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Shadbolt leavers more than happy

Shabolt's decline and fall is a story of ambition. Shadbolts always had ambitions to be something, as it now turns out, it could never be and that is a serious city player. This goes right back to the very earliest days when the great Dick Shadbolt founded the firm. Almost as soon as the disputes practice was on its feet the firm diversified into corporate, employment, property and even, at one stage, aviation law. Later, offices were opended in Hong Kong, Athens, Paris, Romania and Tanzania. All this ambition brought mixed success. More recently the practice was driven into the areas of projects and infrastructure which required lateral hires and much investment, again with limited success. The lesson in all of this is not so much that a firm should stick to what it is good at (in Shadbolt's case construction disputes) nor is it even to beware ambition- the lesson is to examine critically what motives lie behind that ambition. If it is genuine desire to make profit then that is good, but if you are driven by a desire to prove something or to make a statement then that is perhaps not so good. We'll never really know what motivated the Shadbolt's partners but we I think we could make an educated guess.

29-Jan-2010

10:11 am