Last week, DLA Piper announced that its U.S. co-chairs Roger Meltzer and Jay Rains were each re-elected to serve in their leadership roles for three-year terms.
Both became U.S. co-chairs on Jan. 1, 2013, with their first terms expiring at the end of 2016.
A New York corporate lawyer, Meltzer also serves as DLA Piper’s global co-chair, while Rains, of San Diego, is global co-CEO of DLA Piper and practices corporate finance, venture capital and M&A.
Big Law Business took the opportunity to ask them a series of questions about the firm’s business strategy over email. They co-authored responses.
Big Law Business: Last year Dentons captured headlines and made a number of progressive moves – perhaps most notably, joining with China’s largest law firm. How is DLA Piper responding in light of what seems to be stiffer competition in touting a “global” platform as a differentiator?
Meltzer/ Rains: Just being big and having a lot of geographic coverage captures the market’s imagination initially, but consistent quality and execution maintains the heart and soul of the endeavor, and drives greater market share both with existing and new clients. While we continue to expand and look for new opportunities, successfully embedding our core practice competencies — and truly tying together and integrating our service delivery — has and will continue to keep us ahead of those mostly focused on new geographic locations and headcount. We want to realize the promise of the proposition to be the world’s leading business law firm; ever-increasing quality and consistency across one of the largest and most comprehensive platforms in the world is the key, from our perspective.
Big Law Business: What are your priorities for your next term? Next year? How do you plan on accomplishing them?
Meltzer/ Rains: First of all, this is a continual process; the world does not end on December 31 and begin again on January 1. So, in many respects, we are going to keep doing what we have been doing. The things that are truly important to us are continuing the global integration of our practice groups and sectors and taking areas of core competency (technology, life sciences, M&A, investigatory services, real estate and tax, to name a few) and building on them in the key markets (NY, London, Silicon Valley, Hong Kong/China, key European centers) and then exporting and embedding those competencies elsewhere. At the same time, there are areas where we should succeed, given our geographic platform and the skill sets of indigenous practitioners at the firm, augmented by lateral hires. This would include our initiatives in the project and finance-related areas, and our investments in Canada, Africa, Latin America, Australia and Southeast Asia.
The ultimate priority is to do all that well, such that we maintain and expand share in our core markets, while outpacing our competitors in the emerging markets. Executed successfully, this would support a revenue and profit growth profile in a tough, relatively flat, global legal market.
Big Law Business: DLA Piper advises on a very large number of M&A around the world, but I’ve heard it has made efforts to increase its position regarding deal value. In other words, many of the deals are small- or mid-sized and the firm would like to be better known for advising on the biggest M&A. How is that initiative going?
Meltzer/ Rains: Well. We have continued our leadership in overall M&A, in particular, in the middle market, our core strength. Overall deal value has increased, year over year, by 139% globally, which is indicative of progress in this area. Examples of some of these are our representation of Qualcomm in its joint venture with TDK Corporation, SolarWinds in its acquisition by Silver Lake Partners and Synergy Health on its merger with Steris Corporation, and most recently Terra Energy Partners in its acquisition of WPX Energy Rocky Mountain, among others. It is worth noting that the Qualcomm-TDK Joint Venture involved more than 100 lawyers in 10 countries. Few, if any, law firms, can provide that kind of execution capability.
Big Law Business: I’ve noticed a few notable practice leaders leave the firm recently, like Gregg Galardi and Tara Lee. Is this part of any larger restructuring at DLA?
Meltzer/Rains: No. When you are engaged in building something as transformative as what we are doing, it should be expected that people will come and go from time to time. While some have captured media attention, due in part to the firm’s promotion of them in the past, none were in charge of large practice areas, by headcount or revenue. Not unexpectedly, given our culture, others have immediately stepped into the breach and, along with their international peers, we haven’t missed a beat.
From a broader perspective, we have had a number of high-profile additions recently and we anticipate others in the months to come. We appreciate the contributions of those who have left and wish them well in their future endeavors.
Big Law Business: Over the past three years as co-chairs, what are the biggest lessons you’ve learned from your time at the perch of a global law firm?
Meltzer/Rains: The key has been to work effectively, in collaboration with our global leadership team, with the day-to-day issues facing the firm while keeping an eye firmly fixed on the longer term strategic issues critical to the firm realizing its full potential. This is a discipline that is easier to articulate than execute. Also, you have to anticipate and adapt to your environment, which, you quickly learn, you do not control. This is particularly true when your environment is a three-dimensional, multicultural, political and economic world.
Big Law Business: What was the process around your re-election? Does the whole partnership vote?
Meltzer/Rains: A nominating committee, comprised of members of our Executive Committee and non-Executive Committee partners, and chaired by Senator George Mitchell, our Chairman Emeritus, recommended that we serve a second term. This recommendation was approved unanimously by our Policy Committee, comprised of approximately 50 partners, representing a cross section of the firm’s practice and geographic leadership, and then approved by an overwhelming percentage of the partnership, without dissent.