WORLD TRADE: Californian firms spurn big opportunity as only four have Square Mile offices

Californian lawyers are missing a huge opportunity by ignoring the City of London, the barrister Lord Mayor of London warned delegates in San Francisco.

Currently, only four of the 53 US law firms with offices in the Square Mile are headquartered in California and Gavyn Arthur suggested that Californian firms could no longer afford to be insular, as they had been during the dot-com explosion in the 1990s.

'That advantage has gone; it has evaporated,' said Mr Arthur.

He pointed out to delegates that there are 800 California-based companies with offices in London - with 50 opening there only last year.

Also, the UK is the largest foreign investor in California.

Mr Arthur said that for Californian law firms properly to advise their corporate clients, they needed to realise that regulation in terms of world trade will increasingly emanate from Europe.

He said: 'California lawyers need to look after the interests of their clients by getting in early and quickly in relation to European trade regulation.'

Law Society Peter Williamson backed the Lord Mayor's call.

'When you are sitting her in a firm in California, you cannot be sure that European rules on biotechnology, on money laundering and corporate governance and on anti-trust, will not affect your business,' he said.

Meanwhile, Professor Nigel Savage, chief executive of the College of Law, said the bars of New York and California need to become less conservative and protectionist in relation to their qualifying regimes.

Prof Savage called for the authorities in the two most lawyer-heavy US states to allow their qualifying exams to be offered by certificated providers abroad.

He also proposed that the college should be allowed to offer the qualified lawyer transfer test (QLTT) in the US, making it easier for lawyers there to requalify as solicitors in England and Wales.

The remarks met with guarded approval from the head of one of the two key US bars.

James Herman, president of the board of governors of the State Bar of California, said he was not opposed to the idea in principle but the bar had not considered it.

He noted that 'we are only now trying to get to grips with the wider concept of multi-jurisdictional practice in the US.

There is a gradual recognition that national practice and eventually global practice is the direction that we are going in'.

Jonathan Ames