Law.com - Taylor Wessing Fears Over Outside Investment Triggered Disputed Paris Merger

Law.com - Taylor Wessing Fears Over Outside Investment Triggered Disputed Paris Merger
This article gives a glimpse of what may come when law firms may have non-lawyer ownership and may run more like a business than a professional practice. It all starts when Taylor Wessing started its Paris office with the acquisition of a 30 lawyer team from an accounting firm. Then, it seems Taylor started to explore financing possibilities under the upcoming UK Legal Services Act. This upset Taylor's Paris partners and they decided to talk to a US based firm about a merger that would take them out of Taylor. When Taylor's other partners learned of the Paris partners' merger plans, they intervened and were able to talk the Paris partners into staying put, or, at least that is what people thought. However, the Paris managing partner stepped down and apparently continued to pursue merger discussions with the US firm. This has now triggered Taylor to bring a law suit against the US firm for breach of various duties, including a non-poaching clause in the documents signed when the merger was under discussion. This is beginning to sound a bit like Microsoft and Yahoo. I guess these things are to be expected when professional practices start behaving like commercial businesses.