Reed Smith’s Gregory B. Jordan has now led the 15th largest law firm in the world through the whole of this first decade of the turbulent 21st Century. He was returned to take up his fourth successive term as global managing partner in 2009.

“The building looks like one of the biggest offices of one of the largest law firms in the world,” says Reed Smith’s Gregory B. Jordan with clear and understandable satisfaction.

He is talking of skyscraper The Broadgate Tower: this global law firm’s brand new London office, which opened for business for the first time in 2009. At 161m and 35 floors, the edifice is one of the ten tallest structures in the capital; in fact, just a few metres short of 30 St Mary Axe – the iconic Gherkin – which launched itself on the public consciousness back in 2003 and is itself just down the road.

For Jordan, however, this move is about much more than another room with a rather better view. It marks the culmination of a landmark legal transformation that was officially launched in January 2007, but which began even earlier: the merger of Reed Smith with UK law firm Richards Butler to form what is now a US$1bn business, with some 1600 lawyers working out of 23 offices around the world.

After almost three years working out of two separate offices in London, the arrival of all 400 London-based employees at the same building each morning has a certain symbolic value that is also of tangible business benefit, Jordan explains.

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This article was first published in Managing Partner, Volume 12, Issue 8.