Life at the top of a £2bn law firm | Ep29 Paul Lewis 🎙️

Mate, you really need to up your BDM marketing game. I suffered a loss the first time I ran. So you just build up bit by bit a knowledge of all the different ways the firm runs and then you realize once you're in the job, gosh, this is actually quite different. Rankings by total value of deal. It's made my day that you've come with the table with you. I think that's brilliant, right? Evidence based lawyering is just next level. I'm definitely not going to comment on that.

Yeah, absolutely. So I'll try and do it very quickly. I hail from South Wales, from a small village just outside Swansea. I've completely lost the accent, much to my father's annoyance. Went to the local state school in Swansea. Through luck, more than anything else, I managed to go to Oxford. Very lucky to go to Oxford, a life-changing experience coming from a reasonably poor background, going to comp, going to Oxford, change of world. From there to Linklaters. Linklaters has been my career barring one or two secondments. I've been a Linklaters lifer. I qualified into capital markets and have done pretty much every type of finance you could possibly do. As well as loving the work, I was always interested in the management side, one of those tinkering, curious types: how does this work, can we make it better, how do we structure things? So I indicated that interest and picked up more roles. Before this role, I was head of our finance division. We have three divisions at Linklaters: finance, corporate, and litigation, arbitration, investigations. Three distinct. I was in charge of finance, and then three and a half years ago I took on this role at the same time as Admar, my senior partner, took on hers. Three and a half years of our leadership duo, and it both feels like a long time and yesterday. Three and a half years in a lifetime.

I was always, I mean, the firm has been really good to me. Every time I expressed an interest, the firm was very amenable to opening opportunities. But you have to go and take them. I probably was always a bit of the teenage scribbler, the famous description of Nigel Lawson when he was a young chancellor in the '80s. I did a Masters in Finance as a junior associate, which Linklaters kindly paid for. So I was always interested in things above and beyond the pure legal piece. When I was a fairly junior partner, only a few years in, we have a partnership board. Our governance is convoluted: we have a partnership board voted in by constituents, chaired by the senior partner, and the managing partner runs the executive committee. I put myself forward for the board early on. I suffered a loss the first time I ran, which was a good moment — you learn more from a defeat than a victory. A good friend got the job, and I got on the next time. I was on the board for three or four years. I headed my own group, threw myself into everything I was interested in: knowledge, learning, BD. By the time I came to the divisional role, I'd done a lot of different things. I was head of innovation for five or six years. So you build up bit by bit a knowledge of all the different ways the firm runs while doing your day job. But once you're in the job, it's quite different. When you're the one who has to make the decision, everything comes up to you, and it's a very different place. So that, I think, is right.

Gosh, when you say it like that. In the early days you're acutely aware, then it becomes what you do. It's a 2.1 billion revenue organization, 21 countries, 30 offices, three and a half thousand lawyers, another two and a half thousand business team members. It's a big operation, and a lot of people's careers depend to some extent on your actions. It's a huge responsibility and a massive privilege. But I had a moment: I'm Welsh, I love rugby. We lost heavily to England last weekend. I was meeting a friend in legal recruitment who introduced me to a famous Welsh rugby player. He asked what I do, and I said I sort of run a law firm. He said, 'Is it a small law firm, big law firm?' I said, 'Reasonably big.' After he left, the recruiter said, 'Mate, you really need to up your BDM marketing game. You're not selling the role.' There was a time 30 years ago those internationals would have gone back to their desk as solicitors on Monday. Maybe that might be England. I don't know.

Yeah. Well, for the firm, I think I'd probably be long gone by 2035. For me, the defining feature is whether we are winning the mandates a top tier firm should win. What does top tier mean? Magic circle, global elite, some other tag? People talk about profitability, and it matters, but what matters more at the very top end is doing the best work. Lawyers want to be challenged, to do the deals that get on the front page, the most complex, intellectually stimulating work. So to me, success is when you look at the mega deals globally, are we getting more than our fair share? It's a virtuous circle: the most challenging work is the most profitable because it's complex, intense, and not everyone can do it. If you get that right, profitability follows. But profitability also depends on geography. A heavier US footprint means higher profitability, but that doesn't mean everyone needs the same footprint. We need to be profitable enough to attract and retain talent, but the really big thing is being at the top end of the matters we do.

As a Linklaters lifer, I've seen different evolutions. I'll talk about what Adrian and I have done. We came in with a clear agenda: we needed to change our compensation system. We were the last magic circle firm with a pure lockstep, and we didn't think it served us well in the modern world. Both of us are decisive. One moment I look back on with pride is Moscow. When the Russia situation came up, we were the first big law firm to close Moscow. We went from a conversation on a Sunday afternoon to a partner vote on Thursday, and we announced on Friday. A partner vote is not something you go into lightly. The partnership told us to look after our people. We made a quick decision, and we still have about 50 people from Moscow with us elsewhere. Junior lawyers got to requalify elsewhere, and we were generous on severance. No one else was doing it at the time. We tried to inject that willingness to be bold, and Admar's catchphrase is 'bold and ambitious'. That's what we've been looking to do.

I get asked this from time to time. I haven't got strong views either way. The other firms classically in the magic circle are all excellent, and I have huge respect for them. Their geographic and practice footprints are quite similar, but there are other firms with similar footprints, like Latham. When I look at the industry, I compare across those firms. The magic circle isn't unhelpful, but it's becoming less of an obvious delineation. I try to break down the title and look at what we're doing versus others. We're all subtly different, and what you need to do to win should be different.

You gave me a sight of the questions, and I've seen that one. It can go terribly wrong — you name firms and people say you're delusional. So I pulled an M&A league table from last year as a measure. It's made my day that you've come with the table. Evidence-based lawyering. So this is the top 20 firms by global M&A deal value. The top ten include Kirkland, Latham, Skadden, Freshfields, Paul Weiss, Simpson, Wachtell, Cleary, Davis Polk, and possibly Sullivan. Then another ten really good firms. However you define it, that's a good way of looking. We are a corporate and commercial firm, excellent in M&A, finance, litigation. When looking at big-ticket public M&A, that's a good measure of our natural competitors. The geographic nexus changes: US-heavy firms win more there, we win more outside. How that plays out is interesting, but that's what I think of.

I think the responses are related but different. For Linklaters, we've been reasserting a clear recognition of what we are. We became a global firm in the late '90s, early 2000s with mergers, alongside Clifford Chance and Freshfields. We came together to do cross-border, cross-practice mandates for the biggest clients. That's where we excel. In any jurisdiction, there's a range of work. We want the top tier, not to be domestic champions. Our compensation system is a single global profit pool, so we think globally. We don't have separate regional strategies; we have one global strategy. We've been pushing global structures that go across borders. We're not a federated firm where each jurisdiction does its own thing. We are a global consistent whole. Within that, there's room for local differentiation, but not to the point of having 20 different law firms.

A natural tension point around the desks to get that balance right. Is that a fair observation to say that Italians want to be Italian, right? The French want to be French a bit as well. That's my experience of working in global law firms. So I think the challenge for me in Adidar, which is the ask that people should have and do have of us, is can we articulate a compelling vision internally and externally as to why this global approach makes sense and how everyone fits within it and has a key role in it. If I can't explain to, pick any jurisdiction, if I can't compellingly explain to our fantastic partners in Madrid why this global vision is the right vision and why they should calibrate their work towards that and why it's right for them and the type of deals and matters they want to do, then that's my failing. So I think you're right, there is always that, let's face it, in any organization there is always going to be, life is never binary, so there's always going to be shades and spectrums of what people want to do. So really you're nudging people towards wanting to be in this global environment to do this work. Luckily, going back to what are your drivers of partners and lawyers generally, they want to be doing the biggest and the best mandates. So having a global vision around that simple concept — the biggest and the best global deals — tends to mean you're all pulling in the same direction. But yes, there will be a certain amount of tension, but that's not a bad thing. It's about finding the balancing point.

And what can't I do, right? And what can't any leader who's not on the ground in the place do? I can't be the right person to go and tell partners in Germany exactly which classes to go after or how they're going to win it. They're the ones who know that far better than I do. So what do we do as leaders? We set the broad parameters and the frameworks, and you sort of say this is broadly what we want. How we get there precisely, the routes you take, that's something you need to work through. There was a great example given because we work with a lady called Elizabeth Johnson, an academic and business management expert at a prestigious US school. We used her for partner training and an EXCO strategy session, and she gave a Taipei 101 example. Taipei 101 is a huge tower block in Taiwan, utterly obvious from everywhere. She told a story about being with clients who had dinner at Taipei 101, and one person asked the hotel for a map to get there. Her point was: look up. Just look up. It's so obvious. You don't need a map with a route because you can see where it is. That's what we were talking about at EXCO: you need a clear enough objective that everyone knows how to get there, but the precise route will be different for everyone. I really like that analogy. Leadership is to set a clear north star and then let people get there in lots of different ways that I can't prescribe and nor should I.

Yeah, so very much tied to Linklaters actually. We do a lot with a charity in the UK called Business in the Community, which has a place-based approach. They select disadvantaged areas with high deprivation and low social mobility, and bring together businesses, local political leaders, and community groups. We've been involved for a long time. When I came into this role, our head of sustainability, Matt Sparks, said they were doing a visit to Coventry and asked if I wanted to go with a bunch of CEOs and chairs. I went, not really knowing what to expect. The visit was led by Zara at Salesforce and Steve Hughes from the Coventry Building Society. They took us around a food bank, the Positive Youth Foundation, and local businesses. The follow-up was about what businesses could do to improve the place. Coventry was a Damascene conversion for me – I spend my life running a major law firm, but seeing the ability of businesses to quickly provide solutions was eye-opening. Then Business in the Community asked me to lead their first visit in Wales, to Newport. I'm from Swansea, so I agreed. I ended up focusing most of my BITC time on Newport, and we focus Linklaters' efforts there and in Cardiff. I grew up in an unprivileged environment, and going into Newport and seeing the difference businesses can make was a real grounding experience. I think it's one of the most fulfilling things we can do. I took my EXCO there last year and they found it anchoring. We also bring children from Newport to London to show them what the city is like, and we've been involved with the Social Mobility Business Partnership, which organizes clusters for 16 to 18 year olds to get experience with companies and sports organizations. It gives them an insight into a world they otherwise wouldn't have access to. I also feel conflicted about taking talent from Wales. One of our Welsh-speaking trainees told me she was seen as betraying Wales by her teachers for wanting to go to Oxford and London. I understand the pride, but we need to give people the opportunity to break out if they want.

Yeah, so I'm really, probably boringly proud of the Solicitor Apprentices program. We've been running it for two years. Patrick McCann, who features heavily in your influencer list, was fantastic. He had wanted to make it happen for a while. When I got this job, I went to Patrick and said I'm really keen on doing this. I know A&O are doing it, I think it's phenomenal. Patrick agreed and together with Malcolm Horton internally and Joe Hughes more broadly, he delivered it quickly and also set up City Century with a load of other law firms. His point was that we can take in six to eight a year, but if we do it with 50 other firms, the multiplier effect is huge. It's about widening access to the profession. By definition, because you come in at 18 and don't incur university debt, it attracts a socially mobile group. We're in the second year and I'm really proud of it. The apprentices have been superb. They've joined into the life of the firm. One of them gave a speech at an Iftar for our Islamic society and was phenomenal at age 19. I think it's a great example of bringing in people from different backgrounds. I also had the fortune of working at Burgess with some early solicitor apprentices, and they were incredible — hardworking, doing the day job and then the night job. By the time they qualify, they have seven years of work experience and are phenomenal lawyers. So all power to what you've done on that, and to Patrick, Joe, and Malcolm. I'm really proud of it. I think it'll be fantastic for law in the city more generally. And I won't even get into government changes to solicitor apprentice funding, but anyway.

I'm definitely not going to comment on that. But Simon, I will say thank you for putting my dogs into your dog Christmas calendar. That was the highlight of their year. It was the thing that you said alongside, I think you said it grounds us and really helps the family spend some time together, and I really love that idea. It meant a lot to me that you sent that over.

Thank you very much, Simon.