Business of Law Firms​

Ince heads towards terminal collapse​

By Jake Rickman​

What do you need to know this week?

Welcome to this week’s The Business of Law Firms.

The past few days have seen an avalanche of news surrounding beleaguered firm Axiom Ince (formerly Ince & Co before it was acquired earlier this year by Axiom DWFM).

RollOnFriday reported on Monday that it had seen an email by a partner to clients confirming that the firm was in the process of winding down for good, as the firm’s UK business support staff have been left in the lurch while various competitors have dismembered the firm’s practice groups.

As reported by The Lawyer, one of the “Big Five” Norwegian firms, Wikborg Rein, has peeled off 17 shipping and insurance fee-earners. This includes two departmental heads and four other partners, as well as other associates and consultants. Also reported by The Lawyer yesterday, nine private client lawyers have been picked up by Greenwoods Legal’s London office. Ince’s tax director had left to join the same firm earlier this month.

Separately, UK firm Irwin Mitchell nabbed seven regulatory lawyers to bolster the firm’s regulatory practice.

All of this news follows from Axiom Ince’s spectacular collapse, when it emerged that the firm’s new owner following Axiom DWF’s acquisition of Ince, Pragnesh Modhwadia, had allegedly depleted the firm’s client account — one of the most serious allegations that can be levied against legal professionals.

Why is this important for your interviews?

We have stayed close to Ince’s collapse for the past few months because it is one of the most dramatic incidents to hit the UK legal market in recent memory.

From an insight perspective, the wave of recent departures reveals something peculiar to the professional services industry: a law firm’s most valuable assets are by far the fee-earners it has in place. This reflects the fact that practice groups within a firm operate by building a book of clients and a reputation for expertise in a given practice area, like insurance or shipping.

While senior partners leaving one firm to join another often bring a portion of their pre-existing clients, rarely are the circumstances such that clients are enticed to follow their contacts en masse. But as RollOnFriday reported, given that the firm is no longer taking new instructions and the prospect of shutting the brand down for good is now imminent, clients virtually have no choice.

For the opportunistic law firms picking off practice groups from what remains of Ince, the situation may best be described as a distressed fire sale. Fee-earners are almost certainly desperate to escape the sinking ship, which means they may be prepared to accept a new home on terms less competitive than they might have otherwise obtained.

Ultimately, this is an unfortunate incident for those affected by the developments, which includes trainees and business support staff, who have fewer options than qualified lawyers.