A conversation with
Tim Parkes

HK: Of course, the other real advantage for you at Herbert Smith was it having such an amazing litigation reputation. You must have got the best cases and worked with interesting clients.

TP: We certainly got more than our fair share of the most difficult cases – and we were always conscious that we were inheriting a terrific reputation which we could be a part of, both continuing it and hopefully making it even better. By the time I left, there were many good firms doing high-end commercial litigation in London, but when I started many of the big City firms wouldn’t really touch litigation or, if they did, litigation would be handled by clerks and junior solicitors, not by partners.

The other aspect of litigation that I really enjoyed was access to the senior people at clients, from the CEO down. As a young lawyer you could find yourself talking with people who were very eminent in their own fields but unfamiliar with the litigation process and the world in which it operates. You had to communicate clearly but also in a way that was enlightening without sounding patronising. It was an educational process, helping clients reach decisions on a properly informed basis. 

HK: How did the opportunity to work in the Hong Kong office present itself?

TP: I had become a partner in 1987 and always wanted to work abroad. I asked if I might go to either our New York or Paris offices but instead was offered a chance to go to Hong Kong. So, in June 1989 Wendy and I went out for a recce. 

HK: That was an interesting time. I was also there then, having moved to Hong Kong from Beijing after Tiananmen.

TP: It certainly was. We were much taken with the place on first impressions, moving there in March 1990 with one child and another on the way. It was like going on a huge adventure. I took over from one of the litigation partners, the wonderful Robert Neill, who was returning to the UK.

HK: Hong Kong was also a logical choice for an “overseas posting” because the legal system was very close to the England and Wales one. Did you have to qualify as a Hong Kong solicitor?

TP: Well, in those days you got automatic admission on the basis of your English qualification. So, I was duly admitted as a Hong Kong solicitor but it required little more than a short attendance (suitably gowned-up) before a High Court judge in Hong Kong.

HK: Who did you act for?

TP: This was the early 1990s and pre-globalisation, if I can put it that way. We did act for some international clients in Hong Kong, but our litigation clients were mainly local corporates and businesspeople involved in local disputes. It was challenging because not all disputed contracts were in writing or, if they were, clear in their intention. I was in Hong Kong first time round for five years, returning in 1995, but went back in late 2001 as Asia managing partner, for another four years or so.

HK: When people return from offices outside London, sometimes they find that they have to start again building their practice from scratch. Although law firms say they are one firm, and that therefore the returning lawyer or partner will be accommodated, that is not always the case. Did that happen to you?

TP: I was lucky the first time I returned from Hong Kong, because I returned to the same group that I had left. David Natali immediately handed over a bunch of cases which got me going straightaway, and then I had a great piece of good fortune. The firm was instructed by the Singapore office of the accountants Cooper & Lybrand (pre-PwC days) to advise on the ramifications of the Barings Bank collapse in 1995 – they had audited Barings’ Singapore branch where Nick Leeson worked – and I led the team in a big and complex auditors’ negligence case. So, coming back to London then was not difficult from a professional point of view.

HK: Was that also the case when you returned after your second spell in Hong Kong in 2005?

TP: No, it wasn’t. Things had moved on in London and it took me about two years to rebuild my practice. It was not a comfortable feeling during that time, knowing that you were not contributing at the level you felt you should be. Later, especially when I was on the Partnership Council, I used to bang the drum about the need for us to be better at reintegrating those coming back to London, being more proactive about it, and I think the firm now does this much better than before.

HK: That said, coming back in 2005 could be seen to be good timing, since you were on site for the global financial crisis, which presumably created a huge demand for dispute resolution lawyers.

TP: I remember vividly after I got back talking to people, reading reports and generally picking up the sense that there was going to be a big problem in the financial markets. I read a Banque de France report which said the problem lay with the exponential growth of assets under management in hedge funds and all the risks inherent in that. And that’s where many people expected a crash of some sort. But it turned out to be a problem with the banks and the severe contraction of liquidity in the global financial markets that originated in the US, driven by sub-prime lending and the US housing market. That’s really what gave rise to the crisis and introduced commercial litigators like me to the weird and wonderful world of credit derivatives! So, yes, lots of work stemmed from that, which for me included work deriving from the problems facing some of the UK’s biggest banks.

HK: At some point, you also became head of London Disputes, including Litigation.

TP: Yes, but so far as I was concerned, it only needed light touch management, because the practice was so full of first-rate partners with excellent client relationships and great young associates in their teams. The main challenge was to maintain and grow our reputation in a world where there was much more competition for work than there had been historically. And a big issue in doing that was to help get people out of their silos and to create a more integrated firm, between different parts of the firm and even within Disputes itself.