Most top UK law firms 'recruit from competitors'

12/12/2007

Industry analysis has found that 61 per cent of leading UK law firms have hired a team of lawyers from a rival firm since 2005.

Research conducted by accountancy and professional services firm Smith & Williamson revealed that over three quarters of the country's largest legal firms would consider acquiring a new practice from another.

Giles Murphy, head of assurance and business services at Smith & Williamson, told Legal Week: "Acquiring an established team can be a relatively rapid way to achieve growth and can create fewer integration issues than mergers between similar sized practices."

He added: "From a management point of view, bringing an established team of individuals on board can be more straightforward than building a team through a series of lateral hires."

Smith & Williamson recently carried out a survey that found three quarters of the UK's 130 top law firms expected to merge within the sector to create multi-disciplinary firms.

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