INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE: THE FACTS-- Around 140 foreign law firms from 30 countries have offices in London.

US firms have the most with over 60, followed by Canadian firms with eight.-- London residents also include six Panamanian firms, two Iranian, and one each from Jamaica and Finland.-- English law firms have offices in 38 foreign countries, with Brussels, Hong Kong, Paris and Singapore the four most popular locations.-- Clifford Chance has the most foreign offices -- 22 in 18 countries.

Frere Cholmeley Bischoff has arguably the most glamorous, with an office in Monte Carlo, run close by Beaumont & Son in Rio de Janeiro.

Clyde & Co is the only English firm with an office in Venezuela.-- Scottish firm Ledingham Chalmers has the most eclectic set of foreign offices, encompassing the Falkland Islands, Turkey and Azerbaijan.-- US firm Baker & McKenzie is the largest firm in the world by some distance, with more than 2000 lawyers in 57 offices in 33 countries.

Its network includes unusual offices in Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Taiwan.NEIL ROSE LOOKS AT MOVES TO LET UK FIRMS EXPAND ABROAD AND OPEN OVERSEAS JURISDICTIONS TO FOREIGN COMPETITIONSolicitors get everywhere.

They can be found from Australia to Vietnam, in the Bahamas, the Falkland Islands, Kazakhstan, Sierra Leone and Tuvalu, to name but a few of the 68 countries where they ply their trade.This trend looks set to continue as trade barriers between countries break down and lawyers find it easier to provide their services abroad.

Lawyers will not do this out of love for foreign culture of course, but because there is a lot of money in providing advice abroad.A report by British Invisibles -- a private company promoting British exports - earlier this year revealed that the UK legal profession earned £511 million through the export of its services in 1995, more than trebling its contribution to the UK's invisible exports of a decade before.

Legal services were found to be one of the five most significant contributors to the surplus in UK trade in services in 1995, the most recent year for which figures are available.

British Invisibles predicted the legal sector's contribution would keep growing in the years ahead.Meanwhile, the European Commission has also recognised the crucial role legal services play in Europe's business activities.

In a study on the competitiveness of European industry, the Commission found: 'With increased international competition, legal services are becoming a vital export product.

Already lawyers from Europe and North America are competing to export their system of law to govern commercial contracts in eastern European countries and newly emerging markets.'Therefore it comes as no surprise to find the European Union at the forefront of moves to ease the path of lawyers who want to cross borders.

As the report noted: 'The implementation of a simplified regulatory framework for the legal profession at EU level is thus of primary importance, not only in itself for the integration of legal services, but also for the role of efficient pan-European services in setting contractual bases for all types of business activities world-wide.'So, after 20 years of false hopes and arguments, the EU is scheduled to pass the Rights of Establishment Directive into law by the end of the year.

Member states will be asked to implement its provisions by the year 2000.

Under the Directive, lawyers from one EU member state will have the right to establish themselves permanently under home title in another member state.

Those lawyers who do this for three years will have the right to acquire the title of lawyer in the host state without having to pass the aptitude test currently required.The Directive will make it much easier for solicitors' firms to open offices in other member states, explains Patrick Oliver, the Law Society's Brussels representative.

'Firms will know what the rules of the game are, whatever the country,' he says, even though the Directive does not necessarily mean firms will open more foreign offices.

But taken with the other liberalisation measures that promote the single market, the Directive will help firms to expand their international practices, he says.How ever, of far wider effect -- at least potentially -- is the investigation into legal services by both the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).

By their very nature, these bodies are aiming to ease cross-border trade, and the legal profession is struggling to cope with the implications.There are several fears: on a business level, the possibility of liberalisation to the point that accountants or other competitors will be able to move easily into law, perhaps through multi-disciplinary partnerships; on a more ethical level, there are concerns that the unique and vital characteristics of legal practice such as independence -- known in Euro-speak as the 'specificities' -- will be lost.Some countries, such as France and Spain, have maintained the argument they pursued during the debate on the European Directive that all lawyers in a country -- whatever their origin -- should work under the title lawyers have in that country.The danger facing the legal profession world-wide is that hanging on defensively to ideas such as these, however justified, may Canute-like, be entirely ineffective.

The tide of liberalisation is lapping at the shores.The dilemma is neatly encapsulated by the International Bar Association (IBA), which is viewed as the natural leader of the legal profession for global issues such as these.

The IBA is struggling to bring its 173 Law Society and Bar members together to present a united front to the WTO and OECD.

In particular, it is trying to establish model guidelines for a regime of foreign legal consultants that countries can adopt to facilitate foreign lawyers working under home title.

This is the formula the IBA hopes to present to the WTO and OECD as the way forward.But while Rome begins to smoulder, the IBA is still looking for its bow.

A vote on the guidelines has been repeatedly pushed back -- June 1998 is the next target -- while parts of the IBA caution about further delay.

At a meeting of its WTO-OECD working group at the recent IBA conference in New Delhi, Spanish lawyer Javier Sans Roig -- chairman of the IBA's professional ethics working party -- presented a report which concluded: 'We recommend that the issue of foreign legal consultants be treated as one to be resolved within the international legal profession itself, and that the IBA intensify its efforts to resolve it on the lines of the general principles set out above, but that it should not make any representations to international regulatory bodies on the matter at this stage.'However, at the same meeting, Michel van Doosselaere, president of the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) -- which played a vital role in seeing through the European Directive -- warned that 'we are at the mercy of diplomats and governments.

If we want to have our say, we have to be at the negotiations to the last minute.'It is perhaps with this in mind that the CCBE, the American Bar Association and the Japan Federation of Bar Associations have formed their own group to consider a response specifically to the OECD.

Mr van Doosselaere protested in Delhi that the development implied no criticism of the IBA.

But others have pointed out that if the IBA was doing its job to everybody's satisfaction, the new group would be pointless.IBA vice-president Klaus Bohlhoff has struck a bullish note both in defence of the IBA and in respect of the threat represented by the WTO and OECD.

'Nobody in the IBA is worried about liberalisation as long as the specificities are recognised,' h e told the Delhi meeting.

'There are diverging views among our members and it is hard to find a consensus.

But the work of the WTO and OECD is progressing regardless of us.

We should concentrate on the basic issues of specificities [independence] rather than our internal problems.'The only thing that is clear is the inevitability of change.

The work of the WTO and OECD in professional services is simply the result of the increasing globalisation of trade.

The large firms are handling it in their own way by increasing their international coverage through offices and lawyers.

Allen & Overy, for instance, plans to have as many foreign-qualified lawyers as solicitors within five years, while a merger between a top City and Wall Street firm is widely regarded as a question of not if, but when.

Smaller firms are also moving into international work both as a way to expand their practices and also in response to the greater number of smaller companies that are becoming international.

Six-partner Manchester firm Fox Brooks Marshall last week announced it had advised on rights issues by two Australian-listed companies.Fundamentally, the guardians of the profession are concerned that the headlong rush towards commercialism by these law firms -- a development they recognise as both necessary and good -- could at the same time obscure lawyers' special duty towards the administration of justice.

This is often the fear expressed by lawyers in developing countries, whose role is almost totally concerned with trying to uphold justice in often difficult circumstances.Speaking in London last month, Mr van Doosselaere noted that it 'remains the case that, within the same profession, both the mission of partner of justice and that of legal counsel continue and must continue to co-exist and are necessarily tied together.

Quoting Roscoe Pound he added: 'the term profession refers to a group of men (and women) pursuing a learned art as a common calling in the spirit of a public service -- no less a public service because it may incidentally be a means of livelihood.' Mr van Doosselaere cautioned that 'this necessary and essential role of the lawyer imposes specific duties upon him as much towards his client as towards the public interest.'Up until now, the long-running debate about whether the law is a profession or a business has not been conducted entirely seriously.

It now seems that resolution of this argument -- by lawyers and non-lawyers alike -- will dictate the shape of the legal profession in the years to come.ROBERT VERKAIK LOOKS AT HOW WELL UK FIRMS ARE PERFORMING IN NEW YORK COMPARED TO THE AMERICANS IN LONDONAmerican law firms continue to market themselves aggressively in the City, attracting leading UK lawyers with a view to challenging the UK firms in their own back yard.

In marked contrast, English law firms use New York offices to support their international deals and are careful not to tread on American toes.On the face of it, these different approaches are backed up by the figures for the number of lawyers working in their respective offices -- only four UK law firms have more than ten lawyers working in their New York offices while there are at least ten US law firms which have established London offices staffed with more than 20 lawyers.

But these are bare statistics which belie a much more subtle and equally determined strategy being pursued by the UK law firms.Freshfields has just seven lawyers in its New York office but it intends to double this number in the next 12 months to support its international p roject finance work.

And managing partner Ian Terry is happy to concede: 'If you do not have the US capability you are going to miss out on projects around the world.'Nevertheless, a New York office with 14 lawyers is hardly going to send shivers down the spines of US competitors.

But Freshfields' US office maybe something of a smoke screen for its real American capability, which is based in London.

'Most of our US-qualified lawyers are based in London or Asia,' confirms Mr Terry.

American lawyer Kent Rowey, formerly of Millbank Tweed, heads up the firm's international project finance practice from London and his American colleagues Tom Joyce and Don Guiney also lead Freshfields' US securities practice from London.

Lawyers do not have to be in America to provide US law capability, claims Mr Terry.Allen & Overy now has 16 lawyers in its New York office.

A&O managing partner John Rink sets out his firm's US strategy: 'We are building up our New York law presence in order to be competitive at the top of the international finance market.

We are not seeking to compete with the major US law houses for US domestic work.'Like Mr Terry, Mr Rink says US law firms will not be able to mount a serious threat to the leading domestic firms in the UK.

'In the same way,' explains Mr Rink, 'that we think it would be very difficult for us to be serious competition to the major New York law houses we think the American law firms in London will find it equally difficult.'Former Clifford Chance partner Maurice Allen, now head of Weil Gotshal & Manges' London office, has picked up on the different approach taken by the UK law firms in New York.

'The strategy for a long time was flawed because UK law firms thought they should compete with the American law firms in America which is an extremely difficult market to break into,' he says.

Mr Allen adds: 'The sensible strategy is to compete in Europe for US work and focus attention on attracting US lawyers to their London and Far East offices where they have got a better chance of convincing clients to use them.'This is not, however, how Clifford Chance regards its American vision.

Clifford Chance is one UK law firm which says it is prepared to fight the Americans in their own back yard and on their own terms.

Its New York office, the UK law firm with the largest US presence, now has 54 lawyers and is growing all the time.Quoting from the firm's ten-year mission statement and global vision, a Clifford Chance spokesman said: 'At a later stage we expect to offer a full range of services to meet the needs of clients in major corporate and commercial transactions in the US.'Simmons & Simmons is another UK law firm which has taken America more seriously be upgrading its New York presence.

At the moment this presence largely consists of two lawyers.

However, Simmons now wants to offer IP advice to its east coast American clients.The US law firms have had no difficulty recruiting high calibre English lawyers.

Last year White & Case's London office famously offered newly qualified English lawyers a starting salary of £45,000.

London executive partner, John Bellhouse, admits that this has been a factor in attracting good young English lawyers.

He adds: 'But its not the only factor.

It's to do very much with wanting to be part of something that is growing and to do something different.' The London office has also taken on four of its own trainees.

All this has helped White & Case to grow its London office to 35 lawyers.

Unusually, White & Case now has a UK litigation practice.

And Mr Be llhouse says his firm already acts for a number of UK companies.

'Over the next five years I would expect us to get some domestic work in other fields,' he predicts.

'By the end of 1998 we hope to have another ten more lawyers.'Weil Gotshal has 55 lawyers, 45 UK and ten US-qualified, most of whom came from the top five City law firms.

Mr Allen adds: 'We want to grow to a size where we can compete in the finance field across the board with the top five UK firms.' Mr Allen claims his firm has made gains in the banking and equity capital markets.

'It's a very big market so we don't need a huge share of that market to be very busy,' says Mr Allen, adding: 'It's an under-lawyered market, there's very little choice and there's definitely room for another firm outside the top four of Linklaters, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy and Freshfields.' He says his finance department has more quality lawyers than the second-tier players in the finance market.Perhaps more significantly, the Weil team is now competing for work given out by London-based financial institutions, traditional UK domestic work requiring UK law firm legal services.STEPHEN WARD TALKS TO EUROPEAN FIRMS ABOUT WHAT IT IS LIKE TO BE A NON-AMERICAN FIRM WITH LONDON OFFICESTo English law firms, the Americans may look like predatory giants striding into London with an appetite for English lawyers.

But to the typical European firm, the English City firms in turn look huge and threatening.Bruno Boesch, a partner in Froriep Renggli and Partners, with offices in Geneva and Zurich and with a London outpost for 12 years, explains the different perspective: 'We have 40 lawyers altogether and we are the third largest law firm in Switzerland.

But here you are talking about firms with 500 lawyers.'This different scale means firms from countries other than those from North America do not generally try to buy up domestic talent.

But lawyers have to follow business, and as industry and commerce become increasingly global, they know that much of the world's business involves the City.

Mr Boesch says: 'London is the place for provision of legal services for business, and it is right to be here.

A lot of transactions start here, but to try to compete with the Anglo-American firms would be out of proportion.'To get their share of the work, foreign firms employ teams in London -- usually one to three home-qualified lawyers -- and use English firms for work needing English legal opinion.

According to Greg Abrahams, senior consultant at recruitment specialists Quarry Dougall, the work done by foreign law firms in London is chiefly corporate: mergers and acquisitions, tax, banking, property and finance.

Mr Abrahams confirms that there is little appetite among the non-North American foreign firms in London for devouring English lawyers.Mr Abrahams' assessment is that the merger announced last month between the French law firm Salans Hertzfeld & Heilbronn and the City practice Harris Rosenblatt & Kramer was influenced by the trend among US firms rather than the start of a European or worldwide one.'It does not mean every large firm in Frankfurt is about to do the same,' Mr Abrahams says.

Salans Hertzfeld already had an international attitude and an office in the US.Several lawyers mention the huge amounts that US firms are spending, which is probably another disincentive to hire in Britain.

As Mr Abrahams says: 'There are high rental costs in London.

The Americans have driven salaries up.'Justin Shmith, a partner in the 147-partner Australian firm Blake Dawson Waldron, wh ich has four Australian lawyers in London, said the arguments for global law firms were not as compelling as for industry.

His firm has lawyers in London primarily to offer Australian legal advice to English corporate clients or their lawyers.

It is crucial with a huge time difference to have an office available in English business hours.Ulrich Wolff, a partner in the German firm Oppenhoff and Radler, which has been in Britain for eight years, explains the rationale for the European firms: 'We want to offer a first class service -- if we start hiring English lawyers we'll probably not get first class ones,' he says.

The overseas law firms link with the English firms in a variety of ways.

Some regularly use a firm in the same building.

Shepstone & Wylie, a large South African firm with branches in Paris, the Isle of Man and Geneva, has six lawyers in London, none of whom is English.

Partner John Herholdt explains that his firm chooses as partners English firms which have some South African connection such as an office in South Africa or a major South African client.

Several European firms have found a different way to compete with the greater size of the English and US firms -- a tight grouping of leading firms from several countries formed a decade ago -- the Alliance of European Lawyers: Uria & Menendez from Spain; De Brauw Blackstone Westbroek in the Netherlands, De Bandt, van Hecke & Lagae in Belgium, Jeantet & Associes in France and Lagerlof & Leman in Sweden.Mr Wolff describes how the alliance came about: 'The purpose of us getting together in the 1980s was to build something on the continent which would balance English and American firms in size, and which kept the identity of the local firm intact while still providing the client with one-stop shopping.'The alliance operates its European regional offices together -- in London it is at Moorgate on the edge of the City.

They share support staff, although the giving of legal advice is strictly segregated and billed to the firm from the appropriate country.The alliance's unique selling point is its European Community expertise.

'We have a joint office in Brussels,' says Mr Wolff.

'American and other European firms do not have that huge pan-European client base.' Each firm keeps its long-standing informal relationships with English law firms.

Mr Wolff says: 'There is a periodic debate about whether we should bring an English firm into the partnership.

So far we have not.' Essentially the problem is that to do so would limit the choice of English lawyer, and matching the size could be a problem.

Get a big firm, the type its members already use, and it could dominate the alliance.

A smaller firm might not be so competitive.

This same logic explains why other firms have not merged bilaterally with English partners, says Mr Boesch.Mr Shmith, who has seen Australian firms move into Asia, says European firms will be under increasing pressure to merge.

Mr Boesch agrees things could change.

'At the moment the balance of argument is against a close link with a single London practice -- we would lose more than we would gain -- but one day it will happen with a Swiss firm,' he says.

Mr Boesch says for his firm, the determining factor could be when English or American firms start setting up bigger offices in Switzerland.

'They have already moved into the Netherlands, France, Spain, Italy and now Germany,' he says.

'We believe we are right to continue without an alliance as long as they don't touch the Swiss market.'