We’ve already had the American Lawyer “Autopsy” report
Here’s the introduction to the Forbes piece…
It will be a glum holiday season for the lawyers and staff at King & Wood Mallesons (KWM). The multinational law firm giant, a single-branded legal network anchored by British, Australian, and Chinese member firms, is dissolving. The firm website describes the 2,700 lawyer amalgam as ‘the global elite firm of the next century.’ Its motto, ‘The Power of Together,’ is cruelly ironic—especially for many soon to be out of a job.
The American Lawyer has already performed a KWM ‘autopsy’ based on interviews with several current and former KWM partners. They attribute the cause of death to a host of maladies including: poor governance and management, succession issues, greed, lack of strategic direction, and chronic partner capital shortages. Other factors no doubt also contributed–inadequate due diligence, overheated expansion, integration challenges (IT is often a big one), cultural and practice differences, currency issues, and the firm’s Swiss verein structure. Swiss vereins market themselves as a unified firm brand but have balkanized member finances. Each verein member maintains separate books and (purportedly) liability. That’s why KWM’s Asian and Australian member firms will remain largely in tact–at least until their next hookup—even as their European member colleagues dissolve. It also explains how and why the Asian and Australian KWM members left their European ‘partners’ to fight off the vultures en route to insolvency without stepping up to save the unified firm.
