Here, a former GC, three firm heads, and a prominent litigation partner reflect on bad advice they’ve received over the course of their careers, and what they learnt to do instead to get ahead.
What constitutes good leadership in law will often depend on whom one asks. There are certain truisms, for sure – for example, “leaders are not born”; a good leader must do more than just manage; and in this financial year, “adaptive leadership” is paramount.
Being a good mentor is also inextricably linked to optimal leadership: for junior lawyers, the importance of mentorship can’t be overstated. Recently, a NSW Supreme Court judge stressed the need for leaders to not just mentor, but to actively sponsor those coming through the ranks.
While there are countless good and well-meaning leaders across the legal profession, there are also those whose wisdom has not resonated over time. Almost every lawyer will have a story of ill-thought-out advice being offered that gets told over drinks, or as a cautionary tale to others.
This said, even the receipt of bad advice for aspiring and existing leaders in law may inadvertently contain a nugget of guidance – at least, in terms of what not to do.
Appearing important and busy
Claire Bibby is a multiple award-winning former general counsel, who has worked at companies such as Brookfield Property Partners and Abacus Group. She now serves as a non-executive director for multiple organisations, including ASX-listed entities, and is a co-founder and director of Coaching Advocates.
She was once advised by a peer, she told Lawyers Weekly, that the way to impress her superiors was to “work longer hours than others, to never turn on my out of office, and to not tidy my desk before going home (for fear of any one or more of those giving off a vibe of not being important or super busy)”.
Instead, she said, “I was told to place a hot drink on my desk before leaving, and drape a jacket over the back of my chair, so that if anyone wandered near my desk, it would look like I was around and would be back soon.”
“I think my polka face at the time of receiving this ‘advice’, or more correctly, lack thereof, revealed in no uncertain terms to my colleague what I thought of his (unsolicited) advice,” Bibby said.
“Needless to say, I didn’t take it. Nor did I ever share a coffee with him after this.”
Avoiding the extremes
Nick Humphrey is the CEO and chairman of HPX Group, the parent company of BigLaw firm Hamilton Locke. He has also served as a partner at other major practices, including K&L Gates, Sparke Helmore, and Norton Rose Fulbright.
For him, the worst leadership advice is always at the extremes, including but not limited to: “Be vulnerable. Never show weakness. Be everyone’s friend. Keep your distance. Be tough. Be kind.”
“We’re drawn to absolutes because they sound decisive – but real leadership lives in the middle,” he said.
“Aristotle called it the ‘golden mean’: the balance point between excess and deficiency. Courage sits between recklessness and cowardice. Confidence between arrogance and insecurity. Compassion between indulgence and detachment.”
When Humphrey was a young partner, he said, he was told to always be tough, “that people wouldn’t respect me otherwise. It backfired.”
“Everything became a battle, people stopped opening up, and it felt like I didn’t trust them. I later learned the concept of praus – the Greek word for a war horse: power under control. Calm under pressure. That, to me, is real strength,” Humphrey said.
“I also learned that vulnerability works the same way. When I was promoted to practice group leader, I thought being open meant sharing everything. But oversharing only created uncertainty. When I learned to show vulnerability with purpose – admitting a mistake, asking for input, acknowledging what I didn’t know – it built trust rather than anxiety.”
Great leaders hold the tension of opposites, Humphrey surmised.
“They know when to lean in and when to pull back. The worst advice tells you to always do one thing. The best leaders know that always and never rarely belong in the same sentence as leadership.”
Always being ‘on’
Emma Covacevich is the chief executive partner of Clayton Utz, having commenced her career at the firm in 1999 as an articled clerk and then worked her way up.
She said that the worst advice she received early on in her career was a common corporate theme at the time: “to succeed, you need to be ‘on’ 24/7”.
“For years, that mindset was worn almost as a badge of honour in many industries, including law. In truth, it’s unsustainable and leads to burnout, not brilliance,” she said.
“Thankfully, our profession has evolved, and we recognise that lasting success depends on balance.”
The advice that Covacevich now shares with the teams at Clayton Utz is that “pressure makes diamonds”.
That doesn’t mean, she said, working oneself to the point of exhaustion; “it means embracing challenges that stretch you intellectually and push you to think differently”.
“The most rewarding growth comes from meaningful work, curiosity, and collaboration. True excellence is built over time, and success comes by knowing when to push hard and when to pause and recharge,” she said.
Inviting challenge
Jason Betts is a multiple award-winning litigator and is a partner and global co-head of class actions at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer.
For him, being told to ‘trust your instinct’ is advice that may sound like harmless or even good advice, but too often, it’s taken as needing to stick with one’s ideas, no matter what happens.
This, he said, is bad advice for any leader in law.
“The goal isn’t to be right – it’s to get the right answer. If you cling to your own view, you shut out better ideas and smarter solutions,” he said.
The best leaders, Betts said, invite challenge.
“Let your team tell you why you’re wrong and why their approach works better. That’s not weakness – it’s how you get the best result. Put ego aside and remember you don’t have a mortgage on every good idea,” he said.
“Instinct can start the conversation, but evidence and collaboration should finish it. When people feel safe to speak up, you make sharper decisions, build trust, and deliver better outcomes for clients.”
Leadership, Betts concluded, isn’t about proving you’re right: “it’s about creating the conditions for the right answer to emerge”.
Having multiple roles in life
Danielle Snell is the managing partner and co-founder of Elit Lawyers by McGirr & Snell – a firm she helped found while pregnant – and has since won the Managing Partner of the Year category at the Australian Law Awards.
In conversation with Lawyers Weekly, she shared bad advice she’d received both as a young lawyer and then as an aspiring firm owner.
Regarding the former, she was advised to only present the lawyer side of herself to clients: “You’re not really anyone else, you don’t have multiple other roles in your life”, she was told.
Now, as a leader, she said, “ I teach lawyers to be proud that they are also friends, parents, spouses”.
“Showing clients that you hold multiple roles in our life often draws us closer to clients because it’s more authentic and real,” she said.
On the latter, she recalled that prior to making the decision to open her own boutique litigation firm, she contacted as many law firm owners as she could to seek advice, and “most people (usually women) were so inspiring and told me to go for it”.
There were, however, two people who gave her what she deemed bad advice, which she “absolutely did not follow”.
She said: “A law firm leader told me not to start a law firm because it was too hard, and I would need to give up a lot in my personal life to achieve success. Another law firm leader told me not to start my own law firm because it would age me!”
Snell said that she always prefers to take a positive approach when others come to her seeking advice, and she tells them that “there are challenges as a leader, but the positives will outweigh them if you love what you do”.
“I remember earlier on in my career someone warned me [that] if I decided to have children, I couldn’t be in leadership. They said, ‘if you have two children, which would take five to six years over, and over this period, you need to accept it will just be counting time from a professional standpoint’,” she added.
“This just didn’t feel right to me, because I thought, why can’t I still tick off some goals and make some achievements as a leader in addition to having babies?”
Jerome Doraisamy is the managing editor of Lawyers Weekly and HR Leader. He is also the author of The Wellness Doctrines book series, an admitted solicitor in New South Wales, and a board director of the Minds Count Foundation.
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