Q&A: Sue Gilchrist – "We are collaborating with clients with the aim of making our firm indispensable"

In our latest Q&A, Herbert Smith Freehills joint Regional Managing Partner, Asia and Australia, Sue Gilchrist, discusses the challenges of juggling her leadership and IP practice roles; what the firm is doing on the diversity front; and how firms can stay relevant in a changing market.

You have been in the managing partner role since late last year. How is it going?

“I give different answers to different people, depending on the day! The first eight months have been incredibly busy, but I am really enjoying the role.”

Given that you are also still running your IP disputes practice, how do you stay on top of both roles?  

“It is challenging, but I am finding the skillsets that I have built up during previous roles, including head of IP, are quite applicable to the new role, which is useful. I am used to a large volume of work, competing demands and working with different team members. Many of our IP matters are urgent and being able to get on top of complex material and having to make decisions quickly is a very useful skill in the new role. At Herbert Smith Freehills, we have a fantastic team in the IP group and they are all helping out. Keeping a foot in the practice camp helps the management role and, vice versa, the management role helps the client work. In some ways, I am in a similar position to clients who are managing a business, or general counsel who are managing a big team of lawyers.”

Do you have any advice for others in a similar position who are multi-tasking?

“One of the things I have been strict on is introducing additional systems into the management role and formalising support roles. You could potentially spend your entire day completing some of the day-to-day tasks, but you need to be focusing on and considering strategy and setting the direction of the firm. Efficient systems and processes help.”

Is it sustainable to maintain your management and IP roles?

“I haven’t really decided … I do love both roles. I think to a large extent it will be client driven, so if there are client situations where I need to be directly involved then it is pretty hard to say no. But more than likely the balance will progressively morph over time. I can’t imagine me ever officially saying, ‘Dear clients, please stop ringing me’.”

You share the Regional Managing Partner role with Justin D’Agostino and also sit on Herbert Smith Freehills’ global executive. Overall, what do you love about the job?

“I am a very collaborative person and now I have acquired this new network to constantly collaborate with – that is, at the global and local level, being all of my partners, plus the heads of HR, finance and business development and additional areas and groups. This is extremely beneficial, including in terms of developing my own leadership skills; I am getting to work with people across a whole range of areas of expertise.”

There has been great discussion in recent years about the changing nature of legal services and additional pressure on firms to meet clients’ needs. In your view, what is the key to firms succeeding in this environment?

“Talking about Australia first, it is definitely a shrinking overall market for legal services. There is more pressure on pricing and more expectation from clients that there is no time for backgrounding – if they have a need, it should be instantly met. One of the key ways Herbert Smith Freehills is dealing with this comes back to collaboration, which is one of our core values. In the past we have perhaps tended to look at collaboration in terms of our internal operations; between Australia and Asia, or Australia and London. But to me collaboration is a positive touchstone for how we engage with clients, too. The right mindset for the future will see us really working together with clients on their projects or their litigation. You are not just a service provider who they call when there is a problem; you are actually helping them work on their challenges more broadly.”

We understand that this extends, for example, to members of your business development team, rather than lawyers, helping clients run their in-house legal departments. Is that right?

“Yes, and in fact a recent example of that collaboration probably resulted in that legal department having less work internally of its own, and potentially less work to refer out. It was not about us getting more work – it was about finding ways to help the internal team add greater value to their business.

We also collaborate with clients around broad areas such as how to manage their own talent because they look to us as experts; and, again, that involves our internal HR people, not lawyers, assisting clients. Other issues include matters such as diversity and inclusion, and mental wellbeing. We are collaborating with clients with the aim of making our firm indispensable because we are an integral part of their business. This is an evolution from understanding a client’s business to effectively being part of it.”

In the discussion with clients, where does pricing fit in?

“We want to be proactive and flexible in the way we price work. Many of our clients just tell us to keep it simple and make it based on hourly rates, but it is important to be open to alternative pricing and potentially initiating different pricing models with clients and helping them understand the different options – because they may not know that they want something different if they do not understand the options.”

You have been a champion of greater diversity in law firms. How is the profession faring in this sense?

“Let’s tackle gender diversity first. Looking at the number of women lawyers who get to partnership, I still cannot fully understand why the percentage is so low. Then there are the more senior leadership positions in firms. Becoming a managing partner, you become part of a club in the sense that you go to various events where the other managing partners are there. It is pleasing to see quite a number of managing partners are women, although beyond the larger city firms the gender mix is still much more male dominated.”

What is making a difference?

“One thing is the higher profile that the gender diversity issue now has in law firms and in business more broadly. Having gender targets at firms – and being publicly open about those targets – has also made a difference. But we cannot just wait a certain amount of time and hope things will change.”

Why is it so important for law firms to better embrace female talent within the industry?

“It is all about capability. All of the big firms are good at bringing in top female talent and it is essentially about developing these women and then progressing them to partnership or other leadership positions. It is very well accepted now that there is this enormous talent pool of male and female lawyers, and if female lawyers are judged as high performing but then don’t continue on to those higher levels, you are obviously missing out on that portion of the talent pool and that has to impact the firm’s capability.”

What specifically is Herbert Smith Freehills doing?

“We are well recognised for having really good programs in place to focus on gender diversity. But one of the keys is all those little decisions that occur each day, like who do you take to a meeting, who do you put in a pitch, who do you involve in a project which may be a good profile-raising project. All of those decisions are made by individual partners around the firm, so one of the things we’ve been doing for quite a while is unconscious bias training. People need to guard against unconscious bias when they are putting together a legal panel for a tender, when they put someone up for senior associate, or when they put someone forward for our partner development opportunities. But I suspect there is still more to be done to make sure that we are all actually thinking about all those little decision points along the way.”

Herbert Smith Freehills is now working with OnRamp, an organisation which identifies experienced female lawyers who are seeking to return to private practice after an extended career break. Can you tell us more about that partnership?

“We are the first international firm to partner with OnRamp to introduce their fellowship program in Australia and the UK. It’s another avenue which allows us to access the untapped pool of female talent for roles within the firm. The point of the program is to replenish the pipeline at the mid and senior levels so that we have a better opportunity of creating gender equity at the top levels of leadership in our firm.

It’s early days; we’ve only just signed up. We are really only in the process of identifying women who might want to come in through that system. I think it’s also important symbolically for the women in our firm who may have had to step back a bit from their careers, whether it is working flexibly or opting out of some opportunities because they have primary childcare responsibility. They may now want to ramp things up. We will be looking at OnRamp as not just an opportunity for bringing women in, but to see what we can learn from the program to help our own women internally.”

Is there anything else happening on the diversity front?

“Herbert Smith Freehills and the profession more generally are working to make sure we are also looking at cultural diversity, and particularly lawyers with an Asian cultural background. We have an advantage in this respect because a lot of the issues and considerations around gender diversity will be applicable. We will also have even more of a focus on LGBTI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex) people and ensuring anyone who identifies as LGBTI feels completely comfortable at the firm. Mental health is also on the agenda because the legal profession is well known for having a high level of mental health challenges in what is often a stressful environment.”

Tell us about your leadership style?

“There is now more understanding of different leadership styles. The fashion of what people are looking for in a leader has changed. We are moving away from the stereotypical grey-haired male in a suit who has an authoritarian style, to someone who is more of a collaborative and inclusive leader. I try to be collaborative and inclusive. You have to be conscious of the fact that you are a leader and there must be an element of taking command of a situation, but most people in a law firm environment want to know you are just another one of the lawyers who has built a practice and that you are still working with all the other partners and staff as part of a big team. You have to show leadership, but it’s a collective. At the same time, it is not beneficial being completely consultative and collaborative and not being prepared to be the person to make a decision.”

What are the big challenges facing managing partners?

“One challenge is keeping your eye on the big picture and not getting swamped by all the daily things that need to be managed. In a law firm, the structure needs to be such that someone is making a whole lot of decisions, but part of that can be dealt with by having good systems and support, which I have. It really is about looking ahead and examining different aspects across the whole firm, and empowering others – what is happening on the people front, the finance and profitability front and, with HSF, keeping in mind the whole global matrix.”

Emails, meetings, partners, clients – how do you stay on top of it all on a day-to-day basis?

“I don’t think I have perfected it yet. I have a fabulous executive assistant, which is critical. There is a whole army of wonderful business services people who do things that most partners have no idea need to be done. That has been another enjoyable thing – meeting all the experts who are keeping the business side of things ticking over.”

Artificial intelligence, digital disruption and alternative service providers are seen as game-changers. How will this all play out?

“It definitely is a changing environment. We are already using ALT, our alternative legal services arm, through our Perth pop-up office and an office in Belfast. It is a business model of lawyers and paralegals who do the document-review work. The technology is very advanced, so that helps address clients who are demanding that certain types of work be done according to a different model. The business is expanding rapidly due to demand from clients – it’s a really good business story.

For Herbert Smith Freehills, we are going to be very well placed. The sort of work we are doing is that really core, trusted-advisor sort of work. High-level complex transactions and litigation are still going to need the human brain working on them, and teams of people with a range of experience, expertise and perspectives. It’s going to be a question of what sort of work can be carved away from people (who are a cost), and done in different ways. We also take the approach that we have to be up to date on the latest technology and using that and sharing the benefit of that greater efficiency with clients. I do not see huge risk for us in terms of no longer being relevant. The key for us is to continue to make sure we can use all the technology advances that make us more efficient and keep a close eye on how the market is moving. I am optimistic.”

For more details on Herbert Smith Freehills, visit www.herbertsmithfreehills.com.