At Gateley, Law Firm Sees IPO as Salve for Legal Industry’s Woes

On the morning of June 8, Nick Smith checked in at his London office around 7:30 a.m., where he met some of his law partners and then walked across Paternoster Square to the stock exchange.

At 8 a.m., while drinking his first glass of champagne, Smith watched GTLY, the ticker for his law firm Gateley PLC, scroll across a giant screen amid a fantastic display of graphics designed to mark the occasion: That morning, his law firm became the first in the U.K. to hold an initial public offering.

For Smith, the rest of the day blurred into a series of champagne toasts and celebrations until the market closed, by which point ...