Barcelona annual report
also continue.” Antoni Valverde,
partner at Allen & Overy, says
there is considerable activity in
Barcelona involving investors
from the Far East and Middle
East, he adds that clients in
general – including local clients
– are becoming “sophisticated
users of legal services”. This
point is echoed by Daura: “Legal
and tax departments are more
sophisticated in that they know
more about the value of the
company and they are more
sophisticated in that they have
´Competition between Barcelona
and Madrid benefits Spanish
economy´
Speaking at the Iberian Lawyer
Barcelona Annual Report Roundtable,
Uría Menéndez partner Antonio
Herrera said there is always a tension
between the Madrid and Barcelona
markets. “Madrid is at the front of
the minds of investors in Iberia, but
we also have very important clients
in Barcelona – at the end of the day,
what we want is lawyers with an
international practice irrespective
of where they are based,” he said.
Adolf Rousaud, managing partner
of Rousaud Costas Duran said there
is a significant difference between
the two markets. “Energy, insurance,
finance and banking work is mainly in
Madrid,” he said. “But there is a lot of
biotechnology and pharmaceuticalsrelated work in Barcelona and this
defines the different legal needs of
the two cities – for example, there are
a lot of regulatory bodies in Madrid.”
Jordi Casas, partner at Roca Junyent,
which hosted the roundtable, said
foreign investment has come back
to Madrid and Barcelona. He added:
“The competition between the two
cities is beneficial for the economy
as a whole.” Rousaud said one of the
challenges for Barcelona-based law
firms is to “make their brand more
powerful in Madrid”. Antoni Valverde,
partner at Allen & Overy, argued
that there is not really a distinction
between the Madrid and Barcelona
markets: “We´re operating in a single
market – the amount of Madrid
lawyers that come to Barcelona to
work is remarkable and the other way
around is also true – besides, there are
Catalan clients that buy legal services
in Madrid.”
40 • IBERIAN LAWYER • March / April 2015
more industry knowledge.”
Lawyers must be transparent
Casas says it is important that
lawyers anticipate regulatory
changes and then inform clients
how the changes will affect
their company. “Clients see
you [lawyers] as a business
partner – another change is that
the contracting of legal
services by clients is now
done more often on a
procurement model,”
he adds.
Casas says it
is important
for law
firms to be
transparent
with clients.
“Law firms have
to distinguish their
services – they have to be aware
if the service is a commodity or
whether it adds value – clients do
appreciate that law firms have to
be sustainable, and they appreciate
having a law firm as a business
partner provides stability. Trías
says in-house legal teams are
becoming more professionalised
and the work that tends to be
outsourced now is competition,
litigation and M&A matters
(largely because external law firms
can provide big teams of lawyers).
Rousaud says law firms now have
to provide both commoditised and
specialised services. “You have to
be close to the client and you have
to understand their business,” he
adds.
According to Agüera, while fees
are low for commoditised services,
there has been a “recovery in fees”
for high value-added services.
López says clients now often want
their lawyers to provide them – in
relation to certain services – with
an indication of the “maximum
cost”, so that they can “plan the
cost schedule” of their projects.
Antonio Herrera, partner at Uría
Menéndez, says that convincing
a client that you add value is not
something that comes naturally
to lawyers. “We are not natural
sellers but we need to embrace
this,” he adds. “We are having
conversations about this with key
clients.”
PwC´s Daura says: “When
we finish a job, we try to get an
appraisal from the client – we want
to find out if the client is happy
and this is a good way to get a
conversation going about fees, we
find procurement departments
have different ways of appraising
the work done by their legal
advisers.”
Brand awareness
Valverde says that
although relationships
continue to be crucial,
brand is becoming a
factor in clients´
decisions
about
which
law firms
they use.
Rousaud
says brand
is a factor
in clients’
choice
of legal
advisers,
but he adds:
“It’s more important to form
a relationship based on trust
with them, while price is also a
consideration.” Herrera argues
sophisticated clients don´t look at
a law firm´s brand, they look at
the record of the lawyer.
López believes lawyers should
make the effort to explain the
value of their services. He says the
“onus is on us to follow-up with
clients – we need to show them
that what they got was something
successful relative to the cost”.
One partner adds that clients
often fail to understand the added
value lawyers provide. “Clients
tend to minimise what you do,”
he says.
Rousaud says that retroactive
changes in regulations – such as
those affecting the energy sector
– creates “economic harm”. One
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