Mallesons Stephen Jaques' top man, Robert Milliner, talks about how Asia and Australia are intertwined, and what the Asian markets can tell us.
It came as no surprise to much of the legal industry in 2004 that the firm chose to appoint you, a managing partner with significant international experience, as its new chief executive partner. But to what extent has your Hong Kong experience impacted your leadership of the firm?
I think wherever you are exposed to a different environment you develop as a person and professionally. I would say there would be three particular influences. Firstly, it was an opportunity to get a different perspective on Australia and our Australian business.
Secondly, it gave me the opportunity to see the regional opportunities, not just around Hong Kong and China but in Korea, Taiwan and other countries in Asia and also to see how other professional service firms, investment banks and competitor firms from the US and UK were operating in those markets and what that meant for some future trends.
Lastly, it was a great opportunity to work very closely with a group of people from a different culture set and to understand a little bit more about the intricacies of managing people. Leading a law firm is very much around the need to engage people. Doing that with a group from a different culture was very helpful and very instructive and I have tried to bring those perspectives to my current role.
How far does the Asian economy reflect our own in Australia and what, if anything, can it tell us?
The Australian market is a very mature, sophisticated market, while Asian economies in some cases are very much emerging markets, with many of their laws and regulations still being developed. Also, growth rates in countries such as China and India are the highest in the world so they are going through significant change with the type of opportunities normally associated with such a rapid rate of change.
By contrast, a lot of Australian growth is being driven around a combination of the resources industry and related service industries, with less emphasis on manufacturing and industrial development. The type of work we tend to do in Australia is a function of these characteristics and the competition between firms here is a reflection of that.
The work we do in Hong Kong is much more regional. It covers India, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Taiwan and Korea as well China. When you go specifically to the China market you have a huge amount of activity but the legal products are still developing and evolving as the market becomes more sophisticated.
Is there any more room for Australian law firms in Hong Kong and the rest of Asia?
It's a highly competitive market but there's going to be room for providers of high-quality services if they're prepared to make long-term commitments to build a client base, to find the market niches in which they can excel. But you can't be there one day and not there the next. You can't fly in and fly out, you have to be on the ground.
I also think you have to build a mixture of local and offshore clients. That's really been one of the key factors for Mallesons - that over the last few years we've developed a very strong local and institutional client base, particularly around the financial services and the equity and capital markets, which complements our traditional strengths in construction and disputes resolution.
When you've got a track record of deal success in the market across many jurisdictions, there are opportunities for you. As clients go overseas and become global operators, they will have similar expectations of their law firms, which is what Mallesons is focused on delivering.
Mid last year you suggested that the traditional partnership model for law firms may be under threat. What is your view of this now and why?
Not necessarily under threat, but that new models may occur. We're seeing a number of the UK models adopt the LLP structure because that gives them some liability advantages similar to the US firms. You've seen Slater & Gordon incorporate here. There's been a lot of talk in Australia amongst large law firms about incorporation and that dialogue will continue.
Having said that, the basic partnership model of law firms has been around for a long time. Whether it will fundamentally change a lot, and how quickly, is another thing.
I think that more important than some of the structural changes are the sort of cultural changes taking place in law firms, driven by changing client needs, globalisation, generational change and aspirations of people, staying relevant to people and competitive markets for talent. I think those drivers will mean that law firms, at least in the way that they operate internally and their cultures, will need to be quite different over time.
What is next for Mallesons Stephen Jaques?
We take a very deep interest in what's happening globally. I think we see that globalisation is here to stay and that you need to look at the combination of the realities of the Australian marketplace in terms of its size to the rest of the world, its rate of growth and the ability to continue to grow in Australia versus the ability to grow in markets outside Australia. This requires us to understand and provide opportunities for our people to continue with their client relationships, do really interesting work and do what they came to a firm like Mallesons to do - to be at the forefront of cutting edge legal work with great people.
So from our point of view I think we've been pretty clear that we do have an outward focus, that we're looking to expand in Asia. We opened our Shanghai office earlier this year, we've expanded the Beijing office and we'll continue to expand. We also see a lot of synergy between what we're doing in Asia and our London practice, and so we will continue to leverage our English law capability.
