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As one of the oldest international law firms, the recent decision to disband Coudert Brothers came as a shock to many in the global legal community. Darrell Wright takes a look behind the scenes to discover the reasons for Coudert's failure and the fate of the lawyers who remained faithful to the once-pioneering firm.
I nternational law firm Coudert Brothers bore witness to the America civil war, the rise of the modern world, weathered two world wars and expanded far across the globe. But, in August 2005, the 153-year-old firm decided to disband. While the decision may have come as a surprise to some outsiders, former Coudert partners say it occurred at the end of an extended period of internal decay which destroyed its sustainability and made failure almost unavoidable.
Established in 1853 by Frederic Rene Coudert, the law firm quickly took to the international stage. In 1879, the Paris office of Coudert Brothers was founded. This set the stage for worldwide expansion, culminating at a peak of 28 offices in 18 jurisdictions and employing more than 800 lawyers. The firm was innovative in its approach to global expansion and developed its Asian practice at an early stage of its development. Coudert Brothers was the first US firm in Hong Kong, Singapore and Beijing, and its China practice became one of the firm's strongest in Asia. One former Coudert partner described the firm's China practice as "the strongest foreign practice in the region".
The successes of Coudert's China practice were not enough to stem the flow of its partners to other law firms over the past few years. The exodus coincided with a steady decline in profits which, according to Nick Seddon, the Asia managing partner of DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary, made many of the partners dissatisfied and prompted them to look for positions at other law firms. A downward spiral had commenced, ultimately leading to the firm disbanding.
"There wasn't just one thing that led to the break-up of Coudert," comments a retired partner of the dismantled firm, "there was a long period of change in the world and Coudert Brothers' management didn't adjust to this properly; there was not sufficient adaptation".
The news that Coudert Brothers would wind down operations came...