Is This The Future Law Firm?
www.LawFuel.co.nz – The NZ Legal Jobs & Newswire - Can you imagine a law firm with no partners, no billing targets, no traditional steps towards partnership?
Trust a law firm that acts for Google and Amazon to break the rules.
A new trans-Atlantic law firm may have shone the light on the future of the modern law practice. Axiom Legal was
founded in the US eight years ago by entrepreneur Alec Guettel and former Davis Polk & Wardwell associate Mark Harris, Axiom opened in London last year and already has a London bank of highly experienced
lawyers primed to spend bespoke periods of time in-house with clients.
In the last few years the firm has signed up a range of clients such as Reuters (now Thomson Reuters), Google and
General Electric.
an astonishing idea. Imagine a law firm in with Legal's founders came up Axiom which there are no partners, no billing
targets and no lockstep to worry about. Imagine, as a client, being able to go to that law firm to access top-quality
legal work at a fraction of the cost charged by most firms.
"It was interesting to begin with - we had a lot of positive feedback from everyone we talked to, but translating that
interest into people actually wanting to work with us was a challenge," admits Guettel. "These companies had 50-year
histories with the likes of Skadden Arps,” says Guetell.
For Guettel, part of the firm's success can be put down to what it offers its lawyers.
"We offer a pretty nice mix of attributes to lawyers that are hard to get anywhere else - we pay well, we do
sophisticated work for exciting clients and there's a variety that you don't get in-house," he says. "More importantly,
there's a sense of self direction. We put a lot of energy into empowering people to control their own destinies."
As Sarah Corbett, an Axiom lawyer currently working with Amazon, says, it is a win-win situation. "It's great for senior
lawyers who want to work flexibly like I do and for senior in-house lawyers who need some help," she says.
ends