October 2006 - Globalization of legal needs in the French market

"Mirror survey" dealing with consequences of globalisation in terms of legal needs from a corporate companies' perspective and from a Law firms' perspective.


Who were interviewed?

20 Managing Partners of Top 50 Law firms in France.
23 General Counsels of France's Top 120 corporate companies.

What are the main differences?

1. Consequences of global development.
For coporate companies, global development implies sticking close to the end user / consumer while Law firms mostly stick to where clients' decision making sites are (strategic, financial, legal decisions) without necessarily following every geographical opening.

2. Corporate companies demand a stronger centralization of relationship managament by their law firms.

3. Origins of difficuties in a global job
Corporate companies and Law firms totally disagree about reasons for global jobs failures. While Lawyers pinpoint intercultural dimensions, General counsels underline unequal level competences from one country to another, lack of communication within teams and lack of communication between different firms when they work on the same job.

4. Global legal needs to come

5. Importance of intuitu personae

The following survey is in French, contact Day One for the complete translation of the survey.