My family background is in market trading, selling goods and services, so perhaps I would have gone into that if not law. My mother worked as a receptionist and my father started out as a rep, including having a bicycle to go around and see the different stores and promote the products. He ended up in marketing and business development in a bigger corporation but that’s where he started.
Home is down on the south coast in Christchurch in Dorset but I went up to the University of Manchester, which was a big deal going from a small place to a bigger one.
I didn’t want to do a law degree when I started out. I did politics and history and off the back of a very analytical degree, I took the line that there was an opportunity to get in involved in law.
I started off thinking I would be a criminal lawyer or advocate, but when I was doing my training contract I sat with the corporate team and went to my first meeting and thought it was really interesting… you have to negotiate, coordinate… you’re in front of a lot of people… that triggered a love affair with helping businesses grow. I trained at what became TLT in 2000 so I have been at the firm man and boy.
As a trainee I was asked once to go and collect two pheasants that had been dressed at a butchers. The partner had been involved in a shoot and wanted them dressed so I had to go out in my suit and walk back to the offices with them. One thing I refused to do, and it’s probably why I’m not a real estate lawyer, was that this partner asked me to go and collect some pens and I was really busy for another partner and I said I didn’t think that was on the top of the list of things I should be doing. That didn’t go down well.
I was asked once to go and collect two pheasants that had been dressed at a butchers. Another partner asked me to go and collect some pens.
We’re at the cusp of a real change point in law again. There have been various change points, but we’re in a fascinating period where client buying behaviour has changed and there’s greater acceptance of doing things differently. The new firms that get it are the ones that are adapting and changing faster in the way they work and there’s an appetite for that.
You have to stay relevant to your clients, so if you don’t move and work out what you want to be famous for, the chances of being around in ten years are limited.
The great thing about starting a firm in 2000 to where we are now is that we haven’t taken anything for granted. It’s important that TLT is sustainable. That’s what matters to me. It’s also about proving people wrong and that you can develop a business in a different way. You must remember that you also have to rely on luck. I don’t think anything is pre-set so you have to be really good at adapting to how the market moves.
My weakness is a tendency to want to get to the next stage quickly. Those around you might need to spend more time understanding and reflecting. A strength, is sustaining a calm sense of where the business is going. A second strength is being a good listener. But when everybody has reflected, you need to be decisive. You’re in a leadership position. Whether they’re right or wrong, you can reflect on that afterwards and then do something different if you need to.
Worst day? Well, the hardest day was the first day of being managing partner. At the time we were a relatively small business and there wasn’t a manual. There’s a big difference between wanting something and then when you’ve got it. It was the moment the responsibility of what you are taking on came into cliff-edge focus.
The hardest thing I’ve had to do was in 2009 when we had to completely adjust our planning as a consequence of moving into a recession and working out that we might have to restructure. The thing I’m the most proud of is how we went about it. We created a scheme where people decided to volunteer and we limited significantly any formal selection process. That was when things were the most challenging, and when we made some of our best tactical moves.
The philosophy I’ve always stuck to is move ahead of the market if you can. And while other firms haven’t been as agile, we’ve always made sure we have a balanced business between litigation and transactional work. You’re then able to take advantage of a growing or retracting market. But those early stages when it became apparent that the new world order was going to be very different economically, was a period when we did our best work but when it was most challenging.
A number of people in the early years were public in saying they didn’t think two small Bristol firms coming together could make a difference. I’d like to think, starting with two small Bristol firms at £6m, and then getting to nearly £100m so far, is a bit of a recognition that we’ve created something sustainable.
My work/life balance is good. It’s a demanding role but I don’t do very much at the weekends that’s connected with the firm and I’ve always thought that’s important.
Meeting and engaging with people is what I most enjoy. There’s all the other stuff about winning new clients, but for me it’s about that sustainability. Have we created an organisation that has resonance? That’s powerful if you can get it right.
Career wisdom? You can move quicker than you think. To change perceptions starting with something small, it takes a long time when the industry is as mature and fragmented as law. Opinion forming takes time, so be patient but move fast.
The legal sector can and has been as successful as the other consulting sectors but our execution has let us down at a time when we’ve made strategic moves. There’s a danger of doing what’s nearest and closest in front of us. One thing I’ve brought to the firm is a sense of strategic planning. Everything we’ve done, we’ve done for a reason.
Somebody said you can be a rebel but make sure you have another career lined up. Always have a second choice. Tacitus also said, in a role you cannot be angry. Don’t come to things with preconceived ideas. I’m a great believer in don’t go necessarily following… you might learn from what’s happened but you need to create your own space.
There are organisations in the consulting space that have significant investment capacity who are able to move faster as a consequence and the legal sector is beginning to move that way but still faces that short-term versus long-term challenge: earning or capital value.
Somebody said you can be a rebel but make sure you have another career lined up. Always have a second choice.
Hopefully people recognise that I’m approachable, that I listen and that I am passionate about TLT but also recognise that people have lives outside of TLT and that it’s not the only thing that matters.
I finish being managing partner in April and from May I’m moving into a new role remaining a full-time equity partner in the firm in a role linked to clients and strategic growth.
Somebody who stopped being head of a telecoms business once said he knew he’d stop being chief executive when people stopped laughing at his jokes. I’ve always been a believer in flat structures and giving people opportunity. I’m happy supporting the new managing partner who has a great opportunity to go even further and faster. I know he has an ambition to do that.
I don’t make New Year’s resolutions but if I did it would be to make sure I continue to take my holidays. I have just bought tickets for Elvis Costello in March which will be the 14th time I’ve seen him… slightly obsessive. I first saw him before I went to university in the late seventies. Aside from that, scrambling up Scottish mountains, sailing and the occasional bit of golf.
I’m about to start reading Commander in Cheat: How Golf Explains Trump, which is a book about a way of understanding [the US president] by the way in which he cheats at golf. Discuss.
I admire firms for different reasons. Slaughter and May defines consulting in the way it goes about things and the sheer intensity of expertise it brings. The execution of tactical planning at firms like Allen & Overy is very impressive. Then there are others that have done things like embrace a new funding model. What you need to remember is we’ve been an incredibly resilient sector with new entrants and adapting.
There are a lot of opportunities for young lawyers over the next ten years. We can rather exaggerate the death of the sector through consolidation or technology. But we have to make sure we are more active in how we engage in a wider, more diverse society.
David Pester is managing partner of TLT
anna.cole-bailey@legalease.co.uk