A&O's Paris corporate chief breaks away to establish boutique
Allen & Overy’s Paris corporate head has quit the firm to set up a boutique practice dedicated to M&A and tax work.
Nicolas Bichot
Nicolas Bichot has rejoined former A&O partner Patrice Couturier at the new firm, Bichot & Associés. A pair of associates from A&O, Charles-Noël van den Broek and Mathieu Odet, are also joining Bichot as partners.
Bichot was a partner at A&O for 11 years, joining the firm as it launched in Paris in 1999. Couturier spent eight years at the firm before leaving in March 2010 to join finance boutique Nabarro & Hinge.
Although Bichot said he was “very happy” at A&O he said he was looking for a more entrepreneurial and independent way of working. Bichot told The Lawyerhe believed clients were looking for closer contact with partners and boutique firms were better able to offer this service.
Bichot & Associés will aim to work with private equity funds, national and international companies and family offices.
Currently the firm consists of the four founding partners. Bichot said he wanted to build the team up to around 20 lawyers in the next one to two years while maintaining a ratio of one partner to one associate.
Bichot said he thought the French legal market was moving back towards the model of independent boutiques, which were more common in the 1980s. Other recent set-ups include Da Rosa & Creis, established in December 2010 by two former Norton Rose lawyers (1 November 2010).
Readers' comments (3)
marjorie | 6-Jan-2011 2:36 pm
There's something of a trend going on in Germany and France with these spin-offs - but why? Okay, so smaller European offices were never going to be easy to assimilate into big international firms like the magic circle, but why are so many spinning out now? These people have survived the culls and most of them are already in the partnership. Why take on the risk of a startup?
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Anonymous | 6-Jan-2011 6:40 pm
Could be linked to the poor Euro/Sterling exchange rate, stagnant or falling profit shares and 50% tax (plus now in Paris social security payments on your UK firm profit share with no deductibility of those payments against your UK tax bill). Profit share in an English partnership paid in Sterling is no longer anywhere near as valuable to a French or German partner as it was pre-2008 (perhaps worth around half in post tax Euros assuming static profit share). The risk of a start up looks a lot less than it did two or three years ago.
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Anonymous | 7-Jan-2011 12:10 pm
Because continental Europe does not like anglo-capitalism and megalith enterprise but prefers independent boutiques.
I am all for legal diversity.
Huge offices are more expensive for the client. Boutiques introduce more comeptition in the market.
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