The long lunch isn’t dead – it’s evolving

In the same episode, he painted a vivid picture of how boutique firm owners can quickly become overwhelmed, stalling their firm’s growth when they attempt to chase too many ideas and revenue streams at once.

Reflecting on his early years in law, d’Apice recalled how the long lunch was once a distinctly “alcohol-inflected business development tool”, where hours were spent over red wine and steak, building relationships and quietly fostering future referrals from well-connected clients.

“When I was coming up, you’d use your long lunch to sit down and pretty much fill an old white guy or a bunch of old white guys with sort of rusty red wine and steak,” he said.

“You’d sit there for two and a half hours, three hours, and agree that it was all very nice that rich old white guys sometimes referred work out to law firms, and hopefully the next time the particular rich old white guys you’re having lunch with are referring work out, they’ll think of you.”

“So it’s very much an alcohol-inflected business development tool.”

However, d’Apice shared that the perception has shifted in recent years, with the long lunch losing some of its prominence as legal professionals embrace more diverse and modern approaches to business development.

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“Now, I’ve got nothing against alcohol or business development tools or anything of that kind, or steak. I certainly have nothing against steak apart from my taste buds,” he said.

“But I think there’s been a sort of perception that the long lunch has kind of faded away in relevance to a more contemporary view on how to do business development.”

Despite this, d’Apice emphasised that long lunches still play an important role in the legal profession, encouraging others to embrace them in a more nuanced and intentional way as a versatile tool in their professional arsenal.

“Now, I use long lunches a lot, and I use them in two separate ways … and it’s something that I’d invite everyone to have in their arsenal for a couple of reasons,” he said.

Rather than functioning as a purely transactional tool, he outlined two distinct ways he uses long lunches in his practice.

d’Apice shared that the first approach centres on intimate, extended catch-ups with referrers, mentors and close professional contacts – a deliberate opportunity to move beyond transactional exchanges and build deeper, more meaningful professional relationships.

“I use it in one of two ways. One is to catch up in a pretty one-on-one situation with a person who may well be a referrer or may well be a mentor, or may well be one of those two kinds of things who sort of evolved into a warm friendship,” he said.

“It’ll kind of be a way to maintain warm and deep professional relationships in a circumstance where you’re also able to set the time aside to understand the business they might be engaged in, or to understand the challenges they’re seeing in the marketplace, or to understand what their family’s up to or what their sports team is.

“It’s an opportunity to have deep, resonant kind of community-building relationships on that kind of one-on-one or one-on-two or one-on-three sort of basis.”

The second use of long lunches, d’Apice explained, is more experimental – small group gatherings that bring together a mix of professionals in a relaxed, unstructured setting, creating space for relationships to develop organically.

“The other that … if my dim memory of how these classical terms work goes, let’s try to get eight, 10, 12, 14 people in a room eating nice food together at a nice restaurant and just sort of see what happens. There’s no sort of transactional element to it,” he said.

“I’m not sitting here saying now, ‘I’ve sat you next to Julie, she’s an accountant who does a lot of work with such and such and I think you guys would really hit it off about X.’ I may well hold that view, but I’m less likely to write down name tags and make sure you two are sitting next to each other.

“It’ll more be a case of trying to be as hospitable as possible.”