2_1_DiscoverGermany_March2014_Issue12:Scan Magazine 1
14/2/14
16:38
Page 52
Discover Germany | Business | Solicitor Column
A bigger picture TEXT & PHOTO: GREGOR KLEINKNECHT
As of 3 February 2014, we now share yet another experience with many of our clients: merging our business to create something bigger and better. Law firms are, after all, businesses like many others in the service industries. Having experienced big City firm type law for many years, it was refreshing and liberating to start a new law firm back in 2007, blissfully unaware of the impending doom of the deepest and longest recession in living memory lurking just around the corner. Nevertheless a strong team and a sound business model saw our business grow and blossom through the economic downturn into a multiple award winning boutique firm which punched well above its weight in large litigation cases, brand protection, and servicing the arts and cultural heritage sector. So why change? Being small is beautiful – but also has its limitations. There is no standing still for those who want to thrive and, again, like with any other business, the pressure to expand service offerings at the same time as becoming yet more efficient is relentless. Being bigger requires more resources, a bigger back office, and more shoulders to carry the load. Nowhere is this more evident than in connection with the ever increasing regulatory overkill to which the legal profession is exposed today – I have stopped counting the number of regulatory bodies, all having to jus-
52 | Issue 12 | March 2014
tify their existence by creating more redtape, constant rule changes governing what solicitors do, and forms to fill in. The real measure of compliance with professional ethics and standards is a simple one: successful outcomes for happy clients - and this is the box we tick consistently. There has been no shortage of merger offers for Klein Solicitors over the years and I very much look forward to joining forces with the suitor to whom we finally succumbed: Hunters Solicitors. It is good yet rare today to find a collegiate law firm which shares our vision and philosophy, steeped in a reassuring 300 years of history and based in the heart of legal London, big enough to deliver and small enough to care. So farewell Mayfair, this column will from now on come to you from No. 9 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn.
Gregor Kleinknecht LLM MCIArb is a German Rechtsanwalt and English solicitor, and a partner at Hunters Solicitors, a leading law firm in Lincoln’s Inn. Hunters Solicitors, 9 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, London WC2A 3QN E-mail: gjk@hunters-solicitors.co.uk www.hunters-solicitors.co.uk