Legal Village

It could be you...

Posted 28/09/2007 by Bill Knight

Judging the British Legal Awards brought it all back.

A bunch of eminent (well, senior, at least) lawyers meeting round a table in a semi-basement to decide who should win the awards for International Firm of the Year, M&A Team of the Year and so on. It was second nature to cast doubt on the views of the senior partners from the opposition and to agree respectfully with in-house counsel (the clients!). It took me 10 minutes or so to get the correct mindset – fearless independence, of course.

One or two entries for Young Solicitor of the Year reminded me of those papers I used to get when lawyers were up for partnership – the ‘estate agents particulars’ we used to call them. But as the lawyers say, ‘Truth will out, even in an affidavit’ and genuine merit shone through. I was sorry there was no entry for the young woman mentioned in an entry for another category who apparently carried on negotiating after being mugged at gun-point following an all-Sunday meeting.

The food and drink were excellent (but did not affect our judgment, of course). We were, I thought, surprisingly constructive for a bunch of lawyers. And so we should have been. The reach and international range of our profession was laid out before us – epic tales of work to make the world go round and although our judgments were reasonably swift, they were not easy.

If you don’t enter, you don’t win and firms that are proud of their achievements and their lawyers should enter. We looked for talent and hard work right across the profession - and we certainly found it.