Latham & Watkins is to close its offices in Abu Dhabi and Doha and move staff to its base in Dubai. 

Latham Managing Partner Bill Voge said that the firm’s clients in the region told him that they “didn’t view having an office in Doha, when our office in Dubai is an hour’s flight away, as critical.” Especially since Dubai is only 80 miles down the road from Abu Dhabi.  Presumably Voge doesn’t envisage clients back-pedaling along it like Lathams.

Latham's opened its three offices in Dubai, Doha and Abu Dhabi simultaneously in 2008.  Two years later it launched  in Riyadh.  But Voge has said that a couple of years ago the firm’s management “started realising” that its seven year old strategy to launch offices across the Middle East was flawed.  He said, “when we originally opened up we were confident that we had distinct markets” when in fact there was just one.  An excuse that sounds about passable, especially if it had come from a hapless candidate on the Apprentice setting up his fruit stall in the wrong part of Shoreditch. 

Voge insisted that this move wasn’t made from a “cost-savings standpoint” but instead noted the value of having people in a central location.  And the water parks in Dubai are better.


 
Latham & Watkins' preferred mode of transport in the Middle East
 
Hogan Lovells closed its Abu Dhabi office in 2012 to make Dubai its hub for the region.  It remains to be seen whether other firms with more than one office in the region (Allen & Overy, Ashurst, Clyde & Co, Herbert Smith Freehills, Trowers & Hamlins et al.) also consider retreating to Dubai.
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Comments

Anonymous 20 March 15 07:30

Madness that Latham opened the 3 offices at the outset. Should have started in Dubai then only started to consider Abu Dhabi a few years down the line. Agree that the water parks are better in Dubai!

Anonymous 20 March 15 08:14

What Voge forgot to say was that Latham lost its Qatar practice by overbilling, or at least refusing to budge on invoices, and the Doha office wasn't doing anything for the past 2 years because they pissed off the wrong people. TheAbu Dhabi practice has also shriveled after they blew a number of projects, most notably the ENEC "project financing." LW still has a strong practice in Dubai and Riyadh but let's not pretend these office closures are what they are not.

Big question is when the countless firms that should also be closing in Abu Dhabi will finally follow. The market is massively overlawyered. A lot of us could name names...

Anonymous 24 March 15 09:47

Baker botts closed their Abu Dhabi as well. Doesn't seem worthy of a mention, rof? Proves that their non-marketing efforts have succeed.

Roll On Friday 24 March 15 14:28

Charles Russell (Speechlys) have been in Bahrain for a few years. I presumed they'd only opened in Doha because of Bahrain's activity nosediving following the unrest there.

Anonymous 24 March 15 19:29

It wasn't a "mistake", they took a calculated risk opening there and on this occasion they decided it hadn't proven worthwhile.

That's how business works.

The gloating tone of the headline just demonstrates how lawyers (the failed ones who write ROF news, anyway) don't understand entrepreneurship.

Anonymous 24 March 15 21:37

Oh how I love the vanity projects opened with such fanfare. A little while later a tactical withdrawal, tail between their legs only for another to take their place a few months later. Keep burning through the cash boys.

Anonymous 07 April 15 13:07

It is always possible to sit and do nothing and to take no chances, and then you will not have to retreat. Or you can make calculated business judgments, and correct course if they fail. It amazes me that so many are so quick to ridicule or criticize those who try to grow a firm, develop an office or expand a practice. It takes guts to try and to lead; it takes courage to admit when a change of course is necessary. It takes absolutely nothing to sit in the cheap sits and ridicule later.