When I was 12, I was a competitive swimmer, and I used to swim every morning before school. If you’re swimming that much, your swimsuits get see-through, so for training, sometimes you’d have to wear double swimsuits, and that’s a bit of a drag when you’re in a competition. I’d asked my mum for a new swimsuit, but she said I would have to wait till the end of the month. I asked her how I could become rich to be able to afford a new one. She said: ‘You can become a solicitor, or you can marry someone rich.’ So, from then on, my decision was made to become a lawyer.
I got work experience in a small solicitors’ firm on our high street in Bangor, North Wales, and was focused on doing a law degree. I knew it was very competitive to get a training contract, so I did law and French. Then I got a training contract with Garretts, part of Andersen Legal. Six months into my training contract, DLA took the Leeds office, I transferred, and 23 years later I’m still here!
My mum was my greatest mentor. She was really driven, hardworking; the backbone of the family with me and my sisters. She had three jobs and always tried to give us the best. My mum was getting fed up because of all the litter where we lived, so she decided to run for mayor. So, she became mayor of Bangor, as well as doing the three jobs.
Simon Levine has been incredibly supportive. He was the one who recognised how hard I was working and decided I was ready for a management role. That was a pivotal moment in my career. I didn’t shout as loud as everyone else, but Simon is very conscious about giving females the opportunity.
I asked my mum how I could become rich to be able to afford a new swimsuit. She said: ‘You can become a solicitor, or you can marry someone rich.’ So, from then on, my decision was made to become a lawyer.
My most memorable deal was not the one where I cried in the loos afterwards, I was so exhausted, or even the Green Investment Bank privatisation, which was so high value. It was how I got into renewables. When I got made up to partner in 2010, I was doing highways maintenance PFIs, Nottingham Tram, those sorts of deals. I really wanted to reinvent myself as a renewable energy lawyer and nobody else in DLA was doing it at the time. A very good sponsor client fund, which I’d worked with in the energy-from-waste sector, was doing its first wind farm. I really wanted to do it and managed to get a role acting for the lender. One of the banks took the decision to stop lending long and got replaced by another, which vetoed me, because DLA didn’t have any renewable energy experience in the UK.
I could see my whole reinvention crumbling, so I reached out to the banker and asked for a meeting. I went down to London the next day and I was just honest. I said: ‘I really, really want to do this. This is a massive personal wish of mine. I’m going to put my name on the line, I’ll deliver everything, and I’m not going to let you down!’ The guy was sitting there, feeling so awkward, cringing, and thinking, ‘Oh my god, I really hope she’s not going to cry!’ I pulled out the engagement letter, put it on the table and said, ‘Please?’ He signed it and had to go back to the team and tell them it wasn’t going to be the firm they had all decided on. The bank continues to be one of my best clients to this day. The most memorable matters are the hardest ones fought.
Where do I start with embarrassing moments? I look back and think, ‘God, is it normal to have so many?’ I once missed picking up an award because I was too busy chatting in the toilet. Another time I was going out for a client lunch with one of my partners wearing a floaty summer dress, popped to the loo, left the office past reception and security, walked down towards London Wall. A white van pulled up and I thought, ‘Oh God, what’s this?’ It was very nice of the driver because he stopped me before I got to the restaurant to point out that my dress was tucked into the back of my knickers. It was a proper Bridget Jones moment!
One cringe moment for me and an anxious moment was my husband booking me a holiday off with a partner I worked for without me knowing. He gave me an invite on the Sunday that said, ‘Phil Smith requests the pleasure of Natasha Luther-Jones’ company at dinner in Al Mahara.’ I was like, ‘Is this a new restaurant in Leeds?’ No, he’d booked us a surprise holiday to Dubai. I said there was no way I was going to get the time off work, I was on a financial close, but it was all sorted. I wasn’t going till Tuesday so had to go into work on the Monday. Everyone knew about it and there was the whole – ‘I bet he’s going to propose!’ All the secretaries coming up to me and everything. We went away for four days and every single day, I was thinking, ‘Oh God, what if he doesn’t propose and I’ve got to go back into work?’ He left it till the last bloody day, and I was like, ‘Thank God!’
I would tell young lawyers to think about what interests them, think about how law is changing massively with tech and AI, and realise that what we are seeing now is not going to be what we’ll see in ten years’ time. Don’t look at what exists now – really invest time in thinking about how technology’s going to change your area of law.
To be a great lawyer you have to be a good communicator and a really good active listener. Combine that with authenticity, bring your real self to work, because that’s when you develop the strongest relationships.
Where do I start with embarrassing moments? I look back and think, ‘God, is it normal to have so many?’
It was 2006 and I was seven months pregnant with my first daughter. I was leading a street lighting PFI deal for Leeds City Council, even though I wasn’t a partner. All these people were coming down from Edinburgh and Glasgow for the financial close. I was very large and driving into work on a dual carriageway. I still to this day don’t know what happened, but I flipped the car over and ended up on the opposite dual carriageway, hanging upside down in a crumpled car by my seatbelt, with all these cars skidding around me. I went in an ambulance to the hospital, they checked me out, I was fine, just a few scratches. Me being me, I walked straight to the office from the hospital. Partners came up saying, ‘Are you okay? Are you sure you shouldn’t go home? I’m saying, ‘No, I’m fine.’ In the end, the senior partner in the team, Nick Painter, an amazing man, came up and said, ‘Natasha, look, I’m going to take you home.’
I remember him driving his sports car really slowly. And I said, ‘Why are you driving so slowly in a car like this?’ He said, ‘Because you’ve just written your car off. I thought you might be a bit worried!’ I didn’t have my keys, everything was in the car. So he found out where the car was. I had the most senior partner in DLA crawling through the wreckage of this crumpled car to get my keys. I said: ‘Oh, while you’re there, will you get me my Sugababes CD?’
I went to Uganda, arrived at the airport, finally found my driver. It was quite a shabby car that didn’t feel very safe anyway, and the quickest route to Kampala at the time was on an unauthorised and unfinished dual carriageway that we weren’t supposed to be using. It was just the scariest moment of my life. The driver cut across the central reservation and I screamed out loud – I thought I was going to die. The driver said, ‘You Europeans, you’re so funny!’ I got to the hotel and people were looking under the car for bombs – there’s guards with guns everywhere. I finally got to my room and rang my husband. I think he genuinely thought I was getting kidnapped because I was a hysterical mess!
Energy transition now is what tech was like five years ago, when they said that every company is going to be a tech company. What makes it so exciting is that the clients are not your traditional investors, funders or energy companies, they’re every company. The value from focusing on energy transition and helping all lawyers who don’t see themselves as energy lawyers understand it is going to be immense.
I had the most senior partner in DLA crawling through the wreckage of this crumpled car to get my keys. I said: ‘Oh, while you’re there, will you get me my Sugababes CD?’
The deal I’m most proud of is doing DLA’s corporate PPA. I spent a long time with Simon Levine, Jean-Pierre Douglas-Henry and the executive saying, ‘Look, we advise clients to buy green power, we have to have additionality.’ There was no point in us just buying green power from the grid, we wouldn’t be moving the dial. We needed to bring additional renewable energy onto the grid. There have been great deals with high values and for which we’ve won awards. But with this deal I’ve changed the industry!
The working environment of teams being more flexible now is great, but I do miss physical financial closes. Pre-Covid, champagne would come out, then everyone would go for a night out. It was really good fun.
My management style has changed over the last five or ten years. I’m not as intense as I was. I used to expect everybody to work like I did and it put too much pressure on people. I’ve realised you need to be far more flexible, open and supportive – accept that different people have different ways of working.
I think my team would say I’m accessible and responsive. I have empowered them to get on and do stuff, but they know they can come and check things over with me. I think they know I’m hardworking and energetic, and that I like to laugh. We have a lot of fun in the office. My favourite part of the job is the people side of things. Engaging with clients, the team and having that personal dynamic.
Natasha Luther-Jones is international head of sustainability and ESG global co-chair, energy and natural resources at DLA Piper.
nathalie.tidman@legalease.co.uk
Portrait: Juan Trujillo