DLA Piper

DLA Piper is the third largest law firm in the world by revenue, and the second largest by lawyer count. That is extraordinary, given the firm only took its modern multi-national shape twenty years ago. The firm achieved this success by emphasising scale above all else. This scale has resulted in winning mandates from multi-national or multi-regional clients, especially those who cannot afford truly top-of-the-market rates. As the firm moves into its third decade of existence, emphasis is increasingly being placed on efficiency, which has resulted in some impressive gains in terms of per lawyer revenue and profit. To begin, the story of DLA Piper is one of vast and rapid geographic expansion. In the five years subsequent to its founding merger, the firm opened eight new offices, entered into two further mergers, and inked three strategic alliances (relationships with existing domestic firms to share business). Further, in 2008, then CEO Sir Nigel Knowles initiated a structural shift to a Swiss Verein. By formally financially separating the different jurisdictions of the firm, this allowed for even greater expansion in years to come. The Swiss verein treats each jurisdiction as an independent unit financially speaking - there are no shared profit pools, with the firm instead being composed of several disparate equity partnerships. This has a big impact from a growth perspective. First, it simplified regulatory requirements by allowing for each office to focus on meeting the professional standards of their own country, rather than having a single centralised body meet them all. Second, it allowed for offices to feel free to spend more on investment (and thus become less profitable in the short run, something Sir Nigel explicitly adverted to at the time. The result is that now DLA Piper has more than 90 offices in more than 40 countries. It also possesses a strong regional presence in many of those countries, rarely relying on a single office alone. What does that expansive geographic scale mean for DLA Piper in the UK? Increasingly, it has meant that the firm’s UK lawyers are working on multi-jurisdictional matters, or otherwise those which require a high quantity of lawyers. That said, DLA Piper’s rapid ascent has also prevented it from accessing the truly blockbuster mandates. This is a fact also reflected in the firm's billing rates. Accordingly, the firm’s financial heart is formed by clients with complex, multi-jurisdictional needs who need slightly more value-oriented services. Given that this strategy is marked by client needs, rather than by sector or by practice, DLA Piper’s legal expertise is extremely broad. In 2024, for instance, it had departments ranked in almost 200 categories by Chambers’. That said, three practices in particular might be seen as particularly representative of the DLA Piper model. First, the firm’s mid-market M&A expertise in the UK. Headed by international managing partner Charles Severs, this team is the top firm by quantity for deals between £100-800 million. It relies on its internal depth (with one of the largest cohorts of lawyers in the City) as well as international breadth to win mandates. Second, the firm’s Band-1 ranked IT outsourcing team, led by Kit Burden. In this space, the firm’s global reach has proved extremely useful in winning work in cybersecurity matters, particularly where multiple regulatory regimes are concerned. Third, DLA Piper’s insolvency disputes practice. In this space, only 1% of the firm’s work is not multi-jurisdictional. This has allowed it to become the top grossing UK firm by revenue in this area. Each of these three practice areas evidences DLA Piper’s focus on winning mandates through scale. However, an endless search for scale must end somewhere. Whilst it is never a good idea to bet against DLA Piper continuing to expand, it certainly seems that in the past few years management focus has shifted to efficiency. For instance, lateral moves in the UK (and the pay-outs necessary to fund them) have decreased, with a corresponding increase in internal promotions. Further, there has been a shift towards utilising tech-enabled support staff based in Leeds to deal with administrative work, freeing up lawyers to take on more fruitful work. The results have been positive, with revenue per lawyer growing nearly 50% in five years to almost £700,000. In combining scale with efficiency, DLA Piper has found a winning strategy.