In its 12 years of existence, secretive New York-based legal consultancy Blaqwell Inc. has quietly advised roughly 40 Am Law 100 firms—such as Dechert, King & Spalding and even the now-defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf and predecessor Dewey Ballantine on its ill-fated union with LeBoeuf, Lamb, Greene & MacRae—on strategy, structure and merger transactions.
The Am Law Daily recently convinced the firm’s founder, David Barnard, a retired partner at Magic Circle firm Linklaters, where he once headed the London-based legal giant’s U.S. operations, and fellow partner Mark Shapiro, a longtime McKinsey & Co. consultant before he joined Barnard in 2004, to sit down for a rare on-the-record chat about trends affecting their big-firm clients. One key takeaway: There remain opportunities for large firms to grow, even in a market with increased competitive forces.
