Maher puts his name to his claim
Let me break it to Olswang. Greenberg Traurig may be saying nice things about its relationship with you, but the days of your cooperation are numbered.
Clearly, it will take Greenberg a while to build up a respectably sized operation, but the Miami firm is thinking - and paying - big in hiring Paul Maher, along with two of his former partners from Mayer Brown in London (see story).
Actually, Greenberg doesn’t much like the Miami tag, given how sniffy New Yorkers are about Florida law firms. And to be fair, it has had enormous growth in recent years; its ability to snare big-name lawyers in New York was evinced by its capture of restructuring partner Bruce Zirinsky from Cadwalader last autumn.
Will this work? Maher divides people - lawyers are either unquestionably fans, or they’re not. The fact that Maher managed to get his name attached to the London LLP will be seen by his critics as an ego trip, but it underscores his determination to build something lasting, as well as being the most public possible demonstration of his negotiation skills.
Once the initial fuss has subsided, Greenberg Traurig Maher will be very interesting to watch. It will face all the problems of a US start-up in London, but in the long term its biggest challenge is whether it can create a new model, as Maher wants. He is vociferous on the subject of pricing structures. The closed compensation system at Greenberg, where no partner knows what any other is paid, is just the way that corporates operate. Whatever you think about this (there are plenty of reasons why there should be more, not less, transparency in a partnership), it certainly takes out a whole behavioural layer of navel-gazing and internal battles of ego.
Even more intriguingly, Greenberg Traurig Maher is structuring itself in readiness for external capital, should it be necessary. It’s worth pointing out, though, that the US is less sold on the notion of external investment in the London operation. However, Maher wants everything in place in order to be able to act fast and gain immediate first-mover advantage. That’s a long way off, but such boldness will be a good selling point to laterals in London, at the very least.
That’s cute.
Readers' comments (8)
Anonymous | 15-Jun-2009 11:34 am
'That’s a long way off, but such boldness will be a good selling point to laterals in London, at the very least.' They would have to offer above market terms to induce anyone in their right mind to work there.
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Anonymous | 15-Jun-2009 3:23 pm
Rubbish, Greenberg is a top ten American firm; it was law firm of the year in 2007. People will flood to join Paul Maher; his reputation in London is phenomenal.
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Anonymous | 15-Jun-2009 4:59 pm
Greenberg is a top ten American law firm? What planet do you live on?
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Anonymous | 15-Jun-2009 6:55 pm
Planet Earth.
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Anonymous | 16-Jun-2009 7:29 am
People will not "flood" to join a firm like Greenberg -- it may have grown and become moderately profitable, but it is not Top 10 -- probably not Top 30 -- in reputation in the US. Good luck to Paul, but I think he'll find out quickly that he should have picked a better boat
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paul baggins | 16-Jun-2009 5:33 pm
Some of these reponses are typical of parohicial UK market watchers, who think the sun shines out the arse of the City and fail to understand the U.S legal market. Greenberg Traurig are a fabulous firm, who have been mkaing great strides in recent years. Their revenue for 08 was over $1.2 bn, that's between 700 and 800m sterling, or, put it this way, twice that of Herbert Smith. Sure, they're not top tier in Cravath-esque way. But maybe those firms are too white-shoe and cautious for Maher. I can see the attraction of trying to create something at a firm with roots in Florida, a great U.S footprint, strength in New York, and Latin America - a firm that's dynamic, ambitious. I think this is a great move for him and the GT.
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dirt | 17-Jun-2009 1:11 pm
Paul Baggins has it right. Greenberg isn't a "top-tier firm" in the sense of prestige or massive deals. It *is* a very large, and very fast-growing, firm in the US in terms of overall size; and more importantly, it's a place someone like Maher - talented, ambitious, but not exactly a team player - can build a practice unfettered by the rest of the firm.
The question is (a) whether GT US' coherence can be sustained in the long term, and (b) whether Maher really does still have those crucial client connections despite being distracted by management for the last couple of years. It wouldn't be the first time a US firm had paid mightily for a UK partner on the back of past glories.
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Anonymous | 18-Jun-2009 5:19 pm
Call me cynical but I have fond memories of other breathless scoops over the years extolling the virtues of other corporate warriors who were going to leverage the resources of other large American firms to change the London legal landscape. The scoops then moved quickly to excoriate the US management and then the corporate warriors themselves as promises failed to materialise and the warriors were seen to be the expensive, self-obsessed, men of clay they really are.
Closed compensation systems don't really exist in the world of the large public company (which GT should be hoping to emulate in governance terms). Not being open between your partners on remuneration smacks of being unable (or too scared) to level the playing field and assimilate your new hires as effectively as possible. Maher will have gone in on a set of financial promises against which he will be remunerated; whether GT have had the sense to add some behaviours-based factors into this remains to be seen.
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