By Claire Chaffey -
For husband-and-wife team Tim and Nicky Lester, launching global law firm Hogan Lovells in Australia is a timely, exciting and personal affair – and regional managing partner Patrick Sherrington couldn’t agree more. They speak to CLAIRE CHAFFEY.
Nicky and Tim Lester make a glamorous couple. Standing in Sydney’s Martin Place, peering towards where Hogan Lovells’ new office space will be, they ooze confidence, charm and clear-cut ambition. Nicky and Tim met as partners at Allens and, in 2011, created a deeper kind of partnership by marrying and merging their families of two and three children respectively.
Both are finance specialists and the opportunity to launch Hogan Lov.lls – which boasts offices in 45 countries and for which Tim was Hong Kong managing partner for four years until 2008 – was something they could not pass up.
According to the firm’s regional managing partner, Patrick Sherrington, who is based in Hong Kong and visits Australia regularly, the firm being a relative latecomer to Australia’s global law firm market has been a distinct advantage, as it has been able to observe other firms’ successes and failures.
“We have had plenty of opportunities to come here over the past five years and we have looked at all sorts of different modes of entering, but nothing seemed right for us until this opportunity arose,” he explains.
“But if you look at what others have done, certainly the anecdotal evidence would suggest that those firms that arrived in the thick of the economic boom over expanded and are having to lay people off.
