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.

The conversation that changed my mind was about what the firm wasn't willing to do, not what it was. Charles told me, quite plainly, that they'd rather not have an insolvency practice at all than have one that wasn't run to the same standard as the other four. That's a strange thing to find persuasive, but it was exactly the thing I needed to hear.

A decade later, I still think that's the right way to grow a practice inside a firm like this — slowly, and only when it can be built properly, rather than because a gap in the service offering looks good on a pitch.