Speaking five months after Cooley opened with 55 lawyers in the UK capital, Mr Conroy spoke of the challenges facing firms opening in London. He said that UK lawyers tend to think that the London offices of US firms are not treated as being on a par with the domestic US offices. 'They’ve become outposts, they’ve become silos,' he said. 'They haven’t really had the care and feeding they’ve needed to become a part of an integrated firm.'
Management committee
Cooley has responded to this challenge by including partners from London on its management and compensation committees and in other important structures within the 800-lawyer, California-based practice. Like New York, London is a 'crowded, tough market with great law firms competing there already'. But recruiting associates in the UK has proved harder than in the US as, Mr Conroy added, associates in the UK have 'notice clauses there that US associates don’t have'. Source: Bloomberg Business of Law
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