Hogan Lovells Cadwalader formally launched July 1, and agency management has wasted no time telling anybody who’ll hear how easily the mixing goes.
Simply this week, Legislation.com’s American Lawyer reported the agency is transferring quick on its Washington, D.C., integration too, naming workplace management as a part of a plan to mix the 2 legacy footprints rapidly moderately than let the method drag.
And CEO Miguel Zaldivar has been on a little bit of a victory lap. Talking to Bloomberg Legislation concerning the agency’s progress ambitions in New York, he made clear he sees the merger as the start, not the tip, of a progress story. “Having over 300 legal professionals in New York makes you a prime 25 or prime 27 agency on Wall Avenue, however that is solely a step in the fitting path,” he mentioned. “With the Cadwalader title coming again to life in such a significant manner, we’re going to develop extra in New York. We’re already attracting increasingly expertise.”
Development speak, new workplace management, an formidable CEO doing press — every thing concerning the public rollout of Hogan Lovells Cadwalader has been engineered to venture confidence and momentum.
However in response to Above the Legislation tipsters, the view from the affiliate ranks tells a special story, at the very least with regards to timekeeping.
An e-mail despatched to timekeepers and obtained by ATL instructs legacy Cadwalader staff to return and overview each time entry from January by June — six months’ value — as a part of the techniques integration.
As one tipster put it to ATL, “Are you able to think about Cadwalader staff having to verify 6 months work of 6 minute increment time entries? WTF.”
There are a helluva lot of time entries in six months, every one now apparently topic to a retroactive audit as a result of the legacy corporations’ techniques didn’t speak to one another cleanly.
The mixed agency has settled on HLC Intapp as its unified timekeeping system, and whereas the interior communication describes it as “just like the Cadwalader model,” it notes there are variations vital sufficient to require motion. The primary two weeks of July have been dedicated to coaching periods to get timekeepers up to the mark on the brand new platform. However coaching is simply the beginning, legacy Cadwalader timekeepers have been given a deadline of July 20 to return by all of their entries within the new system and make sure every thing transferred over accurately.
It’s a reminder that “largest regulation agency merger in historical past” headlines are one factor, and getting two corporations’ back-office techniques to truly perform as one is one other.
Kathryn Rubino is a Senior Editor at Above the Legislation, host of The Jabot podcast, and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. AtL tipsters are the perfect, so please join together with her. Be happy to e-mail her with any suggestions, questions, or feedback and observe her on Twitter @Kathryn1 or Bluesky @Kathryn1