Hi
@confusedbird first of all, I think my approach would be to try to identify three key themes I can discuss both from the perspective of a challenge and from the perspective of an opportunity, since (i) the same situation can often be both a challenge and (if one responds to it the right way) an opportunity; and (ii) a 6-point discussion of separate challenges and opportunities may feel too segmented and may disable you from analysing them in detail.
Secondly,
I think what is crucial to make your answer less generic will not depend on the topics you choose to discuss, but on how you go about discussing said topics. At the end of the day, there are a limited number of broad topic that represent clear challenges/opportunities for the legal sector as a whole, so it is hard to see what you may find to make your answer unique here. However, you can analyse the same topic from many different perspectives and defend many plausible views - this is where I think creativity and independent thought will play a bigger role.
For instance, the increasing emphasis large companies and financial institutions place on firms having strong practices in both London and New York is both a challenge - as it disadvantages many firms who do not have such established presences - and an opportunity - as the firms who can establish themselves as transatlantic players will likely be able to win market share. When discussing this topic, you can consider a wide variety of talking points when deciding on the view you want to present:
- The financial costs of establishing a strong presence in these jurisdictions: London and New York are widely known to be the two most profitable legal markets in the world; as such, hiring leading partners and top associates in such places will involve huge upfront investments (for instance, Paul, Weiss is known to have invested over $200 million in London). Such investments will generally diminish profit pools and may make existing partners unhappy, which is a significant issue in a very competitive market for partner talent.
- Difficulties in integration: to hop on this trend, firms need to make many lateral hires from different firms, which can be problematic in that (i) they upset current power dynamics in the firm and cause political rifts; and (ii) they may simply take a while before they are fully integrated and can function together as a cohesive team, as the different firms they would have come from would have all done things in slightly different ways.
- Pace of expansion: you may contrast the different strategies of pursuing gradual growth, such as Kirkland and Latham did in both financial centres over the last two decades, or huge investments in short periods, such as Paul, Weiss and Sidley Austin recently did in London and such as Freshfields is currently doing in New York.
- Mergers: you could also explore how this trend ties into an increasing number of transatlantic mergers, such as A&O Shearman and HSFK; and whether this is something other UK and US players may seek;
- International office closures: you can look at how the increasing centralisation of high-end cross-border mandates in New York and London has led to a decreasing importance and comparative profitability of offices in other jurisdictions, which has led to firms like A&O Shearman closing shop in multiple jurisdictions.
- Practice area/sector spread strategy: you can also look at how this is largely a private capital-driven trend, but how different firms are implementing different strategies - some have a pinpointed focus on PE work, some aim for a more full service offering, others have a more niche-expertise and sector driven approach; some aim to service the needs of mainly existing clients, others aim to aggressively expand books etc.
