I have been incredibly fortunate in my career. I feel that very strongly.
I come from a long line of doctors. It wasn’t my calling. Around 14, I got interested in law. I’ve always been argumentative and difficult. I grew up in North West London. There’s German on both sides of my family. All refugees. Striving and ambitious.
The days of being a generalist are gone. To make your mark, one needs to find an area you can go into with great passion. When you start out at the Bar you don’t know how it will work. It’s very haphazard. My first few cases all concerned rubbish disposal. I was being sold by the clerks as a rubbish expert. I was getting more rubbish cases. If I hadn’t done something about it, I would be attending international rubbish conferences.
Essex Court was the only place I ever went to. I did an extended mini-pupillage at university and decided to do another degree. Then I did another degree in the US. I thought they’d forget about me but they didn’t.
My mentor is Johnny Veeder, both professionally and personally. He introduced me to my wife… about four times… it took me a little while to send a message to her.
My wife is from Pakistan. Part of my life is in England and part in Pakistan… parallel universes where I have a house in both. She was studying in London for one year with every intention of going back. She did a short-term placement with Johnny in these chambers. I changed her plans… with his prodding.
When I’m in Pakistan, I dress locally and speak the local language appallingly. My daughter is in a state of chronic embarrassment. I’m very proud of my ability to be in Lahore in the middle of heat, dust and chaos on a conference call pretending I’m in an air-conditioned office in central London.
‘I was being sold by the clerks as a rubbish expert. If I hadn’t done something about it, I would be attending international rubbish conferences.’
One of my worst cases was a very early case, which I was completely hopeless in and one of the first I did alone. It concerned the supply of textiles to make the uniform of the police force of Sierra Leone. I was defending the supplier and the textiles faded in the sun. Obviously, the first point was to say they didn’t fade and then the evidence would show them… fading in the sun. My best argument was: it’s fine as long as the police force work indoors and nowhere near a window. Crashing and burning early in a case was something I never forgot.
When I started, the world of international arbitration was very small professionally. It was dominated by a small group of people who even then were getting on a bit. I was considered a freak… I had to work very hard to be taken seriously.
I have been very impressed by the Singapore courts. Absolutely first rate, both at first instance and the Court of Appeal. A serious competitor to England and developing its own momentum. Hong Kong is attuned to international arbitration and a very satisfying court to argue in front of.
I argued a case in 2000 in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. It was over one of the biggest foreign investments into Pakistan and the question was whether it had been tainted by corruption in kickbacks to Benazir Bhutto, who was then prime minister. The issue was supposed to be heard in arbitration outside of Pakistan. The Pakistan courts said it should be dealt with locally. It went to the Supreme Court. The government filled its side of the court with generals in full uniform who were staring at the judges while we were arguing. Generals would stand up with no rights of audience saying why we were wrong. They were visiting the judges in their chambers after court to guide them. We take for granted how reliable our institutions are.
Mixing litigation and arbitration is incredibly important. International arbitration has many disadvantages – it’s very flabby. If you spend too long just doing arbitration then you lose the discipline and the rigour of court.
There are areas in decline at the Bar and people are getting more and more specialised. We’re congregating over ever-smaller areas of practice in ever-fewer numbers of sets. How that pans out for the future is difficult to say. We keep growing, we have vast numbers of silks which means we need increasing numbers of juniors. Where does that lead? No-one knows.
My daughter has a number of complaints about my work/life balance. She doesn’t want to be a lawyer. Her passion is tennis. I come from a long line of sloths; there are paternity issues being raised.
‘I had this revelation years ago when I started to sit as an arbitrator. The revelation is just how irritating counsel are.’
I have an aspiration to move into international peace issues. My wife does huge development work in Pakistan – she’s a non-practising barrister who runs a philanthropic organisation running schools in the desert and sporting tournaments for underprivileged children. She says she’s cleansing my money.
There is going to be increasing public scrutiny in the way we handle disputes. Investor-state arbitration has come under extraordinary scrutiny. The bubble will burst on fees in London.
I had this revelation years ago when I started to sit as an arbitrator. The revelation is just how irritating counsel are. The issue is people doing things without pausing to consider whether it’s right for the case. There are people who feel good litigators need to speak in an old-fashioned way with long sentences and long words, when some people are desperate for a break and a laugh.
The commercial Bar in England has been quite slow to adapt to international arbitration. The Bar has been conservative and rigid in its approach to the practice area. People come with very entrenched views as to how they should behave. There’s a development in the commercial Bar internationally and people feeding into it from many different countries and many different Bars around the world. Looking at how the English Bar positions itself traditionally, it hasn’t done that very well. It’s seen by foreign practitioners as difficult to deal with, a little rigid and narrow.
I feel profoundly sad about the Brexit vote. It was a shock and now there is long-term gloom. I hope we can turn this round into opportunity, into a future. In terms of placing London on a world stage, it’s a body blow.
Toby Landau QC is a barrister and arbitrator at Essex Court Chambers
sarah.downey@legalease.co.uk