CC, DLA and Simmons lose out as Jumeirah revamps legal panel
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Clifford Chance, DLA Piper and Simmons & Simmons have missed out on spots on Jumeirah Group’s revamped legal panel after the hospitality company’s legal chief slashed the roster from 12 firms to five.
Chief legal officer Robert Swade assembled the group’s first-ever panel in 2008, appointing Clifford Chance, Clyde & Co, DLA Piper, Mayer Brown, Pinsent Masons and Simmons & Simmons to the main global roster with an additional six firms being taken on to offer advice on specialist jurisdictions and sectors (15 July 2008).
Clydes, Mayer Brown and Pinsents continue to feature in the new line-up, with Herbert Smith, which was previously retained for specialist advice only, and US firm Weil Gotshal & Manges completing the roster. Dubai based firm Al Tamimi & Co will continue to advise in relation to certain UAE legal issues.
Swade said he has slashed the panel in a bid to tighten the relationships between his department and its advisers.
In a statement he added: “One of the aims of reducing the number of firms is to promote a closer partnership between the in-house legal team and the panel law firms, to encourage the law firms to invest time and resources, so that each firm becomes a trusted business advisor to the group”.
As part of the pitching process firms were asked to demonstrate their experience in geographical areas where the company has commercial operations or proposed new hotel developments.
The firms also had to show that they could service the hotel chain in all the jurisdictions in which it operates. The company, which is part of the state-controlled Dubai Holding, operates Dubai hotels Burj Al Arab and Jumeirah Emirates Towers as well as complexes in the UK, US, Bermuda, China and across the Middle East.
Swade added: “In addition to the other, perhaps more obvious, reasons for selecting panel members, we looked for applicant firms who demonstrated a real passion and interest for our industry sector and the legal issues associated with it as well as for personal chemistry between the representatives of the applicant firms and the panel selection committee.
“We asked each of our panel appointees to enter into service level agreements, the main aim of which was to structure the relationship between the Jumeirah Group and the panel law firms as one of partnership.”
Swade has a history of building close ties with panel firms, having organised a conference for the first panel weeks after it was put together (21 July 2008).
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Readers' comments (18)
Anonymous | 1-Sep-2010 3:43 pm
Any more than four or five firms on a legal panel is pure over-kill and generally a sign of a general counsel trying to friends and ex-colleagues a favour, or worse.
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Anonymous | 1-Sep-2010 5:37 pm
Ooops ... another piece of bad news for DLA in the sand.
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Anonymous | 1-Sep-2010 7:52 pm
A sign of the times that clients will continue with further rationalisation of global panels to reduce costs. Further, clients will dictate terms of billings and law firms will need to meet client demands given the fixed billing schedule on offer. There's no doubt, lawyers will need to become more commercially astute and think with an MBA hat on.
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Anonymous | 2-Sep-2010 8:56 am
The firms also had to show that they could service the hotel chain in all the jurisdictions in which it operates.
Mayer Brown do not have offices in the ME.
Weil Gotshal has a token 2 lawyer office in Dubai.
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Anonymous | 2-Sep-2010 11:45 am
These firms will not receive much work. It's just another elaborate profile-raising exercise by an ambitious head of legal.
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Anonymous | 2-Sep-2010 4:42 pm
I agree with the previous comment. I bet these firms are secretly delighted - I worked in Dubai at the time of the original panel process and it was classic Middle East showboating - an elaborate process where something like 22 firms were whittled down to only (!) 12; even if the credit-crunch hadn't hit Dubai a few months later, Jumeirah doesn't outsource much work so a panel of that size was entirely unjustified and i heard that the panel firms had to provide training and jump through administrative hoops which were totally disproportionate to the fees they were getting. Oh, and the conference organised for "building close ties with panel firms"? never happened.
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Anonymous | 2-Sep-2010 6:30 pm
In a part of the world where in-house lawyers are still trying to gain the same recognition as their UK and US counterparts, well done Jumeirah for adopting such a progressive approach to the procurement of legal services. I have seen an increase in the number of my clients in the region who are asking for creative cost control initiatives and additional services, such as training and secondments - something which does not sit comfortably with many firms in the region.
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Anonymous | 3-Sep-2010 5:54 am
Anon 11.45 and 4.42 are clearly sour grapes lawyers from either cc, dla or s&s...
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Anonymous | 3-Sep-2010 12:14 pm
Or they could simply be people who've encountered the Jumeirah oddballs!
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Anonymous | 6-Sep-2010 4:00 pm
...or, they could just be right. Seems like an honest opinion has been given and that is that in-house HoLs are jumped up ego-craving cookie monsters.
We did a pitch a short while ago for a VERY prestigious client, but lost out to a good regional firm. No sour grapes over losing out to the other firm, other than we were better...(!)
Sour grapes due to the way in which the pitch target's director (who was also a surveyor by trade) handled the entire affair, had us march down to see them at their offices and basically bum steered us because of the fact that our firm was less well known (but equally capable by the pitch taget's director's own admission).
Love Oscar the Grouch.
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