“London felt like the right place at the right time to focus on supporting the next generation of innovative, high-growth businesses – and help identify and build the next ‘Magnificent Seven’,” says Ian Bagshaw, London Office Managing Partner at Perkins Coie.
Founded in 1912 in Seattle, on the West Coast of the US, Perkins Coie established a London office in 2024, marking a significant step in its expansion into the European market. For more than a century, the firm has worked with US entrepreneurs looking to innovate and attract investment at every stage of their growth.
Since its launch, the London office has gone from strength to strength, building the brand in London, attracting top-tier legal talent and winning both strategic and transactional work in Europe. Central to this growth is the firm’s focus on technology and idea-led, data-driven businesses, reflecting its long-standing reputation as a leader in advising innovative companies such as Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
Instead of seeking to imitate rival London law firms, Perkins Coie has structured its business with the spirit of a startup, transforming the way it works, built upon a foundation of more than a century of legal experience. Its team is focused on fulfilling its mission of being “along for the journey” with the founders, and it works with investors to back innovative companies. Perkins Coie has devised its own training scheme, too. It takes graduates straight from the best universities and fast-tracks them through to becoming qualified lawyers. The scheme, the Legal Business Analyst Programme, recently won a Financial Times Innovative Lawyers award.
By operating at the same level as its clients, Perkins Coie goes beyond a purely transactional approach to integrate tech regulatory advice to clients, which enables these companies to grow in competitive, tech-driven markets.
London, in Bagshaw’s view, represents one of the world’s most exciting and connected innovation hubs. “We offer a compelling proposition for clients building technologically driven businesses, because this is what we do, 24/7, 365 days a year,” he says. “That’s exactly what European founders and their investors are looking for.”
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