Slaughters hasn't joined the globalisation bandwagon to any noticeable degree, and that suits us. The end of last year saw a series of snubs to the big City firms from some major corporate clients. At the time, the company's head of legal Stephen Walsh told The Lawyer that Simmons was simply the best for the job, and cost was not a factor. A lot of the benefit we gain from local firms is built around the relationships you build up with individuals. It's easier to do that with local firms than with the largest law firm in the world.
Clients also cite conflicts of interest as another reason for being wary of the heavyweights.
Robert Sutton, senior partner at City firm Macfarlanes, says that the inevitable conflict problem is one reason his firm has opted out of global expansion. The bigger you get the more of an issue it becomes. I think that law firms sometimes overestimate the willingness of clients to accept that conflicts can be managed. He gives the example of Citibank, which blackballed Freshfields last month because the firm was acting in litigation against it over the collapse of a company in Singapore. But Stuart Popham, global head of finance at Clifford Chance, says he does not think the problem has got any worse with growth.