News focus: IBA 2022 - A letter from America

One suspects there were lots of similar calls home by delegates at last week’s International Bar Association conference: ‘Honestly, it’s work, I’ve barely seen any of Miami. It’s just eight hours in a conference room followed by the odd pool party.’ More Herbert Smith than Will Smith.

Whatever the protestations, most agreed there were worse places to spend a week discussing salient issues affecting the international legal profession. Around 5,000 lawyers, academics and legal commentators gathered in almost constant 30-degree heat – mostly in suits – for what was a busy and exhausting few days.

With endless platitudes about sustainability and climate change inside the convention centre, it wasn’t just the Florida skies that were full of hot air. The sheer absurdity of flying delegates into Miami Beach from 130 different countries to discuss the legal profession’s attitude to climate change did not seem to register, but surely the clearest message about making real change, one suspects, would be in finding a more sustainable way to run this conference.

Nor was it entirely compatible to spend hours discussing the cost-of-living crisis and access-to-justice issues when the evenings were spent at law firm parties where senior partners sought to out-lavish each other.

Greenberg Traurig’s event was held at the (in)famous former home of designer Gianna Versace, where he was gunned down in 1997. Now converted into a hotel (not a little distasteful, one might suggest), it comes complete with gold-lined swimming pool where guests were entertained by dancers.

Not to be outdone, the Peters & Peters do the following night was held around (but certainly not in) the pool of a £1,200-a-night hotel, with 1,000 guests clambering to be seen at the social occasion of the week. The fact that only the wine and beer were free – cocktails cost $20 a pop – did not seem to deter many.

'One of the problems that law firms are faced with is having an enormous amount of space that is just used half the time. It’s a huge amount of real estate cost'

Stephen Revell, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

But while the evenings were for networking and socialising, the days were spent with hundreds of seminars and talks across the week. There was no shortage of places to be – more than a dozen sessions were put on at any one time – and more than one delegate noted that their steps counter had gone through the roof from circling the 1.7 miles of the convention perimeter. An observer 100 years from now would get a decent snapshot of what mattered to the legal sector in 2022. As well as sustainability and access to justice, other sessions looked at the post-Covid recovery, the mental health of lawyers, common mistakes made by law firms pitching for work, and gender and LGBT+ equality.

One of the benefits of this international gathering of lawyers is to hear that problems encountered by the profession are the same the world over. An Indian firm partner revealed there had been an exodus of lawyers when his office reopened after lockdown, while a US associate talked of their struggle to retain staff in the light of fierce competition and demands for flexible working.

Remote working has also created a universal issue with how to fill expensive office buildings. ‘One of the problems that law firms are faced with is having an enormous amount of space that is just used half the time,’ said Stephen Revell from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and co-vice chair of the IBA’s law firm management committee. ‘It’s a huge amount of real estate cost.’

But the event also highlighted cultural differences – for instance, the wildly differing attitudes to non-lawyer ownership even in the English-speaking common-law world.  

The conference was bookended by discussions of conflict and lawyers’ role in ending it. Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky made a surprise video link appearance at the opening ceremony. And one of the final acts of the conference was to give the lifetime achievement award to Benjamin Ferencz, 102, the last living prosecutor of the Nuremberg trials.

It was a poignant reminder of the power and responsibility of working in the legal sector – as well as the pulling power of this behemoth conference. Whether lawyers were here for in-depth discussions on anti-trusts and cryptocurrency, or simply enjoying a jolly on Ocean Drive and its 5am nightclubs, this event is every bit as popular and keenly anticipated as pre-pandemic.

It’s Paris next year – every bit as glamorous, no doubt, but there will probably be fewer pool parties in early November.