Peter Bobbin is one of only a handful of law firm leaders who must answer to shareholders. As the managing principal of Argyle Lawyers tells Angela Priestley, to be successful he must stand by his mantra that lawyers make terrible managers.

Sure, it's not the 'tour the world competing in global events' kind of sponsorship, but his recent trip raised plenty of money for charity through a number of financial-related sponsors and according to Bobbin, that still counts.

But long before he ever donned lycra, and even walked into his office at Argyle Lawyers in Sydney, Bobbin was an accountant. It's a past life which grants him the ability to find common ground across two very different groups of business people. "I can translate legalese to accountants and accountanese to lawyers," says Bobbin.

Still, while practicing as an accountant, Bobbin always knew that he wanted to be lawyer. In 1987, Bobbin joined Argyle Lawyers. By 1988, he was a solicitor with the firm and later, in 1994, he stepped up to the role of managing partner. For a number of years the firm ticked along smoothly under his leadership until 2008, when the ASX-listed Integrated Legal Holdings (ILH) offered to purchase the firm, alongside a second firm Talbot Olivier, under ILH's "tuck in" model.

Bobbin wasn't immediately convinced by the idea of the acquisition. But later, when ILH appointed managing director Graeme Fowler, Bobbin quickly changed his mind. He says that given Fowler's previous experience with accounting firm WHK he felt confident that the firm would be in good hands. In November 2008, Argyle was officially "tucked in" under the banner of ILH.

Bobbin says he always looks for competency in management and he believes he knows a good manager when he sees one - as he did in Fowler. He's also adamant that lawyers, for the most part, make terrible managers.

As such, although he's the managing principal of his firm he's keen to stick to the legal business and rely on competent professional managers to look after everything else.

"I hold the view that lawyers are trained to be lawyers," says Bobbin. "It's the law that they love and gee, it's sad to have to work out how many pens one should buy and whether the writing pads should be pink or yellow, because it's a waste of a skills set."

When recently hiring a new practice director for the firm, Bobbin stuck with his mantra. He hired Janice Duncan, formerly of Flight Centre, where she personally managed 17 teams across NSW.

Now, as part of a listed entity, Bobbin's prior experience as an accountant is used to assist with the smooth operations of the firm and to help it comply with ASX reporting requirements. Although Bobbin says the day-to-day running of the firm has barely changed since the ILH purchase, he does note a renewed sense of transparency, while also relishing the opportunity to be part of a larger entity. ILH carries around 70 lawyers in total, and each of its firms can share best practice advice and secondment opportunities.

Then there's the fact that equity is now tangible. "The nature of the equity is real," says Bobbin. "After growth periods, you can sell if for cash and still be a principal."

Bobbin's other key mantra is to run a tight ship. His firm still retains a ratio of just two lawyers to every one principal which he says offers clients a better return on investment. "We're a specialist services firm as opposed to a sausage factory or a turnover business," says Bobbin.

When questioned if this means clients run the risk of paying more for Argyle's legal services, given there are fewer junior staff to handle simple matters, Bobbin is adamant that the competence of senior lawyers can step in to avoid clients wasting billable hours on inexperience.

"The philosophy I've always held and others support is that if you answer the client's question over the phone, then we'll just do it, without cost," says Bobbin. "I've been around long enough in the area that I work in that I can actually answer a lot of simple questions over the phone. That's really about client referral relationships and maintaining them."

Bobbin compares the price of his personal services - which is around $800 an hour - to what it would cost a lawyer who might need to spend two hours answering the same question that Bobbin says he can answer for free. That, he says, is about building client relationships.

Such relationships also play into his role as director of Future2, a foundation of financial services professionals, which raises money for community organisations offering a better chance to disadvantaged Australians.

As a long-time cyclist, when Bobbin was approached by a couple of cycling and fellow financial services friends, Roger Simionato and Ray Griffin, to ride from Bourke to Sydney via Nowra and raise some money for Future2 in the process, he jumped at the opportunity.

The problem was, Bobbin may have been cycling for 12 years, but the kilometres he spins on a daily basis usually only include his commute to work, which is around 12 kilometres. This particular trip would amount to 1250 kilometres in total, regularly covering more than 100 kilometres a day.

"I was surprised I made it and that I survived it," he says.

Bobbin completed the trip by clocking up 44 cycling hours and raising $85,000 for Future2 in the process.

And, just to ensure that the ride also carried a legal purpose and that Bobbin could pick up some extra support along the way, Bobbin also broke from the trip in a number of towns to deliver legal seminars - once again bringing accountants and lawyers together in the process.