Watson Farley & Williams has launched a Joint Law Venture (JLV) partnership with a local five-partner entity this week, as the firm aims to boost its 44 fee-earner office to 60 lawyers by 2014.
The JLV will be co-headed by Watson Farley Williams Singapore managing partner Chris Lowe and head of Asia Practice Leon Low. The JLV model allows both firms to share profits through a financially integrated model of both local and foreign firm.
Lowe believes the joint venture will position the firm ahead of Qualifying Foreign Law Practice (QFLP) firms in Singapore. “We will be managed and operated as a single profit centre and also have a lot more flexibility with this model. We are not restricted by quotas or to working on limited practice areas and have more breadth to undertake any area of Singapore law through Asia Practice,” Lowe said.
“The JLVs to date have traditionally been big-ticket expatriate firms from Wall Street and the City tying up with top-tier firms in Singapore that already had very established cultures as well as different governance, billing and documentation styles. The cultures were too developed and mature to properly integrate,” Lowe said. “What we’ve got here is a group of Singapore law practitioners whose noses are pointing in the same direction as ours.”
The joint venture will target work in focused sectors, primarily in oil & gas, transport, power/energy and real estate. The venture will look to push further into areas such as property finance, aviation, trade and project finance. “We are not going to be a full-service offering day one. We are sticking to what we do well and maintaining our focus with a group of very talented individuals,” Lowe said.
As the shipping market enters into a period of rationalisation, Lowe maintains that the down cycle of the shipping industry is when practitioners benefit and pick up good work. “Volatility is usually good for specialist lawyers because consolidation of the market leads to a lot of M&A. The restructuring and enforcement work also picks up. Additionally, because many of the partners at WFW have been through previous cycles, there is a real flight to know-how. That’s where the track record we’ve got has led us to become counter-cyclical and gives us a competitive advantage,” Lowe said.
According to Lowe, one of the big drivers for gaining local capability was to tap in and attract local talent pool ahead of the competition. “Singapore law firms have a very long horizon to full equity. That’s been loosened up a bit but I don’t think it is being loosened quick enough for bright young partners who see opportunities elsewhere to hold them in the local firms – in addition we have a readymade global platform, which attracts young Singapore firms who have ambitions to work on cross border/international transactions,” Lowe said.
“We see that as a way to grow into the market at this stage of the cycle and be 6 to 12 months ahead of the competition in terms of what we could do,” Lowe said. “This should give us a window of opportunity to make hay while the sun shines.”
“We are probably the only JLV setup where the Singapore partners are all young, [ambitious] lawyers who share the same work and client-management ethos as its foreign counterpart. This puts us in a good position to grow together from strength to strength,” Lowe said.
All five partners from WFW Asia Practice are below 40.
The JLV model launched by the Singapore Ministry of Law has had a chequered rate of success. In 2007 Freshfields ended its six-year JLV alliance with Singapore Big Four Drew & Napier; in 2009, White & Case broke off its alliance with its local arm Venture Law when it received its QFLP license; Clifford Chance similarly did away with its JLV with WongPartnership a month after receiving its QFLP approval. Other partnerships that also suffered the same fate include Shearman & Sterling with Stamford Partnership (2001 and 2002), White & Case with Colin Ng as well as Orrick’s tie up with Helen Yeo & Partners (now Rodyk & Davidson).
Surviving JLVs include Hogan Lovells Lee & Lee, Baker & McKenzie.Wong & Leow, Pinsent Masons M Pillay and Allen & Gledhill – Linklaters. The most recent JLVs this year include corporate boutique firm Arfat Selvam’s tie up with Duane Morris in March 2011.ALB
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