The Hot 100 career quiz: Unbound GC Imran Bhatia

What’s your most vivid memory from being a trainee?

Probably receiving a hero’s welcome as a first seat trainee when returning with Nando’s for the team while we were working an all-nighter on a particularly painful transaction (which even more painfully, ultimately did not complete).

What is the thing in your professional career that has terrified you or taken you out of your comfort zone the most?

Moving in-house is a challenge in itself. But doing so to join a heavily design and brand led business that had grown very quickly, and internationally, off the back of people’s creativity – and had never had a lawyer before – definitely felt like a massive challenge, particularly as a 4 PQE, 30 year old.

The Day One Task was to win the trust of the team and convince them that you were there to support the growth of the business and their creativity, and not to be a fun sponge. Basically, that you were not going to be what they expected a lawyer to be.

As such, I needed to shift my mindset a bit, and look to find solutions to requests where my instinct might probably have been to say “no”. An early challenge was finding out that we had a few days to work out how to get two of our hotels approved (by local authorities, health and safety inspectors, insurers and a host of other stakeholders) to be able to give people tattoos.

Law School Me (and arguably, common sense) would likely have said that hotels are simply not a good place to give people tattoos.

What is the wisest thing anyone ever said to you (and who said it)?

In a work context, that everyone has a boss who they want to look good in front of, and if you can help someone (whether internally or externally) impress their boss, they will always appreciate it and will appreciate you. One of the very first partners I worked with as a trainee told me this, and it has always served as a good reminder to go the extra mile when doing your job and to pre-empt what help and support you can provide to your client beyond just answering the question they have asked you, by anticipating and offering answers to the questions that they might not have even thought of yet (but that their boss might ask them).

The same partner also told me to work on the basis that your client will be reading your email in between meetings on a phone screen (specifically, and showing my age, a Blackberry screen) and so to tailor the way you deliver your advice to keep it commercial, concise, relevant and to the points they absolutely need to know (so that they can impress their boss, see above).

Outside of work, I am currently reading The Daily Stoic, which has a page per day containing a quote from one of the great Stoic philosophers and a couple of paragraphs of discussion, so it is a roughly 30 seconds per day read. Stoicism sometimes gets a negative rep but I’m finding it a really powerful part of my daily routine to have a short reminder to focus on the matters within your control and to let go of things outside of your control.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to get to where you are/do the job you do?

Do not have preconceived notions or expectations of what might end up exciting or stimulating you. ‘Philadelphia’ was (and probably still is) my favourite movie of all time and I thought I was destined to be a litigator. I did corporate as my first seat because it was compulsory and I wanted to get it out of the way whilst I was at my ‘greenest’ and had least chance of impressing. Fast forward two years, and it was the team I wanted to qualify into and which set the basis for the career I have gone on to have.

Also, talk to people who are doing the interesting things that you think might interest you. People are generally open to help and to give advice, and lawyers especially like talking about themselves.

And finally, don’t take yourself too seriously. There’s no need, there are enough serious lawyers out there and if you want to integrate yourself into a business, don’t be what they are expecting a lawyer to be.

What’s your best friend from law school doing now?

I know A LOT of lawyers who are still lawyers. I’m not sure whether this is more a reflection on them or on me.