‘One of the things I’ve learnt from the pandemic is individual wealth and freedom is nothing without collective wealth and freedom.’
Gareth Price, Allen & Overy
LB100 leaders give their views on another remarkable year and offer their prognosis on the 12 months ahead
Stronger together
‘A lot of people try to overcomplicate it but law firms are pretty simple businesses. You hire talented people, you give them a great environment to work in so you retain them, give them the necessary resources and you say “go!” It’s just a people business. You need to create an atmosphere where people all want to reach together and have a focus on ambition. One of the things I’ve learnt from the pandemic is individual wealth and freedom is nothing without collective wealth and freedom. Individual success is interesting but it’s not that satisfying. That’s where a strong partnership comes to the fore, with everyone pulling in the same direction towards a unified vision.’
Gareth Price, global managing partner, Allen & Overy
War for talent
‘The market is very competitive at the moment in major sectors. We have seen a reduction in headcount over the last year which was to some extent deliberate. We are now hiring very actively all over the firm, but the market is so competitive. We can’t yet fully appreciate the effect the pandemic has had on the labour market – people want to be in control of their work.’
Justin D’Agostino, chief executive, Herbert Smith Freehills
On target
‘Three years ago we set ourselves gender targets and have met two of the three primary targets. I’m really proud that now my executive team is 50% female as that’s something I’ve been set on achieving. The one that we did not achieve was 33% of our partners being female, where we stood at 29% – but pleasingly 78% of our partner promotions this year were female. We have now introduced ethnicity targets in the UK, a global LGBTI+ target and new gender equality targets, to be met by 2026. Both the board and the executive team take these targets really seriously and a lot of discussion has gone into making sure we can deliver on them.’
Paul Jenkins, global managing partner, Ashurst
Keeping up
‘We’ve had a great opportunity throughout the pandemic to shift to a digital-first client delivery model and embrace innovative solutions for both us as a firm and our clients. The challenge will be keeping up with client demand for bigger and better legal innovations. Assembling teams of lawyers, technologists, project managers and designers will be important to meet our clients’ ever-evolving digital needs.’
Alan Mason, managing partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
Evolution not revolution
‘We’re continuing to evolve the workplace to ensure that we make the firm a diverse and inclusive place where everyone feels they belong and where they can achieve their full potential. This means investing heavily in our culture, our training and development opportunities, our technology, and really anything that affects our colleagues’ sentiment about what brings them to work every day.’
Georgia Dawson, senior partner, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
C’est la vie
‘We had a pretty good flexible working model anyway. Personally, I am more interested in the output than input, so I look at it on a monthly basis. People work pretty hard but they also have a life to live. Yesterday I cracked a tooth on a peanut, so obviously I had to cancel a meeting this morning to go to the dentist. That’s life.’
James Miller, managing partner, RPC
Something has to give
‘The pandemic has shown that people can work very differently. There are two issues though: firstly, to what extent do we have to be seeing people face-to-face in order to build a relationship? There’s a different kind of effort required when doing everything from your dining room. Secondly, the shift to home working has meant that the day often starts at 7:30am and finishes later and later, and clients expect nothing less. It’s relentless and it’s not sustainable.’
Margaret Robertson, chief executive, Withers
Lasting relationship
‘I want people who have just started their career here to think of it as a place they can see themselves being at for years. If you kill people with work then they will vote with their feet and either go to another firm or give up on private practice. It’s not a sustainable model and we will not follow the herd on that. People are really important and you shouldn’t be compromising them for the sake of short-term profitability.’
Edmund Reed, managing partner, Travers Smith