Regional Brokers for Western Globalization: The emergent roles of Dublin and Brussels as gatekeepers for the legal industry

A student fellow project

Over the last twenty years, research on law and globalization has developed into a substantial field. However, despite the empirical documentation of transnational legal growth, less work has been done to document the significant push and pull that comes at the fringes of global development. Integration is rarely a seamless process—and law firms have demonstrated that the move into new markets is often fraught with challenges. In order to better understand how law firms are adapting to the global market, this research seeks to address the success of international law firms following the anti-globalization backlash that culminated in the Brexit movement.

Building off a previous study conducted on the post-Brexit development of London’s legal industry, this paper seeks to address the contemporaneous development of key EU legal centers: Dublin and Brussels. These cities, pitched as future legal capitals in the wake of Brexit, have found their own niche as gatekeepers between the EU and international business interests. In doing so, they are part of a growing glocalization where contested frontier zones are maturing as translators between local and global interests.

As a student fellow for the Center on the Legal Profession, my research will seek to shed light on (1) the manner and magnitude of firm growth; (2) the comparative strengths of the two EU legal centers; and (3) the problems associated with growing market competition. These results will pay particular attention to the distribution of new-entrant international firms as well as patterns of growth in the post-Covid and post-Brexit eras. 

Research will be conducted using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. A spatial data analysis of legal entrants into the commercial real estate market in each respective city will be used to monitor firm footprints. This dataset will be supplemented with interviews with relevant practitioners as necessary, focusing on local office management and legal analysts.

Based on prior data on London’s legal trajectory in the post-Covid window, I hypothesize that Dublin and Brussels will demonstrate a measured, but not exponential growth rate for their international legal services. It will be interesting to observe how these cities have interacted with other major legal hubs such as Paris, Frankfurt, and Luxembourg. Should time allow, these jurisdictions would be fruitful for further comparison.

I am excited to embark upon this research project and would like to thank all of the great mentors at the Center on the Legal Profession and at Harvard Law School for their generous support and mentorship over the course of this work.

Hadley DeBello is a 3L student at Harvard Law School. She holds a B.A. in Social Studies from Harvard College and a M.A. in China Studies from Peking University. 

As a fellow at the Center on the Legal Profession, her work tackles the changing political and economic conditions of the legal market, particularly in regards to the globalization of the juris doctorate degree. Prior to law school, her research was published in The Harvard Political Review, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, and Axios.