GOWLING WLG PARTNER’S INTERNATIONAL JOURNEY REFLECTS THE FIRM’S TRANSITION FROM A BIRMINGHAM TO A GLOBAL LAW FIRM

Greetings to all my fellow Birmingham Law Society members out there. My name is Julian Henwood and I'm a Birmingham-based (but often to be found in Europe – more on that below!) partner at the international law firm Gowling WLG.

My main roles these days at Gowling WLG are as our Head of European Business Development and chair of our Baltic States, Netherlands and Nordic Desks. However, to understand why I moved into these roles necessitates me explaining to you the journey our law firm has itself been on since I joined it in 1990.

I did my articles of clerkship (as they were then called) in the mid-1980's at Ryland Martineau – first in Church Street and then (following its merger with Johnson & Co) at the merged firm of Martineau Johnson in St Philips House, opposite Birmingham Cathedral. I was an eager participant in BLS events in those days – but probably more often to be found at a Birmingham Law Students Society (as it was then called) social event than at one of the Society's educational events… After two years at Denton Hall Burgin & Warrens (now Dentons) in London I returned to Birmingham in 1990 and joined Wragge & Co (the "W" in Gowling WLG) as a young associate in the corporate team. The firm then comprised c. 200 people and only had one office in the world – Bank House in Cherry Street in Birmingham. The vast majority of our clients (such as Dowding & Mills, Frederick Cooper, Glynwed, Newman Tonks – long since vanished names from the heavy engineering world) were headquartered in the Midlands, with most of the rest being based in other parts of England. The physical proximity of law firms to their clients in those days was no coincidence.

This was long before the internet, Teams or Zoom and all meetings took place in person. Therefore having an office within easy travelling distance from your clients (and preferably with some parking spaces) was a business imperative. Written communication was via letters and manuscript amendments to documents, all sent in the post or by hand.

Ever the entrepreneurial law firm and becoming tired of being at a disadvantage to our London-based competitors in meeting visiting companies from overseas due to the lack of a physical office in London, in the 1990's we decided to start creating a series of travelling country desk teams. The idea was that these would be comprised of lawyers who had a personal connection with the relevant country – either having been born there or speaking the native language. They would simply fly over London and go to see clients, potential clients and other business contacts in their own cities, rather than waiting for people to visit London.

Our philosophy of putting our clients first by organising our lawyers along industry sector lines and visiting our clients in their home country was (and continues to be) very well received. The number of our travelling country desks has grown over the years to over 30. They range in size from a few lawyers for some of the smaller jurisdictions (e.g. Luxembourg) up to 130 lawyers who fly in and out of the US regularly.

As I'd been one of the first undergraduates on the University of Birmingham's pioneering LLB (Law with French) degree and, as part of that, had studied French law at the University of Limoges, I was asked to form a French Desk and to visit Paris regularly. After we recruited a group of Paris lawyers I had got to know to form our own Paris office, I travel less to France on business but for many years have also chaired our Baltic States, Netherlands and Nordic Desks and travel extensively in those countries. The vast majority of the clients for which I'm the client relationship partner are headquartered in those countries.

In 2014, Wragge & Co merged with one of the oldest law firms in London, Lawrence Graham (the "LG" in Gowling WLG) which was founded in 1730. In 2016, we combined with the Canadian law firm Gowling Lafleur Henderson and rebranded as Gowling WLG. Today the Gowling WLG family comprises over 3,000 people (including over 1,500 lawyers) across offices in 19 cities in nine countries – from Vancouver to Beijing.

By 2018, I was typically travelling in continental Europe every two weeks and found it increasingly difficult to juggle my M&A practice while travelling to see clients and other contacts. I therefore gave up my advisory practice and took on a newly-created umbrella role as our first Head of European Business Development. In that role, I'm responsible for coordinating the business development activities in Western & Northern Europe of our industry sector teams and practice groups. In the weeks when I'm not in continental Europe, I split my time between our Birmingham office and London (where I'm typically hosting visits from European clients and law firms, participating in events organised by various bilateral chambers of commerce and meeting with representatives of the trade & investment arms of various European embassies.

In March I was delighted to have been invited by BLS' International Committee and the Department for Trade & Industry to deliver a BLS Legal Masterclass at the Grand Hotel on how to develop an international client base from Birmingham. Over the years, as a firm we have collaborated with the local officers of DBT in many of the British Embassies and Consulates around the world in our international business development activities and have always found them to be a rich source of information. Since I arrived in the city to go to university in 1980 I've become a passionate advocate of Birmingham on my travels. I truly believe that, just as those great Birmingham industrialists of the past made our city the "workshop of the world", we can all as legal practitioners in Birmingham export legal advice to the world. In doing that, we should act in collaboration with BLS and DBT.

In terms of my top three tips for fellow BLS members who haven't yet ventured into overseas business development, these would be:

1. The lawyers who you chose to represent your law firm on visits to a particular country must have a personal connection with that country and be passionate about it.

2. Channel all your business development initiatives in a particular country through one or two lawyers. This will have the dual benefit that (a) your firm's knowledge about the market will be concentrated in those lawyers and become deeper more quickly and (b) those individuals will become familiar faces on the streets of the cities they visit and local business people will see that you are making a long-term commitment to their country.

3. Although the world is becoming a smaller place all the time, local business cultures still vary quite dramatically. A direct approach ("We would like to represent your company") may go down well in certain straight-talking countries - e.g. the US or The Netherlands – but not very well at all in others – e.g. Finland or Japan, where a more passive, listening approach is needed.