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GAZETTE
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JUNE 1992
by Eamonn G. Hall, Solicitor
The Lions of the Law
The title above takes its name from a
book written by
Paul Hoffman
(New
York) in 1973 called
Lions of The
Street.
Ho f fman opened the doors
onto the powerful and protected
world of US corporate law and
introduced the power brokers who
influence the decisions of the
nation's top businessmen and
politicians. In
Lions of the Eighties
Hoffman took an updated look at
the members of the legal profession
and observed how nearly a decade of
social and economic turmoil had
affected what he described as this
most secretive and starchy of white-
collar professions.
Hoffman noted that the "old guard'
was gradually being replaced by a new
breed of lawyers who scrambled for
business in areas the old guard "law
factories" once shunned. The author
noted that the women who once
reigned only in the reception areas
and secretarial pools were
then becoming associates and partners
at even the most exclusive firms.
Lions of the Eighties
took readers
behind the scenes at more than 40 of
the top law firms in New York and
around the United States, providing
in-depth profiles of the nation's top
lawyers as well as the inside stories of
the pivotal (and most often
unheralded) role the "Lions of the
Eighties" played in the major news
events of the day. The story of
Ireland's lions of the law remains to
be told.
The Irish Magazine,
Finance,
in its
February 1992 edition (vol. 6 no. 2)
contained a guide entitled
"Corporate and Financial Law".
The magazine listed 28 firms of
solicitors which, it stated, constituted
a snapshot of the solicitors'
profession in Ireland in early 1992.
All the firms involved were stated
The story of Ireland's lions of the law remains to be told.
to derive a major part of their
fees from corporate and financial
law.
Finance
noted that information and
negotiation were the core services
provided by a law firm. Some of the
best legal and corporate information
libraries in Ireland were maintained
by law firms. The top firms were
stated to have made big financial
investments in the further
development of their information
databases which go far beyond the
maintenance of volumes of case law
to a wide range of financial
information including on-line
databases.
Readers may be interested in the
ranking of the top Irish corporate
law firms ranked in order of staff
as computed by the magazine
Finance.
(See table 1) (Lawbrief
cannot vouch for the accuracy of
the data).
Meanwhile in England the magazine
Legal Business,
(March 1992)
revealed that there were a few senior
partners in London firms of
solicitors who earned more than £1
million per year. However, in general
earnings per partner in the top firms
range from about £200,000 for
junior partners to £500,000 for
senior partners. The magazine
ranked the top ten UK firms of
solicitors by profit per partner in
1991. (See table 2).
Categorical denials of co-operation
were given by several of the London
firms involved in the survey. The
survey emphasised that the average
profit per partner was not the same
as take-home pay as partners were
often expected to reinvest in the
firm.
One reaction to the UK survey was
summed up by
GeoffreyHowe,
senior partner of Clifford Chance in
the UK
Law Society
Gazette of 18
March, 1992:
"We were asked for assistance but
we did not give it. Any figure for
us represents guesswork.
Something like this which calls for
guesswork is bound to have
inaccuracies, but we regard it as a
bit of fun - light reading which
is not to be taken too seriously".
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