Personal reflections, off the case file.
The partners writing in their own voice — about the firm, the work, and the things thirty-eight years teaches you that a case study never could.
On Thirty-Eight Years
I still have the engagement letter template Edmund and I drafted by hand in 1987, before we had a letterhead to print it on. I keep it in a drawer, not on a wall — it doesn't need an audience, and neither did we, particularly, when we started this.
Read →What Paris Taught Me About Arbitration
I trained in Paris almost by accident — a secondment that was meant to last six months and became two years. It changed how I think about arbitration more than anything I've done since.
Read →What I Miss (and Don't) About the FCA
Ten years inside the FCA's enforcement division taught me things about how regulators actually think that no amount of reading published guidance ever could. I miss the clarity of that — you knew exactly what you were trying to establish, and the institution's incentives were relatively simple to understand from inside.
Read →The Call I Almost Didn't Take
In 2015 I was three years into building an insolvency practice at another firm and had no intention of moving. Mercer & Stone called about a lateral partnership, and I nearly didn't take the call — I assumed it was a firm that didn't really understand what contentious insolvency work involved, given it wasn't a practice they'd historically had.
Read →Why I Still Read Every Warranty Clause Myself
Robert and Freya both have far more time than I do, and either of them could read a disputed warranty clause perfectly well without me. I still insist on reading it myself, on every matter I lead, and I've never quite been able to justify why in a way that sounds efficient.
Read →