Renaissance man

When David Harris collected his Management Partner of the Year award from Legal Business at Grosvenor House in mid-February, it wasn’t just the David Bowie soundtrack that brought a smile to his face. Though Bowie is a hero of this polo-playing guitarist, that smile was prompted by the day job, and the apparent vindication of his ambitious plan to transform Lovells from a mid-tier everyfirm into a global player.

The merger hasn’t happened yet – it goes live on 1 May – so of course it is far too early to know whether Harris can deliver on such a dream. But his remarkable turnaround over the past 12 months is what justifies his victory over the likes of Mike Francies from Weil, Gotshal & Manges, Herbert Smith’s David Gold and Berwin Leighton Paisner’s Neville Eisenberg. For it was just over a year ago that Harris was facing the prospect of losing his job, with a very real challenge for the top slot emerging in the shape of continental European managing partner Harald Seisler.

Seisler took Harris to a contested election, campaigning on the back of dissatisfaction among the German ranks over London’s failure to keep pace in terms of profitability up to 2007. During the election, Harris was already in the throes of merger talks with his chosen partner, Washington DC’s 1,000-lawyer Hogan & Hartson. As details of a proposed US tie-up filtered down to the partnership, against a backdrop of some scepticism – even Harris admits he was firmly against such a deal when he came to power – he not only won the poll, he went on to win overwhelming support for the deal.

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