partners and more than 250 staff.

Australian managing partner Michael Tooma has explained that it’s a “very focused strategy” that has led to such expansion.

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“We talk about it in terms of things that move, things that add power, and the infrastructure, things that build and the underpinning insurance that supports those sectors,” he said, with aspiration a key theme.

“We want to be the best in those sectors,” he remarked, “and we have aggressively pursued a growth strategy based around those key sectors.”

Clyde & Co’s areas of legal expertise centre around its construction, infrastructure, aviation and transport offerings.

Such an aggressive strategy is not untested for the firm, which global senior partner Simon Konsta said is being implemented throughout the firm’s offerings around the globe.

“We have a very clear, central and global strategy which we are playing out in the UK, in Europe, in the Americas, in ASEAN and China, and indeed in our Middle East and Africa practices,” Mr Konsta added, “

Looking towards the future, Mr Konsta explained that the plan is “to further integrate Australia into that (the firm’s) global problem-solving piece.”

“So if you are a multinational based in Dusseldorf, or London or New York or Paris or Dubai, that has legal needs in Australia, around those areas that are core to us, we want to be the reached-for firm,” he continued.

Over time, and in addition to growth maintenance, Mr Konsta expects this to result in “a more balanced offering between the disputes and non-contentious piece, and developing out further from where our leading brand is in relation to construction infrastructure, aviation and transport, to developing further into the natural resources, and commodities side of it, and indeed some other areas beyond that”.

Acknowledging that Australia is a highly competitive marketplace, for law firms generally, Mr Konsta said the firm’s focus sectors “have not only sustained the firm, but seen it grow substantially since the global financial crisis”.

This includes “the commodities, the trading in commodities, the mining and the refining, the building of infrastructure, the transport and the national resources and the insurance wrapping around all of that,” he explained.

Not only have these areas grown the firm, Mr Konsta considers them “staples for the global trading economies and capital flows around the world.

“For as long as the world rotates, and for as long as we have a global economy, they will be a staple.”

Crediting the growth also to the firm’s clientele, Mr Konsta noted that “everything is driven by our appreciation of the client base.”

“When you've got that client base, and they are thinking about their international activities and the legal problem solving that they need, when they are sat in one of the capital cities around the world, and they are looking at Australia, the nature of their relationship with Clyde & Co, wherever it may be managed, is such that they will immediately think of Clyde's in Sydney, in Melbourne, or whatever the case may be.”

With many other law firms focusing on growth and sector targeting, Mr Tooma said he sees Clyde & Co’s key differentiator as its operation as a “single, global firm”.

“That is,” Mr Tooma continued, “we are a single partnership, operating out of a single profit pool, driving the same strategy around the world.”

“And that has been the key to our success in every region that we have embarked on,” he concluded.

 

 

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