Law without frontiers

Modern communications have revolutionised legal practice internationally - and US law firms have been quick to take advantage, says Paul Hauser

There have been significant changes in the way London-based US firms practise law over the past 20 years.

I first came to England in 1980 as a US attorney and started out with an English law firm.

I then moved to the London office of a US law firm, followed by a multinational English partnership associated with the same US firm, Bryan Cave, one of the longest established US law firms in London.

I first worked for Crane & Hawkins (no longer in existence) which had the first truly multinational practice in London.

The firm was staffed with both English solicitors and US attorneys, and had a complex US and UK parallel partnership structure, which allowed lawyers from both countries to practise in partnership with one another.Crane & Hawkins was unique in London in terms of practice and method of operation, being in many ways untypical of US firms with London offices at that time.

These firms had some commercial work, an area of practice which had been given a boost with the development of North Sea oil in the 1970s, but they were mainly small and generally restricted themselves to providing US legal advice.

There were in fact only limited opportunities to advise on mixed questions of English and US law.

This was particularly true of commercial transactions, as each deal was still, for the most part, limited to the laws of only one country.

In fact, it was in counselling private clients on personal problems that there was the greatest scope for developing an Anglo-American legal practice.The relatively unsophisticated communications technology of 20 years ago presented an enormous obstacle to the development of an international client base.

All that was available was a telex machine and a regular air courier service to New York.

There were no fax machines, no e-mails and no office-wide computer system for lawyers.It is the development of advanced communications systems, more than any other factor, which has been the driving force in transforming US law offices in London.

The new communications methods have made it possible for lawyers on different continents to work together on the same transaction for a client, which might itself be spread all over the world.

The result has been an increase in the complexity of commercial transactions and disputes.

This in turn has meant a significant increase in the work of those lawyers positioned both in terms of training and technological capabilities to handle it.While 20 years ago much of the practice of US firms would have been spent in advising US clients in the UK or British clients going to the US, this old practice of labelling clients by nationality has ceased to have much meaning.

The practice is also certainly more demanding, where clients are not only in different time zones, but many of them are in countries where Saturday and/or Sunday is a normal workday and where the public holidays bear no relation to those in England or the US.Critically, the old divisions between issues of US and English law have mostly disappeared.

Clients expect to receive legal advice in the most generic meaning of the term, and they are generally uninterested in what they regard as a largely technical question of whether they have an 'English' or a 'US' legal problem, or indeed a problem governed by the laws of a third country.Therefore, the practice of many US lawyers today in London is close to the ideal envisaged by the founders and partners of my first US firm.

Large numbers of US lawyers are now dual qualified in both countries, and practise in partnership with English solicitors.

And their offices have expanded in a way that could not have been contemplated even 20 years ago.Paul Hauser is a partner in the London office of US law firm Bryan Cave