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Founded in 2012, Signature Litigation has grown into one of London’s pre-eminent specialist dispute resolution practices. From the outset, we set out to do things differently: a conflict-free, disputes-only platform designed to give clients the undivided focus and strategic agility that complex, high-stakes matters demand.
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Established in 2017, Signature Litigation's Gibraltar office was founded to address growing demand for specialist expertise in commercial litigation and private wealth disputes on the Rock.
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Signature Litigation AARPI houses one of France’s most enviable product liability practices, with the team also handling commercial and corporate litigation, insurance and reinsurance, toxic tort and ESG, civil fraud and asset tracing, international arbitration, administrative and public law.
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Frankfurt has emerged as one of Europe's foremost financial and commercial centres and, increasingly, as a bridge between European and Asian markets. With that growth comes an increasing demand for sophisticated dispute resolution. Signature Litigation established its Frankfurt office to meet this need, bringing our conflict-free, disputes-only platform to the German market.
FIND OUT MORECity lawyers are risking mega salaries to strike out on their own. Legal Business explores what is driving the current wave of boutiques and asks how these start-ups have fared. Many turn to specialist providers to ease the launch, with Signature Litigation using Kindleworth – a provider of managed services to law firms – to help with administration and operational matters. This extends to Kindleworth partner Kevin Munslow, former chief executive of Olswang, acting as Signature’s chief executive, and Tom Arrowsmith serving as risk management director.
Signature Litigation founder Graham Huntley reflects on the realities of launching. ‘There’s always a degree of serendipity in trying to work out why you have the revenue you have. We’ve been fortunate, some of it was sheer luck. Starting out, you have to have some expectations [but] the sources are not what one would have expected in the first two years.’
While Huntley concedes that work often comes from unexpected sources, many that have launched boutiques have been surprised at the initial level of work a senior practitioner can benefit from – thanks to conflicts, referrals and a lengthy career of building up contacts.
Signature has been particularly proactive in this regard, setting up a profit-sharing scheme for all members of staff. The scheme generated year-one profit share for staff equivalent to 21% of base salary, in year two rising to 33.4%.
Huntley comments: ‘The contribution a [staff member] gives, whether they’re a paralegal or a PA, is that they’re committing their heart and soul in return for ownership. They get that ownership through a contractual relationship with the LLP. That’s completely different from the traditional structure where in return for working from nine to five, we’ll pay you x. When people know they are working for a business in which they have an entitlement benefit, they will commit to it in ways that will completely transcend the fixtures of their contract of employment.’
For most firms, referrals are also a key part of the model and increasingly important as international firms pull back from many areas. As Twigden comments: ‘It’s a massive thing to pass on a client for referral work because the client will hold you responsible. We take that really seriously. We will never let the referrer down and make the obvious point that we will never steal your client. We’re not a threat because we can’t offer this new client any services other than litigation.’
See the original article on Legal Business here.
