I’m less Marmite than I was. Never been deferential. Having a Mancunian directness, I was brought up by people who called a spade a spade. Helps me with clients massively. Sometimes it’s not what other lawyers want. I could be more political and in the past, I’ve tried. You can only be yourself.
I was the first person in my family to go to university. I didn’t grow up dreaming of being a solicitor. I still think football coaching was my true calling.
I broke my leg before going to America to become a football coach. In the days of the full grant my mum said to me: ‘You can’t live at home, we’re not funding you,’ so I got a full grant to do the Law Society finals. No one was getting jobs. It was the big recession in ’93 or ’94. Then one trainee dropped out of Eversheds Leeds and I took their place.
I once borrowed a client’s daughter’s car to drive to a meeting, managed to write it off and then found I wasn’t insured. Had to go to my managing partner and explain I’d crashed the biggest client of Eversheds Leeds’ daughter’s car. Totalled it. I had to say: ‘You need to buy her a new Ford Fiesta.’ He said: ‘We’ve got you covered, but you’d best work really hard for the next year to make me feel like it’s a good investment.’
I learnt my stuff carrying bags. I learnt more in the back of taxis asking why people did this, that and the other in a negotiation meeting than I ever did in the library.
In Leeds as a trainee, my job for six months was to move the cars around the client car park. This client came in with a brand new Jaguar and I had to move it. I managed to reverse it into the new Jaguar of a partner who was in the same meeting. As I looked up, every window was open and people were looking out going: ‘Not again.’ Jaguar into Jaguar is an expensive one. After that I was relieved of car park duties and left to do affidavits on the street.
You’ve got to be lucky, but luck involves a lot of hard work. Sometimes it’s getting on the coat tails of the right people, and translating that to experience you can sell to clients and associates. That was my big skill. Once I got an opportunity, I could convert it through hard work.
Inspirations? At Eversheds, David Gray and Ian Richardson. David went on to become chairman of the firm and Ian did most of the management buyout work in the nineties and noughties. Massive influences. At CC, Adam Signy was amazing. Although he didn’t manage to make me politically correct, he gave it a good go and influenced me in lots of ways. At Linklaters, Charlie Jacobs, Youley [Richard Youle], and here there are partners like Don Baker that have amazing global practices.
The only thing keeping me in the profession is the ability to work on my Marmite tag. I’d love to be lemon curd.
At Clifford Chance they ‘rewarded’ me early with a BlackBerry pre-partnership – a burger-eating contest where the prize is a double cheeseburger.
It’s a fantastic career when you’re working in private equity for investors. You meet extreme characters, which can make you laugh and cry at the same time.
It’s a talent business. People and clients. That’s all. Get the right people and the right clients, you’ve got success. The wrong people and the right clients, you’ve got some success. Wrong people, wrong clients, you’re fucked. Give up, reboot, get up the next day and hope for a different outcome.
White & Case’s Swedish team loves an emoji. They send me one when they want a decision quickly – it’s the man running. I’ve not yet made the emoji generation. I can’t quite translate them to drafting.
At the end of every work function I’ve got a queue of people giving me grievances. That means I must be getting old and senior. It used to be at the end of every function I had a queue of people wanting to go to a nightclub.
I’m a ball of energy. Have to keep busy. Keeps me out of trouble, as my gran used to say.
My greatest strengths are energy, conviction, the ability to have a considered view and have clients believe in me. Weaknesses? I wish I could apply a three-second filter before what comes out, not hit someone with a bouncer when I just want to give them a slow ball. Still working on that.
The best lawyers answer a complex question with simple answers. The days of writing a memo with loads of assumptions and reservations, giving a half-arsed answer, are over. The answer is ‘yes’, ‘no’ or ‘maybe’, always. That level of clarity is based on judgement and experience.
You’ve got to always be closing, always be on your mettle to make sure the project’s being managed to budget and timetable, and in a way that the client doesn’t have to deal with things they don’t have to deal with.
I had completion envy at Linklaters because I really wanted to build a business. White & Case is the perfect platform for me because it’s got a challenger mentality. I spent a lot of my career trying to be an institutional partner, but deep down I was a challenger partner. A challenger in an institution is asking questions that people don’t want to answer.
Law firms have to realise not everyone can be a centre-forward. A good football team needs a great goalie, good defence, good midfield, great attack. Negotiators can be the centre-forward, but you still need a tight defence to tell you what you can and can’t do in the premise of law. Working as a team is fundamental.
I had to go to my managing partner and explain I’d crashed the biggest client of Eversheds Leeds’ daughter’s car.
I’ve helped shape a huge number of careers and made a lot of business cases for partners at Linklaters, here and before. Associates go on and get great jobs. It’s been the favourite part of my career.
The only thing keeping me in the profession is the ability to work on my weaknesses and remove the Marmite tag eventually, for marmalade or something people don’t dislike but they don’t eat every day. I’d love to be lemon curd. Transition to home-made, organic lemon curd. On sourdough.
I never understand why people in law firms want to go into full-time management. You’re only dealing with one side of the industry, your own partners, whereas I prefer to deal with both and stay on the client side. You connect your talent pool with the industry talent pool to help people achieve success. That’s the magic of the job.
Brexit’s going to change a lot of things for European divisions of global firms because English law’s going to come under huge pressure. It will be interesting to see what happens when firms are huge in London with English law talent, which is culturally and linguistically unable to work outside of London. There’s going to be a claw-back against English law and the City of London as the form of choice.
Working here and seeing what it is to have access to the US markets, the power of the US dollar, the power of US clients, the power of US thinking, is a huge strategic advantage over firms that don’t have it.
I’ve got three young kids: two tearaway daughters and a son. I’m involved in a lot of charitable work, run a charity, Dan’s Trust. We’re starting to do bursaries at universities to help people from socioeconomic backgrounds which require financial support to get into the right big law firm.
The Tour de France was epic. Three-and-a-half thousand kilometres. Done it twice. Last time I was six years younger, fitter, and the course was a lot easier. When you’re older, you don’t want to see a Pyreneean road. It’s like a wall of tarmac. But it’s great. Involved a lot of good friends across the legal community, a lot of good clients. Raised a lot of money for charity.
Favourite book at the moment is Legacy, about the All Blacks. Love that. I don’t have a favourite play. Does that make me sound uncouth?
I prefer TV box sets to films. More in-depth. I’m still getting over Chernobyl. Growing up, that was a thing that defined my childhood. Brought back so many memories. Some juniors in my team didn’t know what it was about and I was like ‘whoaaaaaa…!’ If you’re born in the nineties or the noughties, what do you know, right? My son doesn’t think football existed before the Premier League.
We have a dog, Millie. I was forced to get it. A Red Fox Labrador. I’ve definitely warmed to it, other than at certain points in the evening when the dog biscuits take their toll just as I’m tucking into a box set. No one told me that about dogs. Came as a massive surprise every night around nine thirty.
If everything feels like hard work, you’re in the wrong environment. Work hard and don’t take yourself too seriously. Stay humble, look to learn. Clients like advisers who can have a laugh. Always stay happy. Sadly there’s no practical jokes any more. The drawing-pin-on-chair era is long over.
Ian Bagshaw is co-head of private equity at White & Case