I’m the only one in my immediate family who isn’t a scientist – they’re all biologists and engineers. My grandfather, though, was a lawyer in a small market town in Fife so I’d always been interested in law as a career. He was a traditional high street lawyer – doing very little corporate work – so training at Clifford Chance (CC) was a completely different professional life from his. But from him I saw someone who was regarded as an upright person in the community.
I began my career at CC which, at the time, was the biggest firm in the world. I came to London to follow my then girlfriend who was a professional violinist, but we’d split up by the time I got there! I wanted the experience and challenge of working in a huge organisation.
A few years later I got married and we took a year off to travel. I’d seen my friends from uni back in Scotland with evenings off and hobbies, and I’d always had at the back of my mind that I might go back. They were working on the Scottish side of transactions I was on in London so I knew I didn’t have to compromise on the quality of work or clients to achieve a better work/life balance.
You have more time free as managing partner than you might think – the challenge is what you do with it. I gave up all client work; I realised the most important thing to do with the time was stop and think. Think about the things that you could get involved in that nudge the business in the right direction, to help the people.
Every Friday afternoon I find someone to say thank you to. You never run out of people to say thank you to – it’s like a super power that never wears out.
The person who inspired me most professionally is our chair, Christine O’Neill. She is, by any margin, the brightest lawyer I’ve ever met. But allied to that she can think in 3D and combines a fearsome intelligence with a waspish sense of humour. It’s no surprise the Scottish government and the BBC (among others) seek her counsel – our firm benefits from that 365 days a year.
My next chapter won’t involve any paid role. I’m going to go back to university to study history of art. I studied it in between requalifying into English law and have been interested in it ever since. It’s history through the lens of art – it’s as much about who’s creating the art as what the painting is about.
‘My next chapter won’t involve any paid role. I’m going to go back to university to study history of art. It’s history through the lens of art – it’s as much about who’s creating the art as what the painting is about.’
As managing partner you’re on two terms and my second term was up. It’s 32 years since I was a trainee and it’s a good time to do something else. When I started at CC my old boss retired at 47; I always had in mind that I should force myself to do new things at about 50.
I liked real estate because it’s tangible; you can see these structures being built, and I could explain it to my mum(!). It’s friendly and a great industry to be involved in.
I always remembered the deals less than the people I worked with on them. In this role, I haven’t missed the client work. I was ready to do something different; I wanted a new backdrop against which to test myself.
Management is all about the people. You can get caught up in P&Ls and balance sheets but it’s all about people. Our most important audience is our internal audience; are they optimistic when they’re spending time with you? I would like to think that for all of the tangible success we have enjoyed, folk would say we cared about our people. We put a huge amount of investment into our people.
Twenty years ago we were the 13th biggest firm in Scotland but now we’re the biggest, with revenue of £100m. I wanted our firm to get to £100m – it was important to me to show that a firm in Scotland could do that; and to show our colleagues in the firm what the view looked like from there. I’ve also spent a lot of time getting our offices to reflect the firm we have now become. And I’m proud of making sure we celebrate everyone in the firm – business services colleagues, as well as lawyers. They have careers, degrees, hopes and aspirations too. We banned the use of non-lawyer as a word.
Half of the firms that were here 20 years ago no longer exist; they’ve been replaced with international or national UK firms. We welcome them all, because it makes it easier for us to differentiate ourselves. There are pros and cons of the big international firms versus independents; they force us to distinguish what’s compelling about our proposition.
We have a strategic review every three years in which we challenge everything – right down to why we are still together, but we’re proud of what we’ve created. Everyone in Brodies feels they have a stake in what we’ve created.
Our target hours for our lawyers are 1,200, which is much less than everyone else. We want our folk to spend time mentoring, training their younger colleagues.
‘Twenty years ago we were the 13th biggest firm in Scotland, but now we’re the biggest, with revenue of £100m.’
It was a privilege to be in management during Covid – you saw people at their best, all the acts of human kindness. Pride, and humanity, don’t come from job titles and seniority didn’t matter; sitting in the middle you saw all the wonderful things people were doing. I’ve been very fortunate with the hand I was dealt.
The danger for any business comes in setting plans that aren’t ambitious enough and then achieving them. There’s still plenty of space to grow in Scotland, and beyond. Energy transition is driving work everywhere. We’ve already set our 2024-27 strategy – it tells us how our firm will continue to grow.
Tech is an opportunity, not a challenge. Our biggest constraint has always been recruitment – getting as many people as we need; if you can have tech to help the people we already have be more productive and free them to focus even more on clients, that’s something we should welcome with open arms. I don’t see it replacing lawyers, but we’ll have more data scientists, project managers etc so we’ll be competing more with other industries for the same talent. It will force us to challenge ourselves.
I once judged the property awards in Scotland and I read out the prizes in the wrong order. Luckily they laughed but I made a fool of myself in front of more than 400 industry folk!
Personality-based conflict is the hardest bit of the job. People puffing up their chests for the sake of it. Usually I just say the two of you can go away and come up with the answer, or I’ll get someone else to do it. That frequently works.
I’m a big fan of Wes Anderson. In The Life Aquatic, Steve Zissou stands looking out at the ocean and says: ‘This is an adventure – you shouldn’t know what’s coming.’ That’s what I’m looking forward to now.
I have a twin brother. He’s an engineer but in life we’re fellow mariners. It’s a nice thing to have a twin brother – there’s always someone on the journey with you.
I want to do a lot of travelling. My wife was a lawyer but by the time we had our third child she gave up work to look after our kids. She is the better part of my story; the part seldom told; behind my career is someone who gave up her career so I could see mine out. We always had a plan to go travelling again and I am honouring a commitment I made to her.
My kids are all doing the science bit – they know I’ve enjoyed the law, but they’re going back to our family’s natural routes.
Words: Georgina Stanley; Portrait: Juan Trujillo
georgina.stanley@legalease.co.uk