Zurich, 30 May 2022: Our Senior Partner Colin Cohen was among more than 115 delegates who attended Ally Law’s first in-person AGM for three years when the global legal services organisation convened in Zurich last week.
“After the worldwide disruption caused by Covid-19, this was a welcome return to normality. It was wonderful to catch up with many old friends and remind ourselves of the close working relationships we have developed over the years,” says Colin, a past President of Ally Law and currently Chairman of its Expansion Committee.
The five-day gathering combined formal business discussions and presentations with networking and social activities as delegates made the most of their first face-to-face gathering since the 2019 AGM in New Delhi.
Colin chaired a roundtable discussion on Corporate Social Responsibility, highlighting law firm obligations such as equality and diversity, sustainability, community outreach and pro bono work. “There is still an underlying perception that CSR is ‘low priority’ in the business space, resulting in small budgets and lack of ambition. So it is worth reiterating the business case for CSR, since it promotes a point of difference to clients and helps firms receive positive recognition,” says Colin.
He also took part in one of the AGM’s highlights, the Managing Partners Panel, in which leading Ally Law figures reflected on the challenges of running a competitive, high-performance law firm in the post-pandemic landscape. “This was a highly informative discussion covering topics such as workflow automation, data security and flexible working, highlighting the need for law firms to adapt and embrace new technologies,” explains Colin.
BC&C is Hong Kong’s sole member of Ally Law, a worldwide grouping of more than 70 independent law firms which acts as a referral network and provides comprehensive legal services to major corporations.
Adds Colin: “After this successful AGM, we are now looking forward to the Asia Pacific Regional Meeting in Kuala Lumpur in November. It will be our first APAC get-together since we hosted everyone in Hong Kong in October 2019. We are looking forward to it.”
Before then, the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) Regional Meeting will be held in Tel Aviv in September followed the next month by the Americas Regional Meeting in Raleigh, North Carolina.
