Today there are more than 1400 of us at Mishcon de Reya. While we are a diverse group (we think that diversity is healthy), one thing unites us. How personally we take your business. Because we know how personal it is to you.

Not all law firms have this mindset: the inseparable interrelation between the business and the personal. There is no reason that they should. These firms and their clients may prefer a more corporate, compartmentalised approach. And it might be easier if we took this line, except we don’t and we never will.

It’s not how we began. It’s not how we grew. And it’s not how we want to help your business do the same.

Of course, in the beginning it was personal.
There was only one of us.

It was 1937 when a young solicitor decided to start his own practice as soon as he qualified. Victor Mishcon & Co opened its door, a small office for only one person over a shop in Brixton. The firm’s personal commitment to a client’s business was all it had.

Today it’s bigger, much bigger.
But it’s still personal.

Today there are more than 1400 of us. We have offices in London, Cambridge, Oxford, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UAE. Yet while we’ve enjoyed 40% growth over the last five years, we’ve been at pains to make sure that as everything changes, everything stays the same.

It starts with the seating plan.

We remind ourselves continually that it is a privilege to sit alongside our clients. At the same time, it is also a prerequisite. A non-negotiable. In an increasingly tough business world, our clients shouldn’t be left to face the challenges and take the risks on their own.

What else should we bring to the table?

The ability to deliver the highest quality legal services.

These extend beyond the three key sectors – The Innovation Economy, Private Wealth & Capital and Real Estate - that lie at the heart of the increasingly connected world our clients live and work in. They embrace a formidable and firmwide capacity for dispute resolution; one of the UK’s leading employment law practices; a full-service corporate group; and an unshakeable conviction about the role of lawyer and law firm in public life. To positively impact the society and the environment that we all are part of.

And whichever of these you need, it is never simply a matter of guarding your interests efficiently but defending them fiercely.

Innovation Economy
From IP to Patents to Data.

Private Wealth and Capital
From Private Wealth to Reputation to Family.

Real Estate
From Investment to Development to Asset Management.

Corporate
From M&A to Private Equity to Funds and Financial Services.

Employment
From Discrimination to Whistleblowing to High Court Claims.

Impact
From ESG Advisory to Strategic Litigation to Charities & Social Ventures.

Dispute Resolution
From Commercial Disputes to Fraud to White Collar Crime.

Empowered by tech.

Our continuous drive to deliver the highest quality legal services has a new ally, technology. As it’s transformed our business, so it’s transformed our clients’.

By embracing AI, investing in start-ups, developing our incubator programme (MDR Lab) and creating our own range of cutting-edge legal tools, we re-affirm our intention to boldly go where no law firm has gone before and apply the benefits of innovation to you - our clients - and your businesses.

A range of legal products & services.

Because it takes an ever-broader skill set to navigate a more complex business landscape, we are always asking ourselves “What next?”

We can’t provide the highest quality legal services and – hand on heart – say we’re different to other law firms if we aren’t pushing the boundaries, if we aren’t doing everything we can to anticipate the things you and your business might need.

That’s why we take new product development as seriously as any leading FMCG brand, and why we continue to add to our own unique range of innovative legal products and services.

A network for you to tap into.

Navigating this kind of landscape also needs a network. That’s why it’s not only about our clients having access to all our legal knowledge but to the network of people and organisations that we work with.

A network that covers the globe.

We’re especially switched on to the complexities that clients with international interests and ambitions face.

That may be why our international offering isn’t like other firms with offices just duplicated in every capital city. Our strategy is to cut to the chase and be based in the world’s fastest growing and most relevant economies.

So we operate from six offices: London, Cambridge, Oxford, Hong Kong, Singapore and the UAE.

We know how to handle all kinds of cross-jurisdictional transactions, disputes and arrangements and can support our clients wherever they are. Besides these six offices, we have desks and expertise to cover specific regions, plus an international network of trusted professionals.

A set of values.

Paradoxically, everything we’re doing to help our clients in this complex, fast-changing world is rooted in the past.

And while many organisations simply pay lip service to their values, ours have always been at the heart of everything we do.

We want you to continue to be the beneficiaries of client service, diversity, respect, open-mindedness, innovation, integrity and frankness.

A vision for the future

Our Vision 2030 identifies three strategic sectors where we have heritage, expertise, a deep and wide client base and which are areas of opportunity and growth: the Innovation Economy, Private Wealth & Capital, and Real Estate.

We will maintain our focus on being a disputes powerhouse as well as practice excellence across all of our practices firmwide.

We have a strategy to build on our significant international client work, and how the opportunities and benefits of AI can be realised for our clients.

Operations transformation

The firm’s operations transformation programme has already yielded improvements in how we serve clients by standardising and digitising key processes, and centralising work through our Global Capability Centre in India. By 2030, we will have built on this platform to create a frictionless business operations platform supporting the wider firm and our clients.

The impact of AI

It is no longer a question of if AI will change legal services – but how much, how fast, and who will lead. Over the next five years, we will embrace AI as part of a broader transformation that touches on every aspect of the firm, from client experience to internal efficiency.

“Mishcon de Reya is a remarkable firm. We have always been proud of the firm’s entrepreneurial spirit. And rightly so. Our previous strategy delivered threefold growth over the last decade to become a 1400-person business with offices in multiple locations. Our new strategy will give us greater alignment and focus, to concentrate our efforts on strategic sectors, disputes and firmwide practice excellence, and the ability to deliver at scale.“

James Libson, Managing Partner

An appetite for continual self-improvement.

Sitting alongside you as a trusted advisor and confidant matters to us. It is never something that we will take for granted.

It’s why we run our own internal quality assurance programme to monitor and improve our standards of practice management, care and knowledge.

It’s over a decade since we opened our own centre of in-house learning and new thinking, The Academy. With over 300 new courses each term, it aims to make us better at our jobs and more rounded as people.

More recently we launched The Digital Sessions, to examine the biggest issues that face society today through a mix of live sessions, events and podcasts.

A diverse and happy workforce.

We think that you’ll benefit most from working with a team that is diverse and happy.

That’s why we encourage our people to be themselves and bring their own special talents. There’s no such thing as ‘a Mishcon kind of person’.

We’ve set ourselves clear, firmwide targets and we’re getting there. We wanted to offer at least 60% of interviews on our apprenticeship scheme to black or socially and educationally disadvantaged (BSED) candidates, and now we do.

We wanted to increase our diversity information disclosure rate. It’s up from 50% to 67%.

In 2023 we reached our goal of having 25% women in the Senior Equity Partnership, and we’re aiming for 35% by 2027.

We’ve been named a top 10 employer for working families and we’re now one of the top 75 companies in the Social Mobility Employers Index.

A readiness to find out what others think about us.

We enter awards and ranking schemes for an honest appraisal of the service we provide.

In recent years our Private, Innovation and Dispute Resolution departments have all won top prizes.

At The Lawyer Awards 2024 we won both Competition & Regulatory Team of the Year and Litigation Team of the Year, also winning the FT’s Innovative Lawyers in Dispute Resolution and Commercial Litigation Team of the Year at the Legal Business Awards.

Responsible Business.

From the day we opened our doors in 1937 we’ve always believed that Mishcon people should play an active and positive role in society.

It’s why we created our core values - if ever we need a reminder of our founding principles.

It’s why we launched Responsible Business, our commitment to a future that is fair, equitable and environmentally sustainable.

It’s why our people receive the firm’s backing to do up to 50 hours of pro bono, professional skills sharing or volunteering every year.

It’s why we helped set up and now chair the SMI Legal Task Force: to make sustainability a priority for our industry.

A place that you can call home.

What good is a slogan if it is just empty rhetoric?

That’s why we designed the reception of Africa House, our London office, to be the living embodiment of ours - “It’s business. But it’s personal.”

With a concierge service, barista-made coffee and dedicated quiet spaces our reception is a place that you can call home.

Yours to meet in, to work in, to get inspired in – whenever you want.

These are the things that we believe you should look for in a law firm.

If this resonates with you, it might be that we already share one unshakeable belief.

It’s business. But it’s personal.