It is a well-documented phenomenon of successful pioneers in any industry to associate themselves with high-profile clients and associates.
For a business model to truly stand out, it must pull the rug out from under competitors by providing a value proposition so clear that it cannot easily be matched, and pioneers see such opportunities earlier than other role players in the same industry.
At Alchemy Law, our clients come first. We occupy ourselves in their modus operandi and strategies so that we work from the inside out. Our differentiated approach to providing legal advice and transactional strategy to both local and international clients has already reaped significant rewards and our pipeline is interesting, challenging, exciting, and growing.
“As in many other industries, recent global economic difficulties exacerbated by the pandemic introduced changing client needs that have been met by disruptors – especially where incumbent competitors were either unable or not agile enough to change their business models. We simply responded to the changing client behavioural patterns we observed,” says Morné van der Merwe, a founding partner of the firm.
Pioneers paying attention would have noticed that clients in these uncertain times required advice and judgement calls from top legal minds based on depth of experience, and they needed to make judgement calls quickly. They could not wait days or weeks for an answer before proceeding. A legacy issue with many large law firms is that there are many layers of bureaucracy, systems and processes that are just not aligned with these new client requirements. In response, Alchemy Law was established so that the focus was 100% on the client’s needs.
Our team is characterised by experience, focus, efficiency and agility. In fact, our size and our partner-centric approach gives us the capacity to take on some of the most complex transactions as we have greater energy and a more streamlined approach. Today’s fastpaced, technology-driven world demands immediacy. This is vital and relevant as risk is high on leaders’ agendas and demands a response to match. Alchemy Law has proven to meet this challenge.
Wildu du Plessis, another founding partner, says a smaller, specialised team ensures greater dynamism in both interplay between experts and, equally importantly, responsiveness to clients. “We were contacted by a company owned by a foreign sovereign wanting to do an urgent yet potentially difficult deal in South Africa. It took a single phone call – 15 minutes – for us to confirm that it was indeed possible and to advise on the best way to structure it. That’s representative of the kind of response clients’ desire but are not getting elsewhere. Being entirely client-focused is how we intend to become the go-to team for the most complicated corporate issues.”
“We are growing our firm with the right type of lawyer, who has the same vision and energy as we do and who is passionate about client service. We will, however, not grow our firm just to increase our headcount, but instead will reverse engineer it based on our needs to match those of our clients,” he adds.
Our project management role will always be important – pulling the strings to ensure that the client sees the intended results. A firm can’t be universally strong in every area of law, so the business will be set up to collaborate with contributors we identify as best in their respective capacities. This is a crucial point of difference because we think about a legal problem from the client’s perspective, not from a legal perspective. Where large firms commonly overpopulate teams on matters, we ensure that each and every role player is adding real value, and is the best mind that can be applied to the problem.
The firm’s name – deliberately neutral and not tied to any individual – belies the expectation that Alchemy Law would draw on a network of top legal minds in both South Africa and internationally to produce advice that clients found valuable. We can confidently say that our collaboration with the best in the market has enabled us to play a significant leadership role in conducting and directing both inbound and outbound transactions. Our experience is commercial and implementable – we build solutions.
And the approach has worked. A list of high-profile transactions and representations the Alchemy team has led during the last year would be the envy of any large law firm.