Friends With Benefits: BigLaw Finds Informal Overseas Liaisons Satisfying

Friends With Benefits: BigLaw Finds Informal Overseas Liaisons Satisfying
This is a very interesting article with a number of "best friends" success stories. Many firms do not see the need for, or the benefit of, having offices around the world. Instead, they search out relationships with local firms with which they can form more or less permanent alliances to meet the needs of clients. This often produces very satisfactory results with much lower costs and risks for the "best friends." A word of caution, however, relying on best friends relationships does not mean there is no work involved. To maintain a good best friends network takes a lot of work and requires considerable effort to keep the relationship in order. Among the things that must be done is broad-scale meetings between the firms on a periodic basis. Thus, there is a clear cost to best friends relationships.