Byfield joint managing director Ben Girdlestone reports from New York.
This is the third successive Spring trip I’ve made to New York – well, I say Spring but the weather has been more like a monsoon. Every second person I’ve met has asked me why I brought the English rain with me….sigh.
Constant drenching and jet lag aside, it’s been fantastic to catch up with clients, contacts in law firms, journalists and our friends and colleagues in PR agencies Stateside. When I first came here with Byfield in 2022, the pandemic had just ended and it just felt so far away in every sense from what was happening in London. That has really changed now, certainly in the legal sector. Everyone is talking about big name lateral hires, which firms are winning and which firms are seen as taking a hit in terms of partner departures. Paul Weiss, Kirkland and other big names are on everyone’s lips and people seem in tune with what is happening in London, much more so than I’ve seen before. It helps of course that the ‘action’ is dominated by US firms hiring big names from Magic Circle firms and, increasingly, each other.
As you would expect, people are keeping a close eye on how A&O Shearman will play out. There doesn’t appear to be a sense that more big ticket transatlantic mergers will follow but there is a new found respect for how well Freshfields are doing in the US, which definitely wasn’t there two years ago. The Magic Circle, or what will become of it, is interesting to people here.
On the litigation side, our court system still commands respect and I had a lot of questions about litigation funding and the increasing number of class actions in the UK.
Away from law, Manhattan is busy – the subway is packed (and pretty scary!), restaurants are busy and the streets are full. The election is on everyone’s mind and I sense a real weariness with both candidates, for different and fairly obvious reason. I asked each person I met who they thought would win and it is pretty much 50/50. Everybody thinks it will be tight. Nobody laughed at my suggestion that the election might not be fought by either Biden or Trump, with both having to withdraw from the race for different reasons. I think I am in the minority of one with this view, however.
Unlike the legal sector, nobody is particularly interested in our politics and most people I spoke to didn’t know we had an election coming up. One senior agency director struggled to remember Rishi Sunak’s name!
My personal highlight was sitting in on a press meeting in a buzzing Times Square coffee shop with the managing partner of one of our clients who just happened to be in New York. That felt pretty cool and it was a buzz to be reminded that I am lucky enough to be part of an agency doing big-ticket international work. My second highlight will be my annual final day walk across the iconic Brooklyn Bridge with a slice of pizza and a beer waiting for me at the other end….
