'We don't buy books of business': Inside Clifford Chance's private capital playbook

For all the noise around private capital in the London legal market - the marquee partner moves, the ballooning pay packages, the aggressive expansion of US firms - Clifford Chance’s leadership insists a client-first mindset means the market is becoming more about institutional relationships and less about individual rainmakers.

That is the message from Jonny Myers, the firm’s global head of private equity, and Spencer Baylin, London head of private equity, when we met at the firm’s Canary Wharf office in London recently.

Clifford Chance has pedigree here. It was one of London’s original private equity powerhouses, riding the buyout boom of the 2000s before the financial crisis upended the market. Today, the practice spans more than 240 partners and 500 lawyers globally and advises 11 of the world’s 12 largest private equity houses.

In London, the practice has been growing at a double-digit pace in recent years even as dealmaking has remained uneven. Baylin says London private capital revenue is up over 25% this year.

Building around clients

Private capital at Clifford Chance stretches well beyond traditional buyout work. Baylin describes the practice as spanning private equity, infrastructure, real estate, clean energy, funds and finance, with private credit becoming an increasingly important part of the mix.

“What we look to do is mirror how our clients see their own practice areas,” he says. “As they segment themselves into different asset classes and different pools of capital, we align with them.”

Myers says that client-by-client approach increasingly shows up in how the firm deploys its lawyers across geographies and specialisms.

“If you are looking at a major multi-asset manager, they have private equity, strategic opportunities, infrastructure, clean energy, retail, secondaries and credit funds,” he says. “To work with them you need to configure yourself accordingly.”

Clients question the talent wars

Throughout the conversation, both repeatedly return to the value of deep client relationships rather than individual partner ownership.

That approach has become more relevant as London’s private equity market has been transformed over the past five years by aggressive hiring from US firms, often luring partners with market-topping pay packages and multi-year guarantees.

Clifford Chance itself lost partners Chris Sullivan, then its London private equity head, and Oliver Marcuse to Paul Weiss in 2023. The exits formed part of the New York firm’s headline-grabbing London relaunch, which saw Paul Weiss raid several elite City firms to rapidly build out its private equity bench.

Baylin says that was three years ago and that since then it has been business as usual, with the firm’s strategy unchanged.

Asked whether clients care when partners move firms for huge pay rises, Baylin is direct.

“Partner moves are hugely dislocating for clients. They tend not to like upheaval. They also value authentic focus on what is good for the client, rather than what is good for the individual partner. It is sometimes difficult to justify the move as being better for the client.”

Partner moves are hugely dislocating for clients. They tend not to like upheaval.

Myers says that, as a service provider, it is often challenging when partners move and “look to monetise a relationship that the client is paying for”.

“Clients have been asking, quite rightly, when a partner moves and their salary increases by 50% or doubles: am I getting double the service?”

The comments point to a broader pushback against the talent arms race that has swept through London’s legal market.

Differentiating on complexity

Baylin says clients are increasingly differentiating between firms that can execute deals and firms that can support investments throughout their lifecycle. “When those issues arise, clients differentiate between law firms that are good at execution and law firms that are good at helping you manage the asset from execution to exit,” he says.

That broader capability is where Clifford Chance believes it has an edge.

“If a transaction is multi- jurisdictional, complex, highly regulated, or involves antitrust considerations, structured financing and/or public markets expertise, then you need a firm that can deliver all of this as one product to the client,” Baylin says.

Myers points to the sale of NewDay by CVC and Cinven to KKR last year as the kind of mandates suited to Clifford Chance’s model.

“That is suited to an organisation that has the local capability, the regulatory capability, and the institutional knowledge to pull it all together," he says.

The pair are notably relaxed about the aggressive private capital-focused build-outs of firms such as Sullivan & Cromwell and Sidley Austin in London.

“These expansions have been taking place for 20 or 30 years,” Myers says. ”There are people buying teams because they want to get into a market, and that will always be the case.”

“I don't worry about the competition,” Baylin adds. “All my focus is on making sure our clients are happy and well-serviced.”

The anti-rainmaker approach

Clifford Chance has made several high-profile private capital hires over the past 18 months, including Bruce Embley and Emma Ghaffari from Skadden, Annie Lewis from Blackstone and Patrick Scott from KKR.

The firm says the hires were about culture and experience rather than portable client relationships.

“You can always find somebody with a book who is a large character,” Myers says. “That does not make a good team.”

“We are not interested in buying books of business,” Baylin adds. “We are interested in the right quality of lawyer and the right cultural fit who can help grow the team.”

We are not interested in buying books of business - we are interested in the right quality of lawyer and the right cultural fit.

Embley’s arrival drew particular attention because of his longstanding relationship with Permira, with Baylin saying the arrival strengthened an already established Permira team at the firm. Lewis and Scott, meanwhile, brought an in-house perspective from major private capital clients.

“People like Annie and Patrick have a really good understanding of what clients value,” Myers says. “Sharing that around the team has been of massive benefit.”

US strategy

When the conversation turns to the US, Myers and Baylin are quick to highlight the strength of the firm’s practice.

The firm now has 131 partners in the US, including 81 partners in New York and 17 in Houston, where it launched in 2023.

While its expansion has been less headline-grabbing than some UK rivals, Clifford Chance ranked seventh in US private equity last year, ahead of several major US firms, and finished second by deal value in league tables for the first quarter of 2026. Clients include KKR, CVC and Partners Group.

Rather than chasing splashy hiring campaigns, Myers says the focus has been on targeted investment in areas including structured finance, energy, benefits and regulatory capability.

The flow of mandates is increasingly running both ways across the Atlantic. Myers points to work for Sixth Street in London as an example of US client relationships generating work in Europe.

Private capital’s next phase

The broader private equity market still faces challenges. Exit activity has been uneven, financing conditions volatile and geopolitical shocks continue to weigh on sentiment. But Myers argues private capital firms have become increasingly accustomed to operating through instability.

Liquidity remains central. Investment committees, Myers says, are becoming more analytical and more disciplined as sponsors come under continued pressure to return capital to LPs.

“Liquidity will always be at the centre of it all, because that is the lifeline of a fund,” he says.

Even so, activity remains strong in certain corners of the market, particularly around defence, healthcare, financial services, insurance, infrastructure and data centres.

“We've been fortunate to have led on all of the major data centre transactions announced in the first quarter this year,” Baylin says.

For Clifford Chance, the boom in data centre work plays directly into its strengths of handling complexity and delivering integrated advice.

Myers notes that the deals increasingly require expertise spanning infrastructure, financing, energy, planning, power regulation, grid connection, construction and data regulation, rather than straightforward M&A execution alone.

At the same time, sponsors are becoming more creative around exits and liquidity solutions - a trend that favours firms that can support clients across multiple routes to liquidity.

“As a firm that can lead on all of these aspects, that is a strong position to be in because you can pivot with the market,” Baylin says.

For Myers, that ability to adapt remains one of private capital’s defining strengths.

“One of the exciting things through each crisis or upheaval is its ability to think and make decisions,” he says, “We move forward, we evolve.”