I didn’t grow up with law in my life. I come from a non-professional background and my parents didn’t go to university. When it came to choosing what to study at university, I was passionate about history, but my dad told me a history degree would limit me to teaching. Young and naïve, I took his word and explored other options. Continue reading “Life During Law – Simon Levine”
Last Tuesday, former Allen & Overy senior partner Wim Dejonghe was named Management Partner of the Year at the Legal Business Awards, at a glittering ceremony at London’s Grosvenor House Hotel.
Dejonghe signed off from a 23-year career at the magic circle firm in May this year after pushing through the long-awaited, transatlantic merger deal with US firm Shearman & Sterling.
In this Life During Law interview, originally published in the run-up to the transformational deal going live, he looks back on his career at A&O, discussing lessons learned from previous merger talks, his future plans and his views on the ‘unhealthy’ levels of money in law.
Continue reading “LB Awards Management Partner of the Year: former A&O chief Wim Dejonghe”
I nearly drowned in a river in Wales when I was four. It had been raining a lot and the boulder my brother and I were standing on beside the river toppled into the water. I fell into the river and was held under by a waterfall. My mother, father and a passerby all dived in and managed to find me and bring me to the surface. I learnt to swim right after that and now I still swim several times a week and it’s an important part of my fitness. Continue reading “Freshfields’ Mark Sansom on motorsports, email gaffes and competing on the global stage”
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. Continue reading “Brodies’ Nick Scott on family commitments, returning to university, and building Scotland’s first £100m firm”
When I was 18 I left Vancouver to play ice hockey in university in Japan. That got me off on kind of an adventurous track. I grew up dreaming of nothing more than becoming a hockey player. When you try to do that in Canada, you work your way up through the junior leagues. And the junior leagues are tough. You leave home and you go live in a small town, and the hockey team is sort of the centre of life in those towns. You become a minor celebrity. But it’s tough. Not many people make it. There are three levels of junior hockey in Canada, and when you get to the very top level you can be classed as a professional, which means you’re ineligible for university scholarships. I got up close to that level and I had a good look at it and I wasn’t convinced that I was going to make it. I didn’t want to take the risk of dedicating my life to that. So I decided to go for a university education, to at least get something out of all that time playing hockey.
I decided to become a lawyer so I would have more control over my working life than I would have had if I had gone into foreign relations. I did politics as an undergraduate in London. I came to the UK in 1994. As far as I got down the politics line was interning for the Member of the European Parliament who was the special rapporteur for EU-Japan economic relations. I got to spend some time in the circus that is the EU, moving that circus back and forth between Brussels and Strasbourg. It was interesting, certainly. But I just didn’t feel that I could make an impact in that world.
The Godfather is a great film. Tom Hagen was a bit of an inspiration. There’s that scene where he turns up at the hospital where the Godfather is staying with all these private detectives, and he deals with the police. Then there’s another part where he says: ‘I have a special practice. I handle one client. Now you have my number. I’ll wait for your call.’ That kind of power, that kind of control was inspiring.
I quit studying law after a year. I switched to history and politics because there were a lot of hours in the classroom doing law. After university, I travelled and taught English abroad. My girlfriend at the time wanted to come back to the UK as she had a job lined up as an accountant, so I came back with her. I would have been happy staying a teacher. One of the things I applied for was law school and I ended up doing the conversion course. The rest is history. Continue reading “Life During Law: Richard Lever”
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! Continue reading “Life During Law: Natasha Luther-Jones”
I head up our criminal defence and police investigations team as well as our sexual misconduct in the workplace practice. I am interested in people, and I guess I am a nosey person.
I decided to become a lawyer because I wanted to have my own voice. In my twenties, I was a team leader in a child protection social services team. I would have done an assessment, done the work, known the family, thought I had made good decisions, but then it would get reinterpreted a couple of times for me. The legal department would say ‘this is what you mean’, then the barrister would say ‘this is what the legal department have told me that you mean’. I thought: ‘Actually – maybe I can say what I mean.’ These people were doing a job that I knew was hard, but nowhere near as hard as turning up to these families’ homes and making decisions about their children. So, I decided to do the conversion and see what would happen. I didn’t know if it would be for me, as I am not the usual type of person that becomes a lawyer. Continue reading “Life During Law: Sandra Paul”
I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be when I was growing up. I went through periods of thinking maybe I’d become an architect. There’s also this amazing magazine in Australia called Gourmet Traveller. It’s about food and travel, and I thought it would be quite nice to be a journalist for them. I still enjoy looking at architecture and I love the built environment, food, and travel.
I had a conversation with the career counsellor at school. She said, if you’re not sure, then law is a great general degree that gives you options for the future. My dad happens to be a lawyer as well, so I had some familiarity with the law. When I started the degree, I still wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do but I really enjoyed it. I loved the problem solving. Continue reading “Life During Law: Georgia Dawson”
I never thought I would be a lawyer. I’m from Amsterdam, and I did a student traineeship in 1991, which was quite a common thing for Dutch law students back then. It’s like a summer internship at a law firm. I was blown away by Clifford Chance – the dynamism, the people, the quality of the work. I just loved it. I was given the chance to apply for a job to start the year after and I got it. That was quite unusual in those days because the job market wasn’t easy.
If you’d asked me at the age of 23 or 24, I would have said I wanted to go into international relations or business. Before I studied law, I was thinking of going to a university in the US which was strong on international relations, then go and work at an international organisation. My fascination with international relations very much came into force in my former role as senior partner and now as leader of our global ESG board. Continue reading “Life During Law: Jeroen Ouwehand”
