Published by Bird & Bird LLP
December 2012
ISBN: 978-0-9573860

Lawyers can be a tiny bit vain at times – something to do with countless law school lecturers trying to justify astronomic course fees by telling their charges they are about to enter a profession populated only by the intellectual crème de la crème.  
It’s an uncomfortable truth, but once confronted and recognised, much easier to deal with. And indeed, some lawyers have a lot more to be vain about than others -- and a rare few manage to channel their vanity into a worthwhile project.
London-based intellectual property and technology specialist law firm Bird & Bird has done just that by encapsulating its nearly 170-year history into a brightly packaged and pithily written publication that goes some distance towards debunking the perception of lawyers as being devoid of imagination and creativity.

Light touch

Perhaps their most imaginative move in this case was to commission journalist Edward Fennell to pen the story. Mr Fennell, a correspondent and columnist for the legal affairs section of The Times newspaper in the UK, is a historian by education, having read modern history at Oxford University before forging a career as one of Britain’s best known legal affairs commentators.
In the hands of a more ‘traditional writer’, this book might easily have got bogged down under a stultifying weight of case reporting minutiae. But Mr Fennell tells the tale with a light, entertaining, but informative, touch that takes us from the firm’s origins in Dickensian London to its current position as an international practice with offices across Europe, the Middle East and East Asia.
Much credit should also go to the designers -- just as the writing could have been very old school, one imagines many lawyers would have insisted on leather-bound sobriety instead of the multi-coloured and illustrated 142-page volume the Two Birds partners have produced.

Internal marketing

Without doubt, those most interested in reading this history will be the Bird & Bird partners themselves, the firm’s other lawyers and staff, and perhaps their families -- although one can imagine recalcitrant teenage off-spring turning their noses up on a point of rebellious principle.
But that is not to diminish the project’s value. Internal marketing is important in any organisation, and it is not difficult to envisage this volume bucking up the spirits of most at Bird & Bird. It would not be surprising to see other law firms following suit.