I’m London born and bred, never lived anywhere else apart from three years in Manchester at university. Went to City of London School up the road, worked at St Martin’s Le Grand, Aldersgate Street, Fleet Street, Adelaide House in London Bridge and here [Fleet Place]. My wife would say I’m limited in a whole bunch of ways. To be honest, I don’t like to be too far from my family.
My mum was a formidable primary school teacher. I was in her school when she was deputy head at a state primary. Interesting experience.
When I was 14 I got it in my head I wanted to be a company lawyer. My experience of law didn’t extend beyond watching Crown Court with my Great Auntie Minnie on a weekday afternoon. Completely irrational. Wish I could explain it.
In the ʼ80s there were a lot of opportunities. Frankly, as long as you didn’t look too garish you had a reasonable chance of getting a job offer, so I had a few to choose from. Theodore Goddard (TG) [now part of Addleshaw Goddard] was the devil I knew: I had done a two-week summer placement there and had a very good time, a broad church of interesting people.
As an articled clerk I was a bit rogue. I’ve never been respectful of authority. I respect it if I think it’s doing the right thing. I’ve always been keen to break down hierarchies and forge my own path. It’s important to have a broad church of people in your team who challenge big decisions.
Some of the best lawyers are an amalgam of all sorts of influences. I worked for people like Simon Goodworth, Ken Mildwaters, Michael Hatchard, William Rogers, Martin Chester – very bright, strong lawyers operating in different fields. You come out of that with all these influences and try to keep the best bits and leave those that don’t resonate with you or you wouldn’t be able to emulate.
Once I was sent to Belgravia at about 2am to get a document signed. I was told the signatory was expecting me. I knocked on the door and he showed up in a night cap and a gown, very angry. Took me upstairs to his bedroom, told me to sit on the bed and wait while he got a pen. Very dimly lit, he’s gone a while. I realised his wife was in bed snoring. She woke up, surprised to see me and shouted at her husband, he shouted at me, eventually signed the document. On my way out he told me he’d never instruct TG again. I was shitting myself in the cab back to the office. The partner just laughed: he’d never instructed us before, so we wouldn’t miss his custom.
The famous band came off stage. I had half an hour to get their signature. They signed, after throwing the documents at each other. I rang the office: ‘I don’t think they knew what they were signing.’
Once I was sent backstage to this famous rock band. I had to get them to sign these documents by midnight. They came off stage at about 11.30pm, worse for wear. They signed the documents after throwing them at each other, with me running around to pick them up. I rang [the TG partner] and said: ʻThey signed, but I don’t think they knew what they were signing.’ He laughed: ʻAre you raising legal capacity? Oh, dear boy, that’s fantastic of you! That’s all fine!’
Paisner & Co was looking for someone who had more public markets experience. It acted for a nice roster of large corporate clients like Great Universal Stores. I would have the ability to do a broad range of corporate work in a smaller team. I loved TG, but career progression was more visible at Paisner.
Paisner in 1995 was occupying a few floors in Bouverie House above a very smelly restaurant. If you got there super early you had to buzz the front door to be let in and there was always the danger of being locked in if you stayed too late. A few times I had to look around trying to find out where the security guard was sleeping so I could get out.
I did a bit of work with Keith Stella. Fantastic lawyer. My style and his were very different, but as a technical lawyer and the ability to get the best outcome for clients, he was one of the best I have come across.
Berwin Leighton had a more institutional client base, particularly on the real estate side. With the merger in 2001, we brought together the two M&A and capital markets businesses and really increased the bench strength. Throughout the early to mid-2000s, we were very successful moving up the value chain. A very happy time.
The 2015 managing partner election at Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) wasn’t as binary as depicted. I did stand for more diversification and greater strength in areas like corporate and finance, but I was very keen for us to leverage the real estate brand and the growth we had seen in litigation.
There needed to be change. BLP needed more heft and greater diversity in its business. A number of people suggested I should stand on that. I thought it was right to put my head above the parapet, knowing there was not the greatest chance I was going to succeed and that one of the potential outcomes was having to seek my fortunes elsewhere. It was put up or shut up. So I put up.
I didn’t know from the start I would end up leaving BLP and there was no pressure from the firm [after Lisa Mayhew won the election]. But ultimately, I felt for me to continue in the way I wanted to it needed to be on a different platform. I was unlikely to get the support or the investment to build the sort of business I wanted.
I had seven months of sabbatical to think what to do next. Nothing lined up. An amazing seven months. Spent a few weeks in Tuscany, took up pilates, discovered parts of my body I hadn’t appreciated before, a lot of wear and tear. I met my neighbours of ten years and they asked me if I had just moved in, they had never seen me before. Telling.
I enjoy doing stuff other than just being at the coalface of corporate transactions. There is an entrepreneurial element in me – not that I could ever go and build a business from scratch. And the Dentons platform offered a wealth of opportunities to do that. It’s such a broad global platform, you can make your business case for almost anything.
It was right to put my head above the parapet, knowing there was not the greatest chance I would succeed and might have to seek my fortunes elsewhere. It was put up or shut up. So I put up.
I knew Jeremy Cohen [Dentons’ UK and Middle East chief executive] from when he was an associate at Slaughter and May. We had a good chat. Everyone I met was very open about the challenges of building a corporate practice and the fact the firm was still on a journey. Integration is never fully done, particularly when you are combining with two or three firms a week.
My hiring did involve about an hour and a half of Elliott [Portnoy, Dentons’ chief executive] and Joe [Andrew, chair] talking at me. At the end, I asked if they’d also like to know anything about me. Very charmingly, Elliott said they trusted Jeremy and our UK partners to have done the due diligence.
When I started at Dentons in December 2015, the plan was to double UK corporate revenue over the next five years. We got from £15m to £31m in about three and a half. There is scope to double it again over the next five years, hopefully sooner.
The UK corporate practice still has a way to go. We have most of the bases covered. It’s around building out the bench strength. The biggest transformation we can make for the global corporate business would be to increase the heft of our transactional practice in the US. That has been the big request from global corporate partners.
The legal services sector stayed more or less the same for 300 years and now in the last ten to 15 it has become like any other sector. So an increased recognition of leadership contribution is imperative.
My spare time is dedicated to my wife, five kids and my dog, Reggie. Possibly not in that order. We have had Reggie since December last year. We thought about getting a dog and decided we definitely wouldn’t. Then about a year later I was being sent pictures of the dog we bought. He is fantastic. I genuinely could bring him into work for emotional assistance. Made a big difference to the family. You end up doing more things together.
I’m not easily embarrassed. But my children and wife are often embarrassed by me. I get a lot of rolled eyes, whether it’s dad dancing or dad jokes. I also have a reputation for walking into glass windows, always very publicly.
My eldest, Sam, did law at Bristol but decided it wasn’t for him. It’s fantastic he realised that at the time he did. If you go into the law less than fully loaded you are going to struggle. But if you think it is for you, there are still great opportunities. A lot has been written about challenges for associates in career progression. But if it’s something you genuinely enjoy, the opportunities within law now are even better than when I was starting out.
marco.cillario@legalease.co.uk
David Collins is co-chair of M&A and head of UK corporate at Dentons