Private equity lawyer Matthew Hudson has formed a new law firm, MJ Hudson, to provide legal advice on the formation of specialist investment funds and structuring deals.
MJ Hudson has been formed to strengthen the partnership between advisers and their clients and to more deeply align their interests.
With a career spanning 25 years in the alternative asset industry, Hudson says there is a growing requirement for law firms to offer a broader, business based offering with a more creative and competitive pricing model, as well as having a clear specialism and total fund management industry focus.
Rather than charging by time as a matter of course, MJ Hudson can instead share in its clients’ risks by charging a percentage of a successful fund or transaction. In addition, the firm can further align its fees with its clients’ returns by investing equity in their funds and transactions.
The new model that MJ Hudson has created should position it in the new generation of law firms that are set to realise the potential of the UK’s impending Legal Services Act’s “alternative business structures”. Once implemented, the Act will enable the firm to operate a partnership culture within a modern corporate structure: retaining earnings, paying dividends and attracting external capital from clients and others. This legislation should assist the transformation for a traditional law firm away from an annual cash flow model into a long term balance sheet based business, developing an annuity based and deeper relationship with clients.
Hudson says: “This structure brings out the benefits of traditional advisory partnership while adding superior 21st century service and pricing. It is an idea whose time has come. The last two years have emphasised the need to re-think many of the ways people in the financial and legal world do business. From now on, clients will want to know that law firms genuinely understand their needs and want to develop a long term alignment of interests. Our clients are both backing the formation of MJ Hudson and using its legal counsel. We are creating a true partnership between our firm and our clients.”
One founder client is private equity investment manager Coller Capital.
Jeremy Coller, chief executive of Coller Capital, says: “It’s a breath of fresh air to clients of the traditional legal profession to be able to use a law firm that prices transactionally and can also invest in a transaction, thereby showing an understanding of and interest in the client and their returns. I have known Matthew for over 20 years, and with his track record, it doesn’t surprise me that he is the one breaking the mould. I believe that MJ Hudson’s formation and stance will help bring the corporate legal profession into the modern business world.”
