At a lunch last week, one London law firm leader told me that his firm wanted to grow significantly to around £400 million in revenue in order to have a big enough balance sheet to compete for lateral hires. It was a seemingly innocuous comment but it felt like déjà vu, oddly reminiscent of Shearman & Sterling’s strategy be a $3 billion revenue firm also in order to be able to compete for laterals. The Allen & Overy-Shearman merger is set to finish being voted through this week and it will have achieved its aim. For now at least. The fact is that almost all firms are chasing scale. All the time. Ask 99% of leaders what their strategy is and they robotically reply “growth”. But those same leaders know that scale, in itself, is not all that useful without some kind of strategy behind it. If a firm wants to compete for the best talent then it needs to be profitable by operating in the most lucrative markets and ensuring that all parts of its network are contributing. That’s why some recent office openings are interesting. When news broke last week that elite disputes specialist Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan was looking to launch in Singapore it signaled more than just another flag being planted in the city-state. | 