Law Firms
Bryan Cave Plans 1st Office in France
Posted Jul 7, 2008, 12:59 pm CDT
By Martha Neil
Bryan Cave plans to add a third European office, its first in France, as soon as regulators grant their approval.
The St. Louis-based international law firm "has recruited corporate and M&A partner Kathie Claret and public and private funds partner Joseph Smallhoover, who will start up Bryan Cave's French practice after leaving Dechert’s Paris office last week," reports Legal Week.
However, the two French attorneys right now are affiliates rather than members of Bryan Cave, the firm explains in a press release. "Upon receipt of regulatory approval, they will form the core of a new office for the firm in Paris."
This will be the fourth new office for Bryan Cave in a little more than a year. The other three are in Hamburg, Germany; Milan, Italy; and San Francisco.
Bryan Cave now has about 800 lawyers in 15 offices worldwide, according to the firm's website.
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Posted by lloyd - 1 month, 1 week, 1 day, 19 hours, 14 minutes ago
The trend points to an increasing tendency towards globalisation of law firms.
I am curious to see what overall effect this will have, if any, in the long run, in term of labor practices.
Clerical workers are perhaps the largest occupational group in the United States, yet the administrative personnel of most law firms (paralegals, legal secretaries, word processing) have little right to speak of, and no representation whatsoever in the USA. This usually doesn’t make for healthy working conditions and is often the source of questionable labor practices and much toxicity in the workplace, against which the only recourse, in America, is a civil action brought before a court (Lawsuits alleging unfair labor practices are pending against Bryan Cave.)
How will Bryan Cave measure up to the challenge of advising companies on their compliance obligations with France’s more demanding labor and employment laws and on ensuing litigation remains to be seen.
Bryan Cave has submitted an application with the Paris Bar Council in order to operate under its own name (the office currently operates as “the Paris Law Practices of Claret and Smallhoover.")
The huge size of the United States results in a larger number of large firms overall (a 2003 survey found that the United States alone had 901 law firms with more than 50 lawyers, while there were only 44 such firms in Great Britain, 14 in France, and 9 in Germany.)