According to the Law Society, the cap will ‘severely restrict’ firms’ ability to conduct overseas work and prevent them from moving employees between their international offices and London.

It added that as a result, law firms may relocate their offices, causing London to lose some of its competitiveness and subsequent damage the UK legal sector’s reputation.

Law Society chief executive Desmond Hudson said:

“Just when we are pulling ourselves out of a crippling recession, imposing this cap now will strangle City law firms and in turn hit the businesses they act for.

City law firms operate in a global marketplace and need to be able to recruit and relocate staff around the world.”
…
“The UK legal sector is a huge employer of domestic legal talent, and restrictions on future international business development will mean fewer opportunities for UK lawyers to gain employment and international experience. The cap will effectively sever links to some of the world’s most important and growing economies, such as India and China, and there is a risk that large amounts of the transactional work that UK law firms engage in will go overseas as a result. It is therefore not surprising that the business community in the City also shares our concerns.”

Politics and shortsightedness, who’d have guessed it.