President and founding member of ADVOC Asia Dunstan de Souza has questioned whether firms having offices overseas is a successful business model.

The managing partner of Sydney-based Colin Biggers & Paisley (CBP) said he “can’t imagine” firms such as Minter Ellison and Mallesons providing better service to their clients overseas than CBP can through its ADVOC associated firms.

“If you take China as an example, our reach is China is as good as theirs if not better because of our partners (law firms) there and our relationship with those partners. Unless they employ local lawyers, they will not be as good an option as our associate firms, which have local lawyers,” he said.

De Souza said the relationships built throughout the ADVOC network provided some additional work for the firm, but was more about improving the services available to their clients. “An increasing number of our clients are expanding their businesses into Asia; it’s about servicing our clients around the world. We send a large amount of work to our partners in Asia.”

The firm also has a joint venture practice in the Middle East, LutfiCBP, which uses local lawyers with an “Australian approach”.  De Souza said they put partners there on a 12 month rotation basis, but  there is no partner there at the moment as they are “too busy” to spare at partner at present.

The firm has appointed two new partners in the last 12 months and another partner will be joining shortly. Despite this, the firm is on the lookout for additional partners, particularly in the areas of commercial transactions, property and insolvency. The firm posted a revenue increase of 7.5% for the 2010FY up to A$37m.

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