Establishing Law Firm Partnerhips Abroad

Globalization seems to be characteristic of contemporary international relations. So far international movement of people, goods, services and capital has never been at such an intensive level. Moreover, international business itself causes à necessity of all-around legal assistance. The international business relations are basic, but definitely not the only ones – tourism (including insurance matters, etc.), marriages between foreigners, adoptions, inheritance of real estate abroad, international crimes, etc. For example law firms dealing with intellectual property and litigation will prosper and will require global reach in order to prove successful in their specialist area. International implies the idea of acting abroad, in another country. And because of the uniqueness of each country’s legal order, a necessity of cooperation in satisfying clients’ needs on an international basis occurs. As the twenty-first century begins, state and national borders are giving a good opportunity for attorneys and law firms around the world to share skills and clients through various cooperation agreements. That’s why it is necessary that you (depending on the specificity of your practice) take advantage of the opportunities, which such an international perspective holds.

And if you are not right now involved in any PARTNERSHIPS ABROAD, it is high time that you do something about it.

You need to keep in mind the following:

1) Big international law firms are closely specialized mostly in the field of international business law. Their offices are located in a limited number of cities (the largest though) around the world. Moreover foreign attorneys are very often not able to practice any kind of law abroad and then a necessity of establishing a Joint Venture (as one of the most suitable forms of strategic alliances) occurs. Moreover fees of such firms are pretty high, something that makes their services unaffordable to most of small and mid-sized business companies, looking for an international presence. Hence they very often fail to attract prospective clients giving way to firms, defining themselves as part of organizations, whose nature despite the various formulations - international alliance of business law firms or global network of independent full-service law firms – happens to be one and the same. Some of their characteristics of interest to us will be discussed further down the page;

2) What is most typical of them in respect to your interests is that obtaining membership is through a special and individual invitation, as from a particular region (country) only a single law firm happens to be ‘honored’. That means that the probability of you being the one invited is not really high (as that does not necessarily mean lack of proper level of expertise). Paying high membership fees is often required and to pay such for being a member of an organization, serving exclusively the interests of its founders (small group of law firms), is not quite effort making worthy. Despite of the multiple and various functions that you may think such organizations have, their scope is actually limited mostly to generating referrals (they are actually not quite effective in that due to certain objective reasons which are not to be discussed here). Hence the resources of such organizations are mainly used for mutual consulting on matters concerning foreign jurisdictions, which despite the fact of being often free of charge, is hardly enough to make you engage yourself in such an initiative. That is because the opportunity of taking advantage of such consulting absolutely free of charge is pretty easily obtainable through the resources of the WWW (read below);

3) Nowadays lots of law firms (using Internet) establish international co-operations which are quite similar in their nature to the so called virtual law practices. You are going to recognize them through the availability of formulations like non-exclusive and informal affiliation. Law firms usually participate for the only sake of presenting themselves to their prospective clients in a more favorable light and of course because of the perspective of generating some referrals (by the way the probability of that happening is pretty low). Of course the participation in such a communication through internet leads to knowledge exchange and eventually to better satisfying clients’ needs.

That’s why, if you want to go in for that ‘international perspective’ from a position that will provide you with the most beneficial results, you need to build your own network of foreign law firms. By saying ‘your own’ I mean not only you being the initiator, but also you being in the very center of co-operation (it needs to serve your own interests). There is no need that you establish any kind of supporting organization, any kind of self-determined separate entity (something that would prove at least unaffordable to most of you).

Firstly it is necessary that you adopt an all round policy in this direction! Establishing ad hoc co-operations is not always effective, takes time and hence – does not lead to complete satisfaction of clients’ needs. ‘All-round’ also stands for cooperating with firms all over the world - not with law firms from all currently existing countries around the world, but with firms of strategic interest to you (in accordance with the legal field of your practice and your clients’ needs), without taking into consideration any territorial limitations. And ‘policy’ implies the idea of dedication and active pursuit of desirable results. Secondly, you need to figure out which particular law firms would prove good ‘partners’– they’d better be mid-sized boutique law firms or eminent solo practitioners, not only because of the likelihood of their not being already involved in any form of international cooperation, but because of the efficiency and effectiveness of the entire mechanism of cooperation as well. Nowadays (thanks to Internet) obtaining the necessary information is more than easy. The national Law Portal or/and the website of the national/regional bar association would prove pretty useful in respect to your research (web based law firm databases and may be of help too). Establish a contact in the form of a letter as it would be better that you put something like ‘… we are interested in the opportunity of establishing an international cooperation with a law firm, practicing in the field of ……. law from your country … and especially in the way you feel about such a perspective’. Send it over the fax or via mail. Posting a massage in an online forum would be wrong, since that would give potential ‘partners’ the impression of you not being seriously interested (some time ago I came across the following massage: ‘An ........... law firm with offices in … dealing mostly with international litigation and trade is interested in entering into an alliance on a long term basis with a ........... firm involved in international trade, international arbitrations and litigations. Our firm’s resume and proposed guidelines for the alliance are available on request. Please contact ..................... at ...........................................’ – don’t forget that you are the one supposed to be active, do not leave anything to pure chance or to somebody else’s discretion!).

Next and most important step is entering into the cooperation agreement – it should be in a formal way so that the effective realization and success of your ‘international adventure’ are guaranteed (consider the rules applying to distance contracts). However, agreement’s content is much more important. I cannot provide you with exact clauses because of this piece of work’s general nature but one thing is for sure – the fee sharing arrangement needs to be specified in a way that the party initially contacted by the client happens to be the one empowered to receive payment. That will guarantee you best results: 1) satisfying clients’ needs; 2) opportunity to promote and popularize your firm as one capable of handling clients’ international needs; 3) thirdly (that is the mechanism’s basic specificity) you receive profits no matter who is the one initially contacted – by exchanging price lists in advance (as contract applications for example), it makes no difference whether you serve your partner’s client (you charge as usual) or the opposite – your client is being served abroad (you charge at a higher rate in order to gain profit)! That way you avoid the risk of lack of reciprocity as it comes to making efforts. You’d better discuss in advance the communication mechanism so that you avoid time delays, etc. In case of intensive co-operation I would recommend to you the usage of certain online collaboration tools quickly becoming the communications vehicle of choice for many firms. All that seems hard to achieve, but actually it all comes to actions, requiring minimum investments and at the same time potentially highly-beneficial; requiring nothing, but some of your time and efforts!

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