Life During Law: Nilufer von Bismarck

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There were different challenges during the downturn, you had to look to different markets. Challenges are always there and you are always after that next deal or that new client. I don’t think you could be here for 24 years without still being ambitious for that.

Working on the bailout was very intense – almost surreal, sitting in the Treasury trying to figure out how best it should be done. There was a deadline for having to announce something before the markets opened on the Monday. We all started on Saturday morning and worked all the way through to Monday morning. There were three banks we were looking at: RBS, Lloyds and HBOS, and then the Lloyds/HBOS combination. Each had a different thing to think about, they all had their own lawyers so there were three sets of documentation. The challenges faced and the creativity needed to get that off the ground were a once-in-a-lifetime thing.

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Irwin Mitchell’s outgoing chief executive John Pickering on change in the sector and why it was time to hang up his boots

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Announcing his retirement last month, Irwin Mitchell’s longstanding head and current group chief executive John Pickering pointed to ‘the changing legal sector’ and his desire for the firm to have settled long-term senior management.

Speaking to Legal Business, Pickering (pictured), who joined the firm as an articled clerk in 1977 and now plans to pursue non-executive director positions elsewhere, explains his reasoning behind the decision. Continue reading “Irwin Mitchell’s outgoing chief executive John Pickering on change in the sector and why it was time to hang up his boots”

Profile: Graeme Colquhoun, Heineken UK

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Global brewer’s UK head of legal on his no-nonsense approach

It’s a terrible cliché to invoke the plain-speaking Scot, but Heineken’s UK head of legal Graeme Colquhoun does rather fit the bill. The intellectual property (IP) and antitrust specialist turned in-house counsel is certainly candid about his strengths and how a legal team in a major global company should operate.

‘My skills are broad but shallow. I am much better qualified to be the lawyer for a corporate than provide corporate/property/litigation advice in a law firm. I’m direct – I don’t like to flannel around the issue.’

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Irwin Mitchell’s outgoing chief executive John Pickering on change in the sector and why it was time to hang up his boots

Posted on |

Announcing his retirement last month, Irwin Mitchell’s longstanding head and current group chief executive John Pickering pointed to ‘the changing legal sector’ and his desire for the firm to have settled long-term senior management.

Speaking to Legal Business, Pickering, who joined the firm as an articled clerk in 1977 and now plans to pursue non-executive director positions elsewhere, explains his reasoning behind the decision.

Continue reading “Irwin Mitchell’s outgoing chief executive John Pickering on change in the sector and why it was time to hang up his boots”

Life during law: Helen Burton

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The first deal I worked on when I qualified at Allen & Overy (A&O) was for David Morley and everything went wrong. On the Monday morning, I went to his office and he saw the look on my face and said: ‘Helen, don’t bring me problems, bring me solutions.’ I turned around and walked out, but that stayed with me. The job of a lawyer is not to bring problems but to find solutions.

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Profile: Andrew Whittaker and Kate Cheetham, Lloyds Banking Group

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The bank’s group and deputy GCs discuss the split of Lloyds and TSB, and helping Lloyds’ efforts to rebuild trust after the banking crisis.

When Andrew Whittaker joined Lloyds Banking Group as group general counsel (GC) in May 2013, the message to the market behind his move following a 13-year stint as GC of the UK’s Financial Services Authority (FSA) was not lost.

The trend towards embracing regulatory skills (think now-departed FSA chief executive Hector Sants’ appointment as compliance head at Barclays) came as the major high street bank continued to deal with the fallout of the financial crisis, which for Lloyds meant a multi-billion pound bail-out by the UK government. That is to say nothing of its implication in payment protection insurance mis-selling and ongoing investigations into its involvement in alleged Libor rigging.

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Profile: Alison Kay, National Grid

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The energy giant’s group GC discusses the overhaul of its legal function

When the in-house legal team of a large corporate announces a ‘review’, it’s often enough to instil a sense of foreboding in its external legal panel. For the law firm, it’s likely to mean months of painstaking paper pushing, parading in front of senior lawyers (and, these days, possibly their bosses) and making promises they hope they can keep, particularly when it comes to costs versus service levels.

But at National Grid, things are a little different, for now at least. There is a review planned, but group general counsel (GC) and company secretary Alison Kay is determined to analyse service levels closer to home, starting with her own 31-strong UK team.

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Life During Law: James Palmer

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I don’t believe people that do well have an unerring right to succeed and it’s entirely down to their own abilities. Loads of incredibly able people don’t hit the right spot. I was very lucky that I started working as a lawyer doing something that I turned out to be good at. I could easily have done something else. I applied because I didn’t know what else to do.

Law attracts people who are not just in it for money, but want that sense of professionalism and intellectual curiosity, and also people who want to work with other people. I became more entrepreneurial as I became older, but whether I am entrepreneurial, I’m not sure. I’m a team person, not a classic entrepreneur.

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Life During Law – David Childs

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It’s been an amazing career. I’ve been with Clifford Chance (CC) for 40 years. People had just stopped wearing bowler hats when I started, I was relieved to notice. What I remember was being in Royex House at Coward Chance. No air conditioning – we used to bake in the summer. People used to go out for lunches and have a bottle of wine a head and work in the afternoons.

I remember watching then senior partners walking in at ten in the morning. They’d go for a long lunch with clients and go home at three. I thought one day that might be my life. Of course, it never has been my life. The City has changed completely.

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