Dominic Hennessy portrait

Dominic joined the firm as a trainee and worked in our Dubai and London offices before leaving to pursue an in-house role at London Metal Exchange.

You joined us in January 2005, can you tell us about your decision to become a lawyer.

It is probably due to a combination of things. I grew up in a professional environment, but I knew I did not want to be an accountant like my dad. I value practicality, stability, and consistency, so the idea of studying a law degree and pursuing a linear progression into a law career felt almost vocational to me.

I was also interested in careers which could have an international dimension. I was born in Hong Kong, and I grew up overseas. My dad worked for HSBC and his role involved four-year rotations. We spent four years in Hong Kong, four in Saudi Arabia and another four back in Hong Kong before I was sent to boarding school in in Wiltshire. My childhood memories were less centred on England and more on the desert or Southeast Asia. Consequently, when I was looking at law firms to apply to, I was particularly interested in international firms with a view to having an international experience. 

Tell us a little about your time with us and some memorable moments.

My fourth trainee seat was in Dubai. I had already done banking, corporate and disputes seats but this was a corporate seat with Zubair Mir, and I loved it. At that time the Dubai office only had banking and corporate and construction/real estate practices. Zubair made an impact on me so I was torn between qualifying in Dubai, with Zubair and the team that I got along with, and pursuing disputes work which I enjoyed more but which was limited in terms of international opportunities. I had a very open conversation with Anthony Dutton who was the disputes practice head at the time and, fortunately for me, he offered me the opportunity to move out to Dubai permanently with Patrick Bourke and Andy Cooke to establish a disputes practice. The office continued to expand and, whilst I was there, Shane Wilson came in to do banking, Emma Pope for corporate and Katherine Lang on the property side, all people that I would became close with during that period.

As someone who spent a long time at the firm, I have different memories from different eras. I have one clear memory when, as a corporate trainee, I had been going to a data room for a number of weeks on a particular matter. One day Louise Dennison and I were in a taxi and, I was looking out the window seeing people standing outside their offices, thinking that a surprising number of people were having fire drills that day. When we arrived at the data room the front desk staff said they were really surprised to see us there today. I said I'm surprised that you are surprised as I've been here every day for the last few weeks! They had a news feed on in reception and it was the first time we saw news of the terrorist bombings. It sticks in my mind as a surreal day as some our intake had been on the affected tubes. Generally, though, it is the bonds that you build with your intake when you're thrown together, all feeling slightly uncertain.

After coming back to London, I still saw myself as being quite new and inexperienced, but I soon realised that I’d been around for some time and people were asking for my advice and guidance. Towards the end of my time at the firm I felt I had established myself as a senior disputes lawyer within my team and was actively involved in the employee engagement and apprenticeship processes, always striving to help develop people. When I left Norton Rose Fulbright that was one of the things that I was saddest about - moving away from having that kind of development and mentoring relationship with more junior lawyers.

You moved to the London Metal Exchange. How did that come about?

I decided to make the move in-house, but that decision came about gradually. Time catches up with you and you realise that you've been in the same place for a while. I probably left it late before I actively engaged with where I wanted to go with my career. In private practice it is easy to follow the established route to partnership but the closer I became to becoming a partner, the more I realised it wasn’t for me. However, while it may be easy to decide what you don't want it is more difficult to know what you do want.

I was fortunate that Deidre Walker had noticed a change in me and stepped in to offer guidance and coaching and it was through that process that I started to explore what I really wanted. I had done an in-house secondment on my return from Dubai which I had not really enjoyed but when I did some career matrix mapping, the thing that kept coming up was to explore in house roles, either using my litigation experience to build a head of litigation type role or diversify and position myself in the head of legal/general counsel direction. 

To move from a dye-in-wool commercial litigator to broad brush general counsel in one step is very difficult to accomplish or find opportunities for, but I was approached about the London Metal Exchange role and it was a great fit for a number of reasons. It was a completely new role, it would be strategic and I would be central in translating the litigation process to the LME management team and Board. It would also be a chance to be embedded within the organisation. I knew I had to learn about the world of exchanges and metals but that was interesting and I enjoy the real time engagement with the business right up to the CEO and the Chairman.

One of the biggest challenges has been, and I went into this with my eyes open, managing a matter that was effectively at a near-existential threat level for the company. That is pretty high pressure and, at one point after I’d been there for just a couple of weeks. I was  invited to join a zoom call at 3am to give an update on the litigation to the chairman of the parent company in Hong Kong, someone I'd never met before plus a whole suite of Hong Kong directors and executives. So whilst that was quite a daunting call, it ended up being hugely rewarding because it made me reappraise my sense of my own experience. Ultimately, people are fortunate working in a place like Norton Rose Fulbright because they are surrounded by people who are extremely capable and experienced – in contrast to once I’d moved to the LME where I was the only person in the entire organisation that had any experience of litigation. I knew that what I was doing was to be a big, exciting and engaging project and if I could do it well, it would be a tremendous foundation. 

My next challenge is moving from being a commercial litigator to a general commercial in house lawyer. I now have responsibility for the company secretarial part of the organisation, managing that team of six who are experts in their area. Next, I am taking on general commercial contracting work and taking on two more people. 

You recently attended our trainee intake reunion event, how was that?

It was a great evening. We had a good turn out and it was lovely to catch up with people and reconnect with those I hadn't seen for about 18 years. I was struck by just how many from our intake had stayed at Norton Rose Fulbright.

What do you do to relax when you are not working?

The one thing that I do regularly is rowing. I used to row at school. When we moved back to the UK and out to Guildford, the house we bought was directly opposite the Rowing Club, so I took it up again. That was over 10 years ago, and I enjoy it because it's exercise but with a good social aspect too. To relax, I enjoy things where you need to have your head completely in the moment. When I’m the rowing that’s all I'm thinking about, not least because I tend to sit at bow, which is the person responsible for steering.