Lawyers are eating their Brexit … How three UK based global firms are dealing with clients’ Brexit phobia … England quakes while lawyers open the picnic basket … Too much marketing … Too little light … Janek Drevikovsky files from Kathmandu 

But head over to Chancery Lane and things are modestly upbeat. 

As businesses gird themselves for the great uncoupling, law firms are seeing Brexit through decidedly commercial lenses. There are new matters to manage, advices to give and clients to woo. 

If this were Australia, citizens would be calling it a “lawyers’ picnic”. 

So just how is London’s “legal services industry” (its words) handling Brexit? 

The bigger firms are keeping their noses to the grindstone with special Brexit practice groups. Take Euro giant CMS, whose Brexit Group is headed by London-based energy partner Munir Hassan. Or Bird & Bird, which has set up a grandiosely titled “Brexit Steering Committee”, under helmswoman Sally Shorthouse, an IP partner. 

Brexit lawyers come from diverse areas of practice. Many, of course are EU specialists, but IP lawyers, tax lawyers, regulation lawyers and corporate specialists also feature heavily. 

“Brexit teams” are in full marketing mode. Headshots of Brexit lawyers plaster firms’ websites, as if to remind clients that, yes, Brexit is a legal problem and it will cost money to fix it. 

By now everyone has a Brexit group, so how can firms hope set themselves apart from the competition? Claiming superior Brexpertise seems to be the answer, and firms are dolling out free, online information by the bucket load. 

Herbert Smith Freehills has pioneered this approach. The Anglo-Australian firm has appointed commercial lawyer Paul Butcher as its Brexit Director. His role is outward facing, and includes curating HSF’s online Brexit coverage, which is massive.

There are a series of Brexit videos and webinars. Several camera-allergic HSF lawyers pose awkwardly in front of a green screen-generated news desk with clunky credit titles such as “Will the free movement of workers into the UK impact the Manufacturing and Industrial sector?” or “Will State aid, environmental standards and health and safety standards continue to apply in the post-Brexit world?” 

Most of this can be found on HSF’s jumbo sized Brexit hub.  

Bird & Bird has a rolling Brexit news blog and a Brexit Jargon Buster for interpreting Brussels-speak. It also has a three-part video series on what Brexit will mean for the media, with Caroline Povah, one of the firm’s associates, opening her presentation on a swing, dealing with topics like why Britons might be denied access to Netflix while on the continent. 

For time-poor clients, firms have cut past the learned disquisition and distilled the Brexit essentials into how-to guides. These cribs target common business anxieties and are a handy tool for flogging legal services – usually, they bring up more problems than they solve, and never give quite enough detail for a non-lawyer to opt for DIY. 

HSF, CMS and Bird & Bird organise their how-to guides by industry sector and then by predicted problem. The usual worries crop up again and again. What will happen to EU citizens working in Britain? Will EU laws continue to apply? Will my contract still have effect? 

HSF and CMS also offer business preparedness checklists. CMS’ offering, with the foreboding title ‘Ready for Brexit?’, is quite scary and a bit light on advice. There are seven pages outlining the ramifications of a No Deal Brexit, interspersed with subtle gems, such as:

“The UK has a limited supply of the people whose knowledge and skills are required to navigate a No Deal Brexit, ranging from customs brokers to trade lawyers. If you need them, don’t wait until the last minute to find them.”

Bird & Bird goes one step further with a “commercial drafting checklist”, intended for the Brexit-wary deal-striker. The checklist considers how the great decoupling may affect, for example, choice of law provisions or whether Brexit can be considered force majeure (it can’t, says Bird & Bird). 

For the most part, firms present their Brexit advice as an edifice of sober objectivity. But it would be unlawyerly not to take sides, and every now and again opinions shine through. 

Take HSF, which argues at length that the controversial Irish Backstop is illegal under EU law. The eminent Messrs Eric White and Loede Van Den Hende even suggest: 

“… how EU law could be used by the UK to improve the Withdrawal Agreement and Political Declaration along the lines recently requested by the UK Parliament.” 

Or then there’s CMS’s Brexit FAQ, published before the 2016 referendum but left in pride-of-place on the firm’s website. There’s a Remain-like flavour to this document, like this answer to the question “what will Brexit do to the UK economy?” 

“While Brexit would enable the UK to keep its current net contribution to EU funding and to spend that in the UK it is worth noting that even a small decrease in the UK’s economy as a result of Brexit would outweigh the saving made by the UK’s contribution to EU coffers.” 

However, anxieties about what Brexit will mean for Britain’s contribution to Eurovision performance should be calmed with this advice: 

“If Australia can, surely we can but how much more humiliation can we take after Euro 2016? Seriously, the EBU which runs Eurovision is nothing to do with the EU so Brexit will not affect our ability to participate in this annual ritual.”

Some lawyers in Germany thought Brexit was a good opportunity to gain leverage over English law and language. 

Until now English has always been the go-to language and law for commercial disputes, contracts and the corporate world. If a German contract is translated into English there is the risk of a German court looking to English law for interpretation and construction. 

For clients, the regulatory regimes mean it’s easier to get certified in England.

Many German professionals are transfixed by the British Brexit “process” and are glued to the live feed of the House of Commons’ debates.

The overwhelming feeling of business people in Germany is that it would be better for the UK to stay in Europe. German support for the EU increased after Brexit.