Ahead of the curve
Baker McKenzie can credibly claim to have invented the idea of a global law firm brand. Founded in 1949 by two ambitious and farsighted Chicago lawyers they grew rapidly, establishing 68 offices in 40 countries with more than 1300 partners.  However, by the second decade of the new millennium, plenty of other US and UK firms had also established their own strong international networks, leaving Baker McKenzie’s international reach no longer sufficiently differentiating by itself. A team led by Principia’s CEO Ian Stephens* was engaged to help the firm redefine what it meant to be a truly global firm in the 21st Century.

Fluency
First, the team helped identify what makes Baker McKenzie special. In a word, it’s the firm’s global ‘fluency’ in the way they think, work and behave. The firm has an instinctively global perspective that comes from being a truly multi-national firm of lawyers at ease in many business cultures – something that the more ‘colonial’ US and UK firms can’t yet match. It’s their fluency that enables them to navigate legal complexity across practices and borders with ease, and it’s their fluency that allows them to bring the very best of Baker McKenzie’s global expertise to each of their clients, regardless of geography.

“We are unquestionably the leading cross-border law firm that large, global clients trust for complex transactional and other matters involving multiple jurisdictions.” (Milton Cheng, Global Chair)

Having defined the core idea and introduced it to their entire global partnership Ian worked with the firm’s global leadership team to develop a 12-month internal engagement programme to embed fluency across the firm so that every aspect of what they do from client service, talent management and culture to all their external communications is aligned with their core brand idea of ‘fluency’ and clearly projects their difference to the market.

“Baker McKenzie Named World’s Best Law Firm Brand for 12th Consecutive Year” (Thompson Reuters)

First among equals
Baker McKenzie has topped every edition of the Global Elite Law Firm Brand Index — twelve consecutive years, ending only when the index itself ceased publication in 2022. The ranking drew on Thomson Reuters’ Sharplegal survey of general counsel and senior legal buyers at companies with revenues above $1bn, across more than fifty countries. In the final index, the firm scored 100 against the runner-up’s 44, a margin it never surrendered in more than a decade of measurement.

Profitability tells the same story: Baker McKenzie holds its place among the world’s fifteen most profitable law firms, even as US competitors have raised that bar tenfold in fifteen years. In developed and emerging markets alike, clients and recruits recognise a different kind of premium international firm — one better able to work across borders and business cultures.

Scope
Brand research
Brand strategy
Brand messaging
Brand communications
Brand engagement

*then in his role as Global Managing Partner of Saffron