Clyde & Co’s Australian operations have had a flying start only four weeks into operation according to John Edmond, the Sydney office managing partner.
Since announcing that he, six of his fellow partners and a team of lawyers, would be leaving Allens to join the international law firm Edmond says he has been overwhelmed by more work, new clients and job applications. “Following the announcement two people contacted me and said ‘you are now on our panel’; which is a delightful call to take,” said Edmond. “We have had three other companies call us and invite us to tender for their panel and one of the tenders had already closed, but because of our announcement they were holding the panel open for us.”
In addition to panel appointments senior UK partner James Burns says he is expecting more work to come Clyde & Co Australia’s way as a result of more international referral work from the Clyde & Co “Before John and the team joined us there was already a fair amount of referral work,” said Burns. “So it is a nice aspect of setting up in Australia that the network can self-generate work in Australia, and I think the best is yet to come.”
Edmond added that he was also beginning to see a growth in matters landing on desks as a result of not having conflict issues, which were a growing issue at Allens, and because of the more competitive rates he is able to offer. “Our rates becoming more competitive or attractive has also led to more work from some clients,” said Edmond. “We have managed to offer our clients better rates in some cases.”
The firm received more than 80 job applications following the announcement that they would be opening in Australia and were so overwhelmed that they took an ad down off the website only a week after positing it. “We have quite a lot of people coming on line in the next few weeks,” said Edmond. “We expect that by Christmas time we will have approximately 14 lawyers here in Sydney and by March we would expect to have about 30 staff.”
Related stories:
Exclusive: Clyde & Co taps Allens for Australia launch 3 July 2012
ALB Exclusive: Clyde adds infrastructure expert in SG 21 June 2012
