Tom Platts, Head of Corporate at Stephenson Harwood — On Building Out a Niche From Challenging Emerging Markets

In this episode, Tom Platts, an international M&A partner at Stevenson Harwood, shares his journey through the legal industry, working across London, Singapore and emerging markets over a 20+ year career.

From training at Herbert Smith to leading cross-border transactions across Asia, Tom explains how he built an international practice and why keeping an open mind early in your career is critical to long-term success. 

He discusses the realities of trainee life, choosing a practice area and why many junior lawyers struggle with the decision of what to specialise in. Tom also shares insights into working across jurisdictions, including his experience opening an office in Myanmar and advising on complex transactions in developing markets. 

The conversation explores how the role of a lawyer evolves over time—from technical legal work to becoming a commercial advisor, managing clients and building a book of business.

Tom also reflects on the changing culture of law firms, the importance of business development, and how AI is beginning to reshape the legal industry. 

Finally, he shares his Walk-to-Talk.com initiative, a global project focused on mental health and raising funds for dementia support. 

00:00 Introduction
00:30 Tom Platts’ Career Journey
03:00 Life as a Trainee Lawyer
07:00 Choosing a Practice Area
12:00 Moving to Singapore & International Work
18:00 Building a Career in Emerging Markets
25:00 Myanmar & Cross-Border Legal Work
32:00 Work Culture in Law Firms
38:00 Business Development & Making Partner
45:00 AI in the Legal Industry
52:00 Walk to Talk & Mental Health Initiative
58:00 Career Advice for Junior Lawyers

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Tom, thanks very much for joining me today.

SPEAKER_00 0:09

Thank you for having me, Hugo. Looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Amazing. Well, look, I always like to start these off uh with a quick introduction into yourself.

SPEAKER_00 0:16

I'm Tom. I have been a lawyer for 23 years now. Uh I started way back in 2003 at another international law firm, Herbert Smith, as it was in the day. Um, and I was with Herbert Smith for about 11 years. Um, and in that time, I spent some time, a lot of time in London in their M ⁇ A practice. And then I moved with them to Singapore. And um after that I moved firms, and um here I am today. I've lived in Singapore for uh about 11 years or so, and um I spend a lot of my time now in London as well. So I spent spend time between both Singapore and London, but London is predominantly my home these days. But I also am the head of the M ⁇ A practice for the firm in in Asia. So I look after sort of what we do as a firm in in the sort of MA markets.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Nice. Well, I know you mentioned HSFK, as it is. So they are now.

SPEAKER_00 1:12

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:13

What was life like as a trainee then?

SPEAKER_00 1:15

It was great, and actually we had a fantastic uh intake. So the September 2020 uh 23, um the September 2003 intake, I think I always like to think with some of my sort of uh colleagues that it was the intake of the century. And we had a really we had a really great intake of about 60 odd um trainees from all walks of life, obviously. Um, and it was one of the first years where we had to do the BPP City um LPC course. So there are a few firms that put all the trainees, potential future trainees, into a particular um course which was held at BPP. So we we had already sort of met each other previously. Yeah, and um no, we had a great, a great intake, and we are still very good friends. We have a WhatsApp group. I went to the darts with three of the partners, very senior partners now at Herbert Smith, uh just in earlier January for the for the World Darts Championship. We're good mates and worked hard, we played quite hard, but it was you know long hours. Um, and it was in those days when mobile phones were wereabouts, but we were very excited to get BlackBerries when they first came out. Um and and um, you know, it was it was slightly different from how we work these days, but what we were doing was very similar.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

Yeah. How was the dance? That Litler, is it did he win this? Did he win this time again?

SPEAKER_00 2:36

He did, yeah, he he won the whole thing, but we went to the semi-final um and we went to see two matches. So we I've never been before, actually, it's quite an experience. We went and said lawyers can have fun, is all they say. We went as uh five different characters from Star Wars, so we looked pretty good and had quite a lot of people coming up to us to have take photos with us, but we all went as different characters. So, as I say, lawyers can have fun however senior they may be. I their names will remain anonymous, save that I can I can assure you that I was there in some form.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Dare I ask what the characters were or who the characters were.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

You can. We had one who was a stormtrooper.

SPEAKER_01 3:11

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 3:12

We had one who was Darth Maul, who's always very funny because of course you can take off the H of Darth Maul and make him Dart something or other.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:20

Uh we had I was Boba Fett, so Bounty Hunter. We had two uh Obi-Wan Kenobis and a princess Princess Leia. So it was a it was a pretty good um pretty good turnout. Yeah, quite glad we didn't have an RTDT, but yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35

Yeah, I think that was my first uh I went to the Blackpool Winter Gardens for Darts a while ago now, and I remember that was uh yeah, that was a bit of an experience. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:45

So I've not been before. I'm not sure I'd go again, but it was good fun. It was good fun. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:50

So good days then in your training time. Great cohort. When you're starting out, I mean, did you already have an idea about practice area once too, or was it very much do the four seats, see what happens?

SPEAKER_00 4:05

It's funny because I have this conversation regularly with trainees at the firm now and trainees in who I look after when I'm um sort of supervising them. And also I was speaking to uh um you know potential VAC schemers yesterday and and the like. So I do quite a lot of that sort of stuff too, and just historically I've been quite involved in it. What do you think?

SPEAKER_01 4:25

Well, from from the people I speak with, yeah, that's what I want to do. There are I I think people underestimate the power of not liking a practice area. Yeah. So if you love a practice area or you hate a practice area, that's great because you can either rule it out or you can stop thinking about it. Yeah, I'm gonna do this for life, I'm happy. But the people who struggle are the ones who do four seats and look back on their experience and think, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Which now?

SPEAKER_01 4:52

Yeah, what am I gonna do now?

SPEAKER_00 4:53

Um there's a there's always I had somebody in yesterday who is looking to get a vacation placement, having just got a first at university in law, and you know, it's struggling because it's it's tough to get a training contract, it's tough to get onto a vacation placement. Lots of firms give open days, but actually to then progress out onto sort of vacation placement is quite hard.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

And you have to go through the hoops, and different firms have different things and whatever, and you play the game, but it's all about playing the game, right? And you always talk about it and you say, you know, what seat do you want to be in your third seat? Because that third seat is probably your most important seat. Not necessarily, but often it is, because it's where you've had at least a year's worth of experience, and it's also the one which is just before you qualify. So, you know, you you've got the best opportunity. Um, and yeah, I mean, it's tough. I think I had two seats that I really enjoyed, one of which was in Paris, and I'm never gonna go to wasn't gonna go and work in Paris, but that was good fun doing energy and projects in Paris. I was terrified of the idea of going into the corporate practice because I'd heard all these rumors from my predecessor as to, and I'd seen emails on the sort of WhatsApp on the on the WhatsApp on the uh email chains about how frightening it was working with a particular uh supervisor. I'd come in uh immediately into litigation, and Herbert Smith is and uh has always been a very, very strong litigation firm. Yeah. And I was a bit nervous. I'd come actually come from traveling around the world, so I had sun in my hair and didn't look appropriate, I'm sure. Uh, but it was it was a very different experience. I thought litigation would be what I wanted to do. I really enjoyed it, but the reality was I wasn't as frightened when I actually got into the corporate seat and I actually really enjoyed it. So I didn't think corporate was going to be what I was gonna do, but it became very clear after six weeks of doing the MA seat in um in that team that that's what I wanted to do. I had lots of friends who wanted to do the same thing. Yeah. And it does make a difference, you know, having that sort of camaraderie. And we were lucky, we are really good friends still, yeah, with a good number of them. So of that 60, we're all in touch with each other in some form. Um, but there are sort of groups, little cliques maybe of people who are are are really quite close.

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yeah. I I I think I think people have an impression that you can't change practice area. And I know that maybe it's it's not an ideal situation, but it definitely is possible. I've seen people that change practice areas quite absolutely drastically. Um maybe you take a a knock in one year's seniority or whatever, whatever the deal may be, but there are there are options there.

SPEAKER_00 7:30

Sadly, you've got to realize that if you in anything you do, you've probably got 40, 45 years worth of your career, right? And whatever you do. So one year out isn't going to make too much difference. Yeah. Of course, there's always some prejudices around it, and people will think could think, yeah, oh well, that person was once a whatever litigator, IP specialist. Why can't they do that? But you know, my honest answer is don't try to specialise too soon. So as I said, yesterday somebody came to me and this this this this vac scheme hope hopeful came to me and said, I really want to do IP. That's what I want to do. And we've got a great IP practice at Stevenson Harvard, absolutely fantastic, first class. But I said, Well, don't don't don't cut off everything else yet. You know, you've got so many, you know, opportunities to go and see things. If you just tell your um to the firms that you're going to that you just want to do IP, it's quite limiting, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:21

I I I actually mentor a a group of law students now.

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

And the the the number one thing that's good that comes up is why do you want to do this? Yeah. I love international work, I love corporate work.

SPEAKER_00 8:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:34

And from people I speak to, uh I don't know what the the recruiting partner, whatever they're called. Yeah. They just see straight through it. Yeah. It's not it's not credible. Yeah. And also if you say you're obsessed with IP or something similar, again, like I think overselling an interest is is is equally as damaging as well.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

I I couldn't agree more with you. I think the most important thing is just to be yourself. And when you come to an interview, just show interest in the law as a whole. You know, I'm speaking from my perspective. Other people may have completely different views. But if someone came to me and said uh as a junior, right, brand new, I really just want to do corporate law, I think it's quite limiting. I really would. And and you know, go out, understand what you're doing. And one of the other conversations we had yesterday was, well, I said, well, I didn't do law at university. Now, I'm not saying that that's uh the way to go. I mean, the reality is law wasn't my sort of priority career progress my path. Um, and it became it. But that's why I did French, I did history at university as well, and I had the opportunity to think do the conversion course. But you there are so many options for you to take. So don't, I wouldn't put yourself into a particular sort of basket early on. Keep your eye horizons open. So you never know, you might become the best patent lawyer in the world, you might become the best European competition lawyer in Brussels. Whatever it might be, you don't know where your career's gonna go. I had no idea in 2003 that I was gonna spend uh 14 years of my career in Singapore.

SPEAKER_02 10:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:03

And as it's turned out, it's been a fantastic opportunity. I didn't think I'd only be at two firms. I thought I'd only be at one firm, may have been at five firms, who knew? But that you never know where your life is gonna take you, your career's gonna take you. So try not to box yourself in too early. Yeah, there will be time when you have to do that, yeah. But early on, I wouldn't do it.

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah. I again that that something came up uh with someone who qualified in 1919 eighty-four. Like his his piece of advice was don't don't specialise too early. Yeah. Um do a little bit of everything. So back to HSFK. Yes. Uh 10 years there.

SPEAKER_00 10:41

Yeah, about that, yeah. Nearly 10 years, just over, just under.

SPEAKER_01 10:44

Yeah. What what was the the driver behind moving on from them?

SPEAKER_00 10:49

Uh that's a good question. Um, I hadn't really ever thought about moving. Uh I had a great time with them. I still, as I say, still have very many, many good friends. Opportunities arose at another firm. It was you know, it was at the time of the merger with with with um the big merger with Free Hills. Um I was in Singapore. It became quite obvious that it was going to be quite difficult to make partnership, although at that time it hadn't been um sort of on the radar, but for various sort of uh reasons it was it was going to be more tricky on the basis that they were you know a whole new raft of partners coming into the firm that do the same sort of thing as me. And so I kind of just opened the book a bit and saw what was going on, and I realized that there are other alternatives out there um who do similar things, and you know, everybody goes through these processes, some people more than others, and it was a difficult, it was a really difficult pull. Um I wasn't I wasn't keen initially to to go, and but um it was a great opportunity, and frankly, I've never looked back. And I and I love the firm that I work for. Yes, it has its yes, it has its voibles, but generally speaking, every firm does some more than others, but I think we're a pretty good shop.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yeah. So you were you already in Singapore at the end of your time at HSM? Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I'd had three years. I'd actually gone. This is the classic uh comment store. I'd gone, they'd said you go for 12 months. I said, Well, that's crazy. I must go for 18 at least. But by 18 months, I'm now thinking it's suddenly working really well. You get a great opportunity there in a different market. You're starting to bring in business because you're getting more senior. 18 months becomes three years, change firm, it becomes 14 years. And so, you know, so life just takes over. And so now I'm known as the sort of Singapore Southeast Asian, Asian person. Yeah. But I've always maintained the fact that I'm an English lawyer from an, you know, from an English firm or an international firm, let's say, um, because it doesn't really matter, an international firm, but my roots are in the UK. I'm an English lawyer practicing in Singapore. I have people in my team very clearly have to sort of delineate between Singapore law and English law, but that we can do everything. But I I'm quite cross-border. So Singapore for me is really just a place, um, and actually the work we do is with my team, which is quite a big team now, sort of all over, all over Asia, into Europe, from the US and into South America and Australia. So it's really is quite cross-border. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

So it's is in my again, this this could very easily be wrong, but in in my mind, Singapore has similar rules to like DIFC, maybe, where it's an English law international enclave, or is it too much?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

It has its own legal system, a very sophisticated legal system, um, and it's really the hub headquarters for most uh sort of MA activity and arbitration dispute resolution in the region. So the SIAC, which is the Singapore Arbitration Um Centre, is phenomenal, has, you know, has lawyers from the UK, from Malaysia, from India coming in practicing there. Um, but the Singapore law is based on British, British law. Uh so there are lots of similarities, but they are different. So as an English lawyer, um, and I have to be very careful, you know, to what I say, but as an English lawyer, a lot of the concepts in Singapore law are very, very similar, but I can't give that opinion, let's say. So we have people within our team who, because we have the regulatory license to do it, who can provide that Singapore sign-off and work on things. There are different ways of skinning a cat in terms of the regulation position. We have what's called an FLA in Singapore. So we have two firms. There are two firms, the Stevenson Howard and another firm called Virtus Law, and we and it's we effectively like a sort of uh a law foreign law alliance. Yeah, um, but I can't give Singapore law advice, albeit it's actually very similar because we have so many similar concepts.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I think similar to I think Turkey has partnerships that is really niche, but I think I think Turkey has like a magic circle partnered with a Turkish name.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Okay, well that's that's interesting because my daughters say that I need to go to Turkey quite a lot. So uh maybe I'll do that when I get my hair sorted out.

SPEAKER_01 14:56

Just be out. I will be there very soon as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:58

I was hoping you'd say no, but that's okay.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

No, I'll say more for myself. I I I will do that. Your hair is fine. Yeah, so we we also missed out, so it's not just Singapore, we we also missed out the Myanmar chapter as well. So is that the second or no, no, no.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

So no, so Myanmar was we opened an office there. I was in charge of opening an office there. And it's uh it we talked about this before, actually, uh, I think. Um Myanmar was uh is a wonderful, wonderful country. Back in the day in this in the 60s, it was the fourth largest economy in Asia. Um and 100 million people, uh huge land mass, right in the right sort of right in the centre of Southeast Asia, bit close to India, huge trading lines with India and the UK and the likes. It was a it is a fantastic country. Obviously, it's had its political upheavals, it's been very, very difficult. But in 2012, um the then president, who was a military general, decided that the best thing to do was to actually try to reopen the um sort of commercial and corporate and and the the the the Myanmar Burma to um to sort of foreign investment. So there was a new foreign investment law that came into force in 2012, and suddenly the world starts to see what's going on, and it suddenly becomes the hottest territory for people to be looking at in terms of uh inbound foreign investment, so FDI, into that part of the world. And everybody was looking, it was a wonderful place, and we had great opportunities. And at that time I was with Herbert Smith, and there were, you know, there are very few firms that were doing sort of substantial, serious work there. I happened to work on three very large inbound investments for two of the big oil companies, one British, one Australian, and for one of the big cigarette companies, and who who, you know, it sounds terrible, doesn't it? All the sort of vices, but and we were doing doing that, and so there weren't that many people who had all that level of experience. So it was really good. I I was then able to create for myself effectively a niche in a practice. And again, this is something I think we talked about before, yeah, yeah. Something that you know we really recommend um lawyers not so early to say they want to be an IP lawyer at you know, zero qualification or whatever it is, but as they progress their career to you know find something which distinguishes themselves from others because the competition is there. So for me, by hook or by crook, by chance, Myanmar seemed to be something that I had done more than most people. And in the and in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king, and I was able to um, you know, do a lot of work, and people recognized me for doing that out of Singapore. So when I moved with um to to Stevenson Harvard, we had a, at the time, one of the reasons uh was that there was a tie-up with a Myanmar law firm. We had a consultant who is a very good friend, dear friend of mine still, um, who had put together a relationship with a local Myanmar firm. And we were able to take great opportunities there, uh, doing some really big ticket deals for major sovereign wealth, Singaporean sovereign wealth, for uh Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth, for the big corporates, some of the large private equity businesses, the likes of TPG, Blackstone, GIC, they were all in there. And frankly, there aren't that many people who've got the level of perhaps international experience to be able to provide that support that a local, perhaps a local domestic practice wasn't able to provide. So we, along with some of our sort of major competitors, you know, the the Herbert Smiths, Alanovies, Link Laters, et cetera, we were one of a small group of very prolific international law firms. So we set up a, we eventually set up our own office there, and I was sort of responsible for that. And for four years, we had a very small but very good office where we had um a sort of senior associate who was managing it. I was flying in, flying out. Uh and I've probably been to Myanmar, to Yangon or Napidor, which is the capital, probably 150, 200 times.

SPEAKER_02 19:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

Um, and dealing with the regulators, dealing with drafting of new law, the Insolvency Act, being very heavily involved in the new companies act that came into force, really exciting stuff, um, and doing good work. And one of the other things that's come from that is that I was able to establish a really sort of decent reputation as being able to do good quality work in hard jurisdictions. So if you can do it there, why couldn't you do it in Cambodia or Sierra Leone? You know, so that's how it sort of went from there. And um, and then of course February the 1st, 2021 happened. So just post-COVID, when things had slowed down anyway, and February the 1st was when the tanks rolled in. Whilst that lady was doing, I don't know if you remember, it was the first day of the coup. No one knew what was going to come. There was political tension, but suddenly February the 1st, uh, the country just locked down completely and the and the military took over again. Um, I mean, this is a very potted history of a very long and difficult story in the history of Mian Molt. It's interesting. So, yeah. Before I finish, so you should watch if you get a minute a minute. There's the video of the lady who's doing not the the lady is Aan San Suu Chi, that's what she's called the lady, there's a film with her. It's excellent. I've met her many times, Dorsu, many times, yeah. You do get quite good opportunities to catch. Yeah. Um, but there's a video of a of a lady, girl doing aerobics or some sort of gym stuff in the middle of the highway in Napy Dor. And as she's doing it, suddenly the tanks start to roll down behind. If you look at it on YouTube, and that's the first minute of the of the coup. Yeah. And um, yeah, and of course, then sanctions came, so political sanctions from uh the US, EU, Singapore, all around the world, Canada, and it just becomes too difficult. And it was always difficult. It was always difficult because there was already always OFAC sanctions and that sort of this specially designated nationals list, but this basically shut down the whole thing. So it became really tricky. So there are there remain um some firms that work there uh and work there, I think, pretty well, mainly regional firms out of Southeast Asia, but the big international firms had to quite quickly take a view that it was going to be very difficult to continue to work because for all sorts of reasons. But yeah, but it was a brilliant piece. So I didn't live there, but I knew lots of people. I sat on the board of the British April Commerce, I have lots of friends there still. Uh, and it's yes, it's it's sad that we aren't able to do that anymore. It was a wonderful country, wonderful country.

SPEAKER_01 21:32

So you you you you didn't permanently live there, no. So family family were in Singapore, were they?

SPEAKER_00 21:37

Yeah, absolutely. So, but then I would fly up there maybe three times a month for a few days here, a few days there. Um, and of course, because you can't then not when you're in Southeast Asia, you get the opportunity to use Singapore as your hub where you live, obviously. But because it's so close to Malay to Kea, this forty minute flight to to Jakarta, it's two hours. You you you you tend, as you're establishing a practice, to be going to Of these different places. Now, these days I spend much more time in Europe, Australia, maybe Japan, and then the States, because a lot of the work is more American. But so the bigger work comes through there. But you know, maintaining those relationships with clients in each of those different countries is very important. And also with law firms, if you don't have your own presences and many don't, for example, in Kale or in Manila. So there's a lot of that local flying, but it was it is a fantastic area to work jurisdictionally. And also just out of interest, regulatory is complicated because each different jurisdiction has different rules you've got to think about each time you do anything.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

So emerging market, cut your teeth in a pretty challenging jurisdiction. Yeah. What was did the the family love the relocation to Singapore? I mean, how is it moving across the world? Young kids or no kids?

SPEAKER_00 22:55

I had a two-year-old and one on the way. And uh it was challenging. I mean, yeah, because you suddenly go from, you know, I think we left in February, so it was probably snow on the ground or pretty cold to 33 degrees, between 33 and 36 degrees of humidity every day. Uh well, yeah, it does, isn't it? I know. Um, but it it it is very humid though, and it rains an awful lot, but it it's a wonderful place. But um it's a very good place for bringing up young children.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:25

Uh it's very uh very clean. It there's tons of stuff to do. Um, it's never been my home.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:33

It was never our home. But um I've London has always been my well, the UK and London has always been my home, but it's a very, very close second. And I was with a client last week in Singapore. I said I was I was there for three or four weeks previously, and I I go back and forth, back and forth. But it um I and they said, Oh, where so where's your home? And I said, Well, you know, as you know, London has always been, but I very much sort of marketed myself as being an English lawyer in Singapore and you know, and doing what I do, but making sure that my connections with the UK were still strong, yeah. Um, and it was a deliberate ploy, and it's seemed so far to have worked. But yeah. Good. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:14

Cool. So it in terms of business culture then, I mean I can imagine working in Myanmar, emerging economy, maybe not very mature in terms of the corporate environment there. I mean, how did how does the or how has the environment changed from the West to APEC and then Myanmar specifically?

SPEAKER_00 24:37

God, okay. Well, I didn't realise it'd be so much about Myanmar, but yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day, not many lawyers have worked in. No, no, no, and I but I'm absolutely delighted to speak about it because it's it's rare that I do, but I just have so many fond, great memories of the team that we had, just the setting up of a of the business. I'd never done that before. Yeah. Having to write a business plan for the firm and people in London saying, What the hell are you doing? In Myanmar, where's that? You know, uh Burma, oh, okay, that isn't that where Nelly the Elephant came from, you know, from Mandalay or something. And um but it but they sort of understood. And you and of course you have people within the firm, understandably, who have concerns about it. The new companies act came into force in 2012. And what tends to happen in these jurisdictions, not just Myanmar, is that the the legislation might come out, but then there's nothing to implement it, and there's no enforcing regulation. It happens in there's been loads in Vietnam, you know, the Competition Act comes out, and then suddenly the everyone says, Oh, there's a new competition regulator, but that person hasn't, or that team or group hasn't been established. No one knows how to implement any of the laws. So it then comes to really you doing it as you, you know, basing it on previous previous examples of what might have happened in the country previously, what's happened in other jurisdictions, what you know from what you've done in the UK or US or wherever it might be, and just trying to box and cox until you get to a solution. But of course, you're always having to realise that you ultimately are a visitor in the country, um, and you are, you know, trying to help uh the domestic lawyers to to understand their own law. So you've got to be very careful, there's a big cultural thing to understand, and it yeah, it's wonderful, but you have to get it right and you have to work on on that sort of thing. You have to do it everywhere you go.

SPEAKER_01 26:21

And I think, and again, you you definitely know better than I do, but the impression I get from conversation with juniors juniors is that being a lawyer is a very black letter. So this is what the rule book says, so we have to do it. And then you speak to in-house lawyers, and the rule book kind of half goes out the window, and it's more to do with risk management and what's actually going to happen in practice.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

Well, from a from a GC's perspective or an in-house counsel's perspective, what are they trying to do is they're trying to keep their stakeholder happy, and their stakeholder is the board or the CEO or the you know management team, and that's their client. So for our perspective, we're trying to keep them happy that they're able to demonstrate to their chief executive that everything's being done properly. But if you get somebody who is simply just regurgitating black letter law, company exact section, whatever it might be, and not actually putting it into action and actually explaining what it means in practice, it's uh it's limiting. And that can be the case. So um the sort of traditional, yeah, reading of Halsbury's laws and just you know, doing all that sort of stuff. Uh, I remember we the first training thing we had to do was do some research on the Dangerous Dogs Act. You know, I mean, when have I ever done that before? Again, never. The reality is in the law that I do, we have regulations that we're looking at constantly, we look at takeover code, we're looking at the Companies Act, but we don't have an awful lot of sort of um case law. There is, you know, when you're talking about directors' duties or whatever it may be, but it's it's corporate law is based on other things, not just the sort of litigation area. I've got to be very careful because people are gonna tell me that I'm not really a lawyer if you say that. But it is true. We're much more business-oriented, business facilitators for transactional.

SPEAKER_01 28:11

And no, I think for from from what you've said as well, that part of the world, an emerging emerging economy or develop developing economy, you have to be super on the business side. And maybe the black letter, the law is less uh, you know, you could be a bit more brinkmanship in terms of.

SPEAKER_00 28:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah. For sure. For sure. You have to be able to work out the best way of getting things done without giving brown paper bags and all that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:36

Because that is another issue you have to be very careful about, you know, sort of uh bribery, corruption, and all those sorts of issues in in those parts of the world. But no, I mean it's um it it's it's good fun. It's really good fun. And certainly I would recommend it to people to go and take some time out. I didn't think I was gonna be there for as long as I was, uh, but I've sort of got myself into a situation where I'm able to do things around the world in different types of jurisdictions. So I've been fortunate to do that. But it's been quite deliberately plotted in my career. As I say, I'm grey-haired enough now to know how to deal with that sort of stuff. But um, as a junior, don't look gift horses down in the mouth and stuff. Do take opportunities, but make sure you get the fundamentals right first. So you do spend time doing these sorts of things. Get yourself, you know, well trained and get some good fundamentals and then look at what you're doing. People want to come to Singapore, frankly, because they want as a six-month part of their seat. We do, you know, we send people to Singapore. I think we have four or five every year, every quarter, every uh six months, sorry. And they want to come because they quite fancy the idea of going to Bali for the weekend or flying up to KL for a bit or going to wherever it might be. And frankly, why not? Because when you're 23, 24, 25, whatever it might be, it's great fun.

SPEAKER_02 29:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:45

Um, but get the fundamentals right and uh and then see how it goes from there.

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Yeah. I I feel like that baseline, I've just I know you mentioned the the dangerous dogs out there. Obviously, that that's an extreme, extreme side of things, but be a very good lawyer as a baseline, understand your area, but I I feel like people get disillusioned at maybe four or five PQE because you are doing a lot of the same thing over and over again. But you have to put in those hard yards to become a good lawyer. Yeah. But hearing when did you move? Six, seven PQE to Singapore? About that, yeah. Something like that.

SPEAKER_00 30:19

About that, about seven, I think, yeah. And but I'd spent, you know, but prior to that, I'd spent every night, you know, three nights a week coming home in an Addison Lee at three o'clock in the morning. Yeah, yeah. Missing my first my daughter's first birthday to much upset, which was disappointing, should we say? But you know, um those sorts of things you have to put up with. And it's that's not actually, to be honest with you, these days it's much, it's much less than it was in my in my day, right? Oh God, what do I sound like now? Clearly, people work very, very hard, but there is so much more emphasis on work life, on other things, not just being related to you know, just being stuck at your desk the whole time. Clearly, the chargeable hour is very important, and how many chargeable hours you do is very important, but it's the the um the sort of feeling of having to make sure you're there just to be seen to be there, I think is much less strong than it was 20 years, 20 odd years ago. So there is a slightly different dynamic. Yes, everybody's looking at the you know, bottom line, making sure that we're profitable lawyers, and certainly our firm is just the same as most firms, obviously as every firm that's sort of a significant. But I think there is a general dynamic towards being more inclusive and perhaps a little bit less difficult as perhaps it was back in the day. But then that's because I'm I can look back with residential spectacles and not be so boring and old, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Culturally, there's again, uh you know better than I do, but culturally there's definitely been a shift towards prioritizing mental health. Yep. At the end of the day, you know, it's a competitive industry, you still have to work hard. There's no avoiding it, really.

SPEAKER_00 31:57

Well, you have to learn, you know, it's just like any job. And frankly, being a lawyer is just like being an accountant, being an architect, you have to learn. And you know, when you come out of university, having got your first degree or two one or whatever it might be, having had a good time at university, actually turning that into how you're gonna make money and actually having a career is a difficult thing to do. And you know, as we said earlier, actually making those applications work is a tough thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 32:23

Yeah, so repetition, keep doing it over and over again, learn by your mistakes. Absolutely. Do enough work, eventually something will happen.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Yep. Have a goal, yeah. Don't don't just pebble dash. I was having this conversation yesterday, so yeah, absolutely. Make sure you target what you want, know why you want it, have good answers for why you want it, and then just be open, actually, with reality.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

So the the advice that I've given law students is you know, you you realistically you can get into within reason, you can get into any law firm you want to. It's just a matter of how long it's gonna take. I've I've seen stories of people who've applied to the same law firm for six, seven years. Gosh, oh yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 33:04

And they haven't seen you coming.

SPEAKER_01 33:05

You just change your name, put a different six, seven years in a row, and eventually they, you know, eventually you get in.

SPEAKER_00 33:11

But maybe if I went in my Boba Fett costume, they'd they'd have understood it as well. As a Star Wars character, you never know. Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:18

So we we've spoken a lot about Stevenson Harwood. Um for anyone who doesn't know, who are Stevenson Harwood?

SPEAKER_00 33:26

So we're uh an international law firm practicing, you know, all the sorts of uh law that you can imagine. I'm I'm in the MA practice, we have a good private equity practice, but we do everything from competition, foreign direct to investment to employment to big ticket dispute resolution. We have very large clients. Um we are sort of on a par with the sort of silver circle, so Ash S, Norton Rose type firms. Historically, we've had a long history of working in this, and we we also have a large international practice. Um, and so offices in Dubai, we just opened two offices in Saudi Arabia, which is the hot market. Yesterday. Madrid. Yes, good knowledge. Yeah, research. Yes, that's what you say, a bit of a bit of legal knowledge, a bit of legal research. Yesterday, um, my very good friend who I was literally with 10 minutes before um I um I came here has been involved in opening up our announcing the opening of the North Office in Madrid, going back to Madrid, having been there previously.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Nice.

SPEAKER_00 34:26

We also have a very large footprint in in Asia, but we have 100 old people in Dubai, um, and you never know where else we'll be opening in due course. But um our Asia footprint has been particularly strong. We were the first um law firm to witness, or uh the law firm to witness the signing of the HSBC charter in God knows when it was. We're 150 years old as an inter as a firm. Um we are independent from the US, so we do a lot of work for the US and US clients, a huge amount of work, but we are not in the US. And that's very much part of our our sort of plans and strategy to to have an alternative to the transatlantic firm, which obviously we're seeing lots of with the ANO Sherman, the Taylor Westing, Winston Strawn, Ashes, Perkins, CUI, etc. So we are very much different from that, but we um but we do the same thing, and it's all practice across the world.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

So no no offices in the US, but you do a lot of US work.

SPEAKER_00 35:23

Huge amount. I'd say for personally, I'd say 60 to 70% of my work comes from the US. So I spend a lot of time in the US acting for financial institutions, private equity, um corporates going into the region, wherever it may be, um, but also for law firms who themselves don't have practices outside the US because US law firms like to be US specific. Obviously, there are some, a number, who have London offices, they have some in in Asia as well. But progressively you're seeing retrenchment back from US US law firms back to the states, yeah, um, where really the the big ticket uh revenues and profitability sit. So we get the benefit of that quite often. It's a very big part of our strategy that we are able to help other large US law firms who have more of a domestic practice to be able to help them. So corporates, financial institutions, as I said, private equity businesses who are all looking at investing into or working in or have disputes with Africa, wherever it may be, uh Asia, we can do that work. But we also have this great platform to be able to offer US law firms the ability to be able to do their work. And they effectively have a one-stop shop of working with a Tom or a Duncan or a Paul or whoever it may be, who can then sort of quarterback all of this stuff that's outside the US, because US lawyers like to be US only, tends to be. It also means that we can get the benefit of working if if you look at the AMLOR 50, let's say, which is the top 50 by revenue of firms, probably 25 of those firms don't, possibly even more, actually, don't have a presence outside the US. They'll have 30 different offices from Reno to to Long Island, you know, wherever it might be, uh, Orange County, but they don't have anything outside that. Lots do have in the US, but it's again, as I say, progressively, it's that they are retrenching. Um, so it just says to them, you know, you have an option to work with a firm where there won't be a potential conflict. You're not giving your work to a competitor, uh, and we can do all that work for you wherever it may be. So we have a big network of our own offices. If we don't have that, we then have very good, strong relationships and networks of law firms that we're very good friends with across the world. And that's how we do it. And what we call it sort of quarterbacking, so we quarterback deals.

SPEAKER_01 37:39

And is there I mean any or advice? Yeah. Any any future ambitions? I mean, what what's the the long-term goal of the firm? Where are you hoping to go in the future?

SPEAKER_00 37:48

I think you know, we we have to make sure that we are continuing to extract as much we as we can by revenue, but particularly by profitable revenue. How we do that, it could be through various different ways. But but the firm is is very dynamic. We have a leadership which is extremely dynamic and looking at opportunities as and when they come up, and there are opportunities that come up regularly. We're not shy of being in the news. I think historically, we maybe we were a little bit shy, um, but in the last sort of 20 years or so. But certainly we are progressive and there's lots of opportunities. So let's see where it gets to. But we have to make sure, of course, we're able to keep up with our our competitors as well, and that's just a big part of making sure that you're not sort of uh left out there alone because others are growing at the same time. Because just as much as we grow, other firms do as well, because we're all looking at the billion, the billion pound or billion dollar firm, and how do we get there? What does this one do? But you'll see. We'll see.

SPEAKER_01 38:44

Watch this space.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

Who knows?

SPEAKER_01 38:45

So Singapore's probably changed quite a lot since you moved out there.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 38:51

Um I know we spoke earlier about 6, 7 PQE, open an office, it's quite entrepreneurial. Now you're working across the globe with clients. I mean, does it still feel entrepreneurial? Is it a bit more well established and a bit more predictive?

SPEAKER_00 39:08

I mean, for yeah, of course. I mean, as you get more experienced and you get more comfortable in your shoes or your suit or your tie or whatever one wears, um, you you do, of course, become a lot more comfortable with where your work is going to come from, who your regular clients are. You never quite know where the next thing's gonna come from. You know, what we always have this whole debate that at the end of our financial year, you're right at the pinnacle, hopefully, of your of the revenue for the year. It's beaten you last year by 10% or 15%, whatever it might be. And then on the next day, you go all the way back to the beginning again. And you have to start all over again. So where that work's gonna come from, hopefully you have a good cadre of you know, regular repeat clients, and that's that's the key, right? To for any lateral hiring is the and for juniors and mid-levels trying to make its partnership is just being able to understand like where is this work gonna come from? How am I gonna get repeat business? But you never know where the next thing's gonna come from. And so, yes, just being open to opportunities, definitely the firm as a whole, we feel, I think I feel certainly, and I think most people do, it's an entrepreneurial spirit. Yeah, we are, unless it's stupid or contrary to strategy that's made from on high, you know, there aren't many things that people will say you can't do unless it's legally you can't, or conflicts or whatever it might be. But opportunities are there for you, and certainly that's something that I've really benefited from and I've loved about being at the firm is that you do actually have the opportunity to you know take things on as you go. And and and that's also pushed down to the associates and to an extent the trainees as well. Like we want our particularly in my team, I suppose, but I think it's the same throughout, is that we want our associates to have the opportunity to do their own business development, to grow their own practice and their own sort of book of business, because we recognize that we want people to make partnership if they're at that level. And if they don't, or it's not going to happen, that they can go to somewhere else, whether that be in-house or to another firm. And we've given them everything that they can possibly give them in their toolbox to be able to make it to wherever they need to get to. So it's a big bit of our sort of ethos, certainly mine, and I think it's shared by most in the firm, that we want to be entrepreneurial, we want to be able to do things where, you know, and to be and to be able to sort of go about our way and do things our way within reason, within the wider strategy, being teammates and players together. But definitely it's an entrepreneurial spirit. And I and I and I really enjoy the job because of that, the ability to be able to go and, you know, the the thrill of thrill of the chase of getting that deal and getting that engagement letter signed when you didn't think you were going to get it, or you know, just sort of saying, seeing your news story of the deal that you've done in the is it there's still something really good. When you read it, oh yeah, that's great. Last night we signed or closed, signed a large deal, um, and it hasn't yet announced it'll have to because of the stock exchange. But I know when that comes out, I'll be looking at all the stories and just reading, oh yeah, we did that, we did that, we did that. Well we did it. It was our team, it was good. Because there are there are I feel like this is probably maybe that makes me really geeky though.

SPEAKER_01 42:12

No, not at all. I mean, if you don't enjoy your job, what's what's the point of doing it? Good answer. I spoke to uh I th I feel like this is less the case, but junior partner, uh maybe a year, two years in, uh very much telling the telling the story of um as an associate, you do loads of work, you're kind of the engine house of of of the team. Partners give you a load of work, you do it, take on a load of stress, and then um you're given or you move into a partnership role, yeah, and it's very much right. Here's all this other stuff you have to you have to manage. Yeah. What's the what's the kind of philosophy around training, I guess, BD training for associates? I mean, you mentioned it there. I mean, is that something you you're involved with?

SPEAKER_00 42:57

Yeah, I mean, of course. I mean, I suppose I because I do quite a lot of it myself, I'm always trying to to get people involved in it. So last week in singing, I it all of my associates have the opportunity, if they want to, to be involved directly or indirectly through writing papers and know-how, but directly in sort of active BD participation. So my one of my star associates last week, who hadn't done anything for a while, sort of moderated a uh a session on the VC markets and startups and liquidity liquidity events across Southeast Asia and why there's been a um uh uh funding winter in Singapore and all this sort of stuff. And she did a brilliant job. Actually, she'd planned it, she was nervous as heck, but she did a brilliant job. And at the end of it, she came out absolutely buzzing because she'd she'd she'd moderated five people, including me, and done it brilliantly. And so and so we really do like that because it gives them the it gives people the opportunity to demonstrate that they can do it and also just to learn, right? You learn so much just by doing it, just in anything you do as a lawyer, you know, you learn by Doing it. So the first time you look at an SPA share purchase agreement and you have no idea what's going on, you know, the more you do of it, the more experience you get, the more you know where the issues are going to be. So to an extent now, me obviously, but our senior associates will know just by flicking through over half an hour, let's say, a draft document that comes in from the other side where the issues are going to be. And I can sort of say, okay, we know that's going to be a problem. Okay, yes. There'll be other stuff that maybe missed around the edges, but we'll come through a much much more in-depth review. But we know where you get to. So just the experience of doing it and getting into it. So educating yourself throughout your career is always important. And we're really good at making sure that people do as much as possible and just trying to, you know, trying to just keep up with what's going on in in the legal world and legal affairs.

SPEAKER_01 44:51

I I feel it is I feel it is good to push gently, push people into that kind of thing. So I think it's very much outside of most people's comfort zones.

SPEAKER_00 45:00

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 45:01

But I said she was buzzing when she came out, so yeah, she absolutely loved it.

SPEAKER_00 45:04

Well, I'm saying that, and you know, I hope she is, but yeah. But she she she uh she did and uh she did a great job. And then and there's been others who've done the same thing as well. And you know, maybe I'll have a little practice with them beforehand and say maybe talk about that or whatever it might be. And not everyone does that, but actually, and and and maybe my strategy for that isn't right for everybody or is not right for anybody, but actually I think people do quite enjoy it and then they feel like they own something, they own a project, uh, they own a deal. And so, as you say, you're right. At any one time, I might have five, six, seven, eight, ten deals going on at the same time. It just is the way it can be. I can't be on top of every single thing. Yeah, but I'm on top of the big points. But I have trust because I know that I've worked with my teammates before. I have trust that they'll be looking out for the right things. And when I look at the document as it's ready to go out and they've done a lot of work, we'll have a conversation for two hours, we'll go through it, I'll look at it, mark it up bits myself, and we I know that they'll have done a really good first cut on it. So it's rare that you'd have that you grow that trust because you see your teammates doing it. And they are my teammates, you know, they may be more junior, but they are teammates and we work together, and that's what it's all about, really. So it is just like being in a football team, frankly. Yeah, but just without football and lots of money.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

Well, some money, but you know.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Yeah, yeah. Again, repetition, repetition to get there, I feel like.

SPEAKER_00 46:27

But you know, I don't think there's anything different in law than from doing an account doing accounting or from doing something completely different. You just get you gain the experience as you get older. Yeah, and and then as you get older and more senior in the position, you then tend to do much more sort of management work as well, which is it can that's the hard bit, actually.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

So you mentioned Singapore funding winter. I mean, what's going on in the region? Are there certain countries doing well?

SPEAKER_00 46:52

The fact that the private credit and private capital is coming back to Singapore and is very busy. And like the reality is uh on the big ticket deals, there's lots going on, but um, there has been in the s I we tend not to get too involved in VC work, but we we do. And again, one of the things I've done actually with the team is set up a little project and um uh where we can provide um sort of VC style work. So that has been good. Um but generally speaking, the XV markets have been pretty flat and debt has been difficult to get hold of uh in in Southeast Asia. But I think the capital markets have been very, very quiet. But actually now in um in Asia as a whole, the capital markets are uh are going great guns, so Hong Kong particularly um and India. We're seeing a lot of opportunities in India from the capital markets there. We don't have an office there, but we do a lot of work with India and with Indian clients.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Indian Indian capital or foreign capital?

SPEAKER_00 47:50

Both, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:51

Is that I mean what what do they telecoms? I mean, what do they invest in?

SPEAKER_00 47:54

What what offshore, oil and gas, telecoms, data centers, everyone's looking at data centres, subsea cables, telecoms infrastructure, toll roads, yeah, project big projects, power, uh everything really, frankly.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

So is that is that within the region? Is is there one thing like infrastructure, energy?

SPEAKER_00 48:12

It goes two stages actually. So healthcare is always a big area, education has been a big area, obviously renewables, to renewables and oil and gas. Well, completely contradicting me stuff, but but oil and gas historically, but now renewables is a quite a big opportunity for for folk. Um and uh so we're seeing yeah, solar, wind, hydro, biomass, yeah, MA type things.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

But I I always associated renewables with very advanced countries that usually have natural resources already. Yeah. But what what countries are investing heavily into renewables?

SPEAKER_00 48:49

Most of them. Most of them. Thailand, Vietnam, uh particularly Japan, Taiwan, China very much so, um, and um Korea. Offshore wind in Korea is huge. So depends. But you know, Indonesia perhaps less so, but actually, you know, you do see quite a lot of big solar plug projects down there. Philippines, there's a lot of uh renewables. So it depends on what where, but yeah, across Asia generally speaking, of course in Australia, there's a lot of that, but there's also a lot of heavy industry mining, and gas, whatever as well. But yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

So do do you do you do a lot of work with China?

SPEAKER_00 49:25

I know that Well, we have three offices in China and 170 people in Hong Kong. Obviously, it's slightly different, so we do a lot, yeah. And um a big sort of outbound MA practice from Shanghai.

SPEAKER_02 49:37

Yeah, I see.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Um and uh capital markets team in Hong Kong and Shanghai as well. And we practice through uh again very similar to what we have with uh Virtus Law that I mentioned in Singapore. We have the same sort of thing in China, so we can provide Chinese law advice as well.

SPEAKER_02 49:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:53

Um and so yeah, China is a big, big area for us and continued growth in that area will will definitely be continue. Well, we we've sort of doubled down where lots of lots of the US firms have pulled out of China for various reasons, mainly geopolitical. We've doubled down and have continued to expand our China presence and seems to be working. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:14

You mentioned you provide playbook style services for VC clients.

SPEAKER_00 50:20

Yeah, no, we we set up this thing called the STEP program, which is the startup we m we made it up, right? It's called the Startup Technologies Emerging Market, Emerging Companies Program, STEP. And um with that we we have the ability to you know do lower value work at lower cost.

SPEAKER_01 50:38

So that that's quite a nice segue into legal tech. Ah, yeah. AI. Yep. Uh I mean what what's your personal experience with AI?

SPEAKER_00 50:47

So we have an innovation team at the firm, and um they have been a big part of sort of developing our AI platforms. We have our own in-house Yeah, yeah. So we have our own in-house um AI platform, and it is pretty good. So a lot of the sort of due diligence that we do will go through first case, what we call Sharper, which is a SH Sharper, our own platform to do first cuts of diligence reports and all that sort of stuff. It's been a a long process for the firm, and it's it's good we've committed committed to it and continue to do so. We see Harvey, we've used Harvey, we've used all the other sort of opportunities there are, and you know, we we still do, but um we have our own thing too. But it it comes up time and again.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

Yeah, I think there is um a bit of a conversation now around build or buy, right? Yeah. Um and again had a conversation with someone that quantified in 1984, yeah, and this cycled around when uh uh I'm gonna say internet era, yeah. Engineering was was developed.

SPEAKER_00 51:55

Dot com.

SPEAKER_01 51:55

Yeah, yeah. And he said there was a massive question around do we build or do we buy? Yeah. And loads of law firms became quasi-software houses building their own uh software. Some of them did really well.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

But you're seeing that actually in smaller firms. I know one particular small firm in Indonesia that has developed an incredible AI platform, and they're using that to really extract good money out of clients, actually. And and then and it's it's working well. There are always risks with it.

SPEAKER_01 52:24

It's an early stage.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

It is early stage, but every every step every time you get a stage, you've already moved on to the next one. So the latest piece of AI information you've got or technology you've got is already been outdated now. Yeah, you know, it's the amazing thing. We had the GC at one of our events recently for Meta in Asia Pacific at one of our events recently, and was saying exactly that. She's amazed. I mean, she is a technology lawyer by trade, having been at Madness Gadden or Siddeley or something like that. And um, you know, she is always constantly amazed by the how progress everything is. Everything you do now will be updated within days. We've embraced it and continue to do so, some more than others, but the juniors use it all the time. And it's quite interesting because I'm now I heard overheard someone saying today uh about a um piece of work that had been done by an associate which clearly had been put through AI and was very good.

SPEAKER_02 53:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

But and I think the groundwork had been done by themselves first, but had been put through was very good. I have a client actually who um we've done a lot of work for in Proptech, so property technology, and we did a number of acquisitions for them around Thailand, Chile, South America. Um, they're very active and they're looking at a big exit now for one of the sort of the larger private equity European private equity houses. Um, but he is not a legal, he's a business guy, and he's not a le he hasn't really got a legal mind. And he knew there was an issue that he wanted to ask a question about, but he didn't really want to spend too much time and effort and money, fees, talking about it without knowing exactly what he was asking. Yeah. So what he did was he wrote into his chat GPT or whatever it was, what the issues were, and it came out with basically the questions that he should ask. So he sent me and my associate an email saying, I put this all through. If this is the wrong question, okay, but it's a good start. It's brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:16

Because it suddenly really it did actually give us an agenda for what we were talking about where he would have taken quite a significantly longer time without being rude, but he just doesn't, you know, he doesn't know the concepts as well about how he can clean up his cap table and do a share reduction, whatever it might be. And he had ideas about what he was talking about, which he wouldn't have done had he not had that input. So it's quite cool, actually. Same guy also did a review of the shareholders' agreement that we put in place for him two years ago, and it's done in the style of a you and me conversation where two people are talking about the terms of the shareholders' agreement. So they'll be saying, Oh, well, and I've listened to it, it's amazing. It's a half-hour basically description of the shareholders' agreement where the guy will say, Well, they've got really great indemnification protections on this or whatever it might be, reserved rights here, but they've got very limited um restrictions on transfer there. So perhaps that was a playoff in the negotiation, and you're thinking, Oh my god. Yeah. Thankfully, we didn't get too many negatives. It was mainly and then it came out, oh, this is pretty much positive to our side, so we did all right. But it but it is an amazing technology, and everything is changing constantly. So you can't not be embracing it in some form.

SPEAKER_01 55:27

Lawyers that read first, use AI, read after, versus the lawyers that just chuck it into AI and see what happens. Exactly. I think free market economics will probably rule them out pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 55:38

Yeah. Although interesting, I was with a Singapore law firm the other day, small one, who's cutting his staff back because he's basically putting everything, bugging everything into AI. But um he does all right.

SPEAKER_01 55:50

Yeah. And uh there's uh there's a very high-level uh US firm that's tiny in the UK that does very high-level work. Spoke to a partner there recently, and he's he's been semi-resistant to AI, and one day said, Well, I'll give it a go. Yeah. Did research himself, chucked research through AI, and and it was pretty close. Yeah. And from then on, he said, Oh, I I now use it.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

And you have so many yesterday I had uh an AI guy in who it used to be a partner at Freshfield in Dubai, and he's got this amazing project platform then, which is uh it's a transaction management platform through AI. It's very, very clever. And he's a mate of mine, and uh he came in to come have a chat about what he can do, what we can do, and I said, Well, just come and have a you know, give us a demonstration to my team in Singapore or my team in London, but particularly Singapore, because I know that we do it quite a bit. Yeah, uh, and he is very clever. And then what he's I mean, of course, they all have great stories about how this is going to change the world. They've all got friends and family funding into it, and it's doing brilliantly. But the proof of the Pudding will come with when it comes, but it's it looks pretty good from what you can say.

SPEAKER_01 56:56

So tomorrow morning we're waking up bright and early. Yes, you are, aren't you? A walk around the city. I believe you've got your hat here.

SPEAKER_00 57:03

I have, yeah, here we go.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Somewhere.

SPEAKER_00 57:06

So tell me a little bit about this is this is version 5.0 of this of these hats. And um what I've been doing, Hugo, I'm very actually very proud of, is that I over the last three years, we've I've been raising money for um dementia care. It was dementia single in Singapore, firstly, and now it's sort of grown to be in other different parts of the world. I've done it by uh walking every morning before work. So from about 6.30 in the morning, and tomorrow we've tomorrow's a light end. Yeah. Um in five different uh countries around the world. I have people who lead it around the world and it's just developed and developed.

SPEAKER_01 57:47

London, Singapore.

SPEAKER_00 57:48

Yeah, we've do 12.1 kilometers every day. So it started in Singapore in the jungles of Mutritchie Reservoir. Um, and and now it's grown, I mean it was it's grown very organically, nothing was planned, it's all grown. I could take talk about this forever. We could have done the whole thing talking about Ma Ritchie because I've done so much about it, and I I just absolutely love it. But it we've managed to raise about half a million dollars now, and I've taken 2,103 people, 107 people from 58 different countries on a walk with me. Um, the largest group I took was 72 last week, I took 35. Tomorrow I think we're going out as a group of 10.

SPEAKER_02 58:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 58:25

Um, and it's all new people as well. So it's been a brilliant opportunity to connect, all about mental health, walking, talking. So it's called walkthotalk.com. Yeah. So look it up, all of you, walktotalk.com, drop me a line uh on my email and come and join us because it's been lots of people. So tomorrow there'll be six new people, I think, or five new people and five people who have done it before. But there's also one of my partners in not legal partners, but one of my partners in in walk to talk. Because this is you, this is really taking up so much of my life now, it's been amazing. Um, who we'll be doing it with called Natalie, and um, she's been helping me to grow this platform quite significantly. So we we now are um the an affiliated partner of Dementia Australia, yeah. Um, and we are having conversations with a number of other big dementia platforms. But we've yeah, about half a million bucks we've we've raised so far. We're a charity in Singapore in the UK, um, and we have operations or walks in six different jurisdictions. So Singapore, London, where we have one in Richmond Park, and also the City Loop, where you'll take in tomorrow 25 different sites of London. I'm not going to Richmond tomorrow. No, you're not going to Richmond. We're going to meet at Roadmaker Street, and we see the Capital Loop, and we do 25 sites of London. So lots of people fly in to not to do this, but when they come in, they have the opportunity to see all of bits of London they want to see before work with the chat. Uh we do it in Melbourne, um, and we have three walks in Melbourne, uh, in New York, Paris, and Dubai, and then other bits and bobs every now and again. But it's been it's just transformed me in terms of my outlook on life and meeting people and all that sort of stuff. It's been really, really great.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:04

The one question I will ask is why why did this why did this all come about? How'd you get into it?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:07

Uh the log of the short of it was basically uh 2022 was quite a difficult year for me. I broke my shoulder, you know. I was back and forth to the UK quite a lot. I broke my shoulder skateboarding, which you don't do as a 43-year-old partner at a law firm.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:24

But having said that, you're you're the second partner I've spoken to that skateboarding.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:27

Okay. Well, when you say skateboarding, that sounds like it's a present present occupation activity. It isn't. It was a one-off. And I used to do it as a as a kid. Now I realize why I didn't do it because I broke my shoulder, it's horrible. You realize so it was a pretty crappy year in 22. And um when I uh we we've got a couple of cases of dementia in our in our family, yeah, in our extended family. And I was quite shocked by what I saw. I came back to Singapore for one of my trips back, uh, longer term trip back. And uh I got a phone call from a client who said, let's go and talk about a deal, big, big private equity client, let's talk about a deal that we um we were talking about last year. And I said, Yep, let's do that. And he said, Let's go for a beer. And I was sort of kicking myself because I was thinking, right, I'd already thought, well, 2023, let's try to turn it around a bit, you know, dry January is a good start, and let's just see what we can do to to to you know, just try to make 23 a better year than 22. And actually, quite interestingly, post-COVID, Singapore changed dramatically in terms of like the number of people who were there, friends leaving, and all that sort of stuff. So it was a bit lonely, and I'm quite a sociable person. Um, and I don't mind talking about it. I think when I first started doing this, I'd never have told anyone that I was a bit lonely, but nowadays I'll tell anybody, I'll tell you whoever. Um, but it it um so he said you go for beer, and of course I, being the professional, said, Oh, yes, okay, fine. And then I kicked myself. Why'd you do that? So I I rang him back and said, let's not do that, let's go for a walk instead. I've never been to this place called Marichi Reservoir, it's right in the middle of the jungle. So we see snakes, we see lizards, we see monkeys, we see wild boar, we see pangolin, which is beautiful and incredible. So I said, let's go for a walk instead. And so we went for a walk and we enjoyed it. But actually, I'd also said to him, Listen, Mike, you had asked me for a beer, so I'm gonna ask you to give me an amount of money equivalent to the amount that you thought we were gonna spend on beer. And he said, Oh, only you would do something like this, but that's actually quite good. And um then I want you to give that to me, and I'm gonna give it to our firm's charity of the year in Singapore.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:31

And we didn't have a charity of the year because we'd just come to the end of a two-year cycle.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:35

And so I thought, ah, tell you what, I've just seen this situation with dementia in our family. Why don't I get in touch with dementia Singapore? I just thought, well, I like going for that walk and I'd like to do it again. And I think I could, I've got quite a good network. I could probably do something about it. And so they gave me a just giving link, you know, so that they could sponsorship money. And I put it onto LinkedIn and onto Facebook. At that time, I was I'm not really still on in Instagram, I should be, I'm in a dinosaur. But um, I uh put it onto LinkedIn and Facebook and said, right, I'm gonna go and do 75 laps of McRechard Reservoir in Singapore over the course of 2023, which would equate to about a thousand kilometres that would allow me to travel back and forth to the UK to America, whatever traveling work-wise. And um put it on, and within three days, my next six weeks were booked out every day, twice a day.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:25

So I was doing one, at that time I was just doing one person and one person. So me with one person. Then I'd so I'd get there at seven o'clock, uh, at four o'clock in the morning. I start at pitch black, yeah. So the first one would be completely in black, black, in dark, it's horrendous. Torches and all that sort of stuff. Um, but so we'd start at 4:30, we'd finish the first lap at 7.15, 12 and a half kilometres. I'd then go out again, I'd meet the next person at 7.30, and I'd do the next one until about 9.30, 9.40. Then I'd be in the office at 10, do my day's work, but by that stage I'd already walked 25 kilometres or 40,000 steps or whatever it was. And so for three weeks I did that and realized this is crazy, it's knackering me out. I, you know, it was but really good and I was really enjoying it. So I started to put groups of people together who I thought might be interested. So the first group I did was I did what I called International MA Deal Day. So I had a lawyer from A Sherman, AO at the time, me, I had a target, I had an investor, I had an underwriter, I had a PR guy, I had a broker, whatever, you know, and we pretended to talk a bit about a deal. The reality was we were just mates talking and having a good time walking, but there were 10 of us. And then post that I've done more and more of these things where I've many, many now, where I've um put groups of people together. So the largest group that I think I mentioned earlier was 72. Yes, yeah, yeah. And then last week I we did a fundraising one in Singapore for Pro Bono Singapore, which is a bit like Whitechapel Legal Advice, so so uh pro bono advice. And so I do a lot of work with them now as well. And so every day I do it wherever I am. So this morning I did it, and uh I took two out. Tomorrow we've got 10, Friday I've got three. Um, yeah, and it's just grown and grown and grown, totally organically. Um, but it's been a fantastic experience and completely changed my outlook on life in so many ways. Absolutely, and made me tired as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:15

But if anybody wants to have a look, the website is walk-to-talk.com.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:24

And it's in the process of being re-jigged because it's all, as I said, been organic. If you look at my mobile phone, you're on a WhatsApp group with me.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:33

That m but that WhatsApp group is called McRitchie Challenge Colon 29th of the first. I've got 970 of those. Right. And they're still open. Yeah, yeah. And people do still talk on them every now and again. People have most people don't leave.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:50

Um, and it's been really lovely to see those friendships. And there's so many other stories I can tell you about, you know, how many people I've met, who I've met, new people.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:58

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:58

Um, I've done thirty-five. Corporate social responsibility mornings so far. So I've taken KKR, Blackstone, Clifford Chance, Herbert Smith, you know, whatever it might be. So it's been good from that perspective too, although that's not the sort of that's not why we do it. And yeah, since then it's been great. So I now sit on the board of Dementia Singapore, which I'm very proud of. Nice. And I chair their uh fundraising committee, which is pretty cool, actually, to be honest with you, because this came from a basically a walk in the park. And it's just grown and grown and growing.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:30

The origin story is quite nice, just completely came came from you and a mate just walking around.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:35

Um you say that, me and a client, a client who is now a really good mate, because he has been so instrumental in the development of this, and actually, because of this, I've now got so many more mates than I would never have had. So of of that 2,100 people, I know because I've got these ridiculous spreadsheets, that 1,343 of them, or roughly, were new to me before I started this whole thing. Yeah. So I've effectively made 1,300 odd new friends. I mean, they don't all like me, I'm sure. They all think I'm mad or I talk too much or whatever it might be, but it's actually given me such a great opportunity to meet new people. It's been brilliant.

unknown 1:07:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:13

All around the world.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:14

Yeah, well, I say it's it's a great origin story, and and you know, if if you need a spreadsheet to keep track of of all your mates, you're doing something right.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:21

So that's why the website's getting redone, right? Because it needs to be able to collect all this stuff. And these obviously we we are data protection compliant, just about, but we need to we need to move what's in here and on my phone properly. So I get, I mean, last week I have every day I get three or four requests to do it.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:39

Um, and then last week I had requests from people in a person in Milan and in Mumbai to to set up their own loop as well. So there's real legs. And someone said to me yesterday, where do you see it going? I was I think just growing bigger and bigger. It's meant to end a year to the day it started in 2024, but that carried on. Who knows? But it's it's been fantastic. It does give me so much, so much joy, actually.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:04

Well, I think that's that's the main thing. Obviously, as I said, great cause, it's raising money, which is great. But um it sounds like it came out of a difficult time for you. It was probably you know connecting people, walking with people. So uh yeah, looking forward to the the early start tomorrow morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:20

It is an early start, yeah. But you'll be done by 9.15. I have to be because I've got to be on the board on a board meeting at 9.30. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:27

So final, final question then. Uh what are you looking forward to next? Personally, professionally, what have you got going on? What's exciting?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:34

Uh oh, that's a good question. I mean, I have two beautiful children at the moment, and I'm looking forward to seeing them progress to university. Uh, and I am really hopeful that this walk to talk thing keeps taking off as it has. It's given me so many experiences. Uh I won't say where I was this morning, but I had a really good opportunity before work today, which you'll probably see on LinkedIn. And I do get to do quite a lot of this good stuff. The meetings I've had tomorrow are pretty cool too. Um, but you know, I actually have to do a day job as well. Yeah. And so continue to, you know, make sure that the team is busy, work hard, do what we do, and let's see where it all ends up. I think uh London for me now uh and Singapore is where I'm based, and um I'm enjoying it. So that's that's all you can really hope for, I suppose. Absolutely. But thank you for having me. Because I I hope there's been something in here that people can take away from. But definitely if you'd like to drop me a line, I'm always around to have a little chat as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:29

Yeah, and I'll put all the links to everything in in the notes as well, so people can find you, charity, all the other things.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:35

Yeah, most importantly, let me know and come for a come for a walk.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:38

Well, thanks very much for your time today.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:40

Yeah, great, good luck with the project.