Legal Cheek Careers chats to Harry Bacon
“It was not a direct or classical route,” says Harry Bacon of a career that started in financing and now has him co-leading Slaughter and May‘s global sponsors group, “but it has been extremely exciting.” That career started in 2009, when Bacon joined the firm as a trainee, drawn by what he describes as “its reputation, the breadth of its practice, and the quality of its people”. Four seats followed, including three months of competition work in the firm’s Brussels office, before qualification into the financing group.
Slaughter and May’s trainees receive a broader training experience when compared to other firms, where often training can be focused on narrow areas of specialisation. This was true of Bacon’s career, from trainee to associate, where he covered “banking, capital markets, regulatory capital for financial institutions, and asset-backed transactions” during his stint in the financing practice.
The turn towards corporate work came through the clean-up of the 2008 financial crash. As a senior associate, Bacon acted for the government on high-profile deals returning nationalised businesses to private ownership, among them Bradford & Bingley and Northern Rock. Those transactions brought exposure to counterparties including Blackstone, and, in time, a six-month secondment into the investment giant’s legal group. “The role was initially envisaged as financing-heavy, but the bulk of the work turned out to be M&A,” Bacon recalls. “I really enjoyed my time at Blackstone; it was transformative.”
A promotion to partner came in 2019, within the firm’s Financing group, but with a practice tilting towards private equity. With the backing of colleagues in both groups, Bacon moved across to the firm’s corporate team, being appointed co-head of the private equity practice around six years ago (now renamed global sponsors group). “It shows the importance of chance in your career,” he says. “It was a case of being in the right place at the right time and making the most of it when an opportunity arose.”
Seventeen years at one firm is rare these days, although not at Slaughter and May where the majority of partners have spent their entire career at the firm. So, what has kept Bacon on Bunhill Row? Three things, apparently. First, “the sheer quality of the people we get to work with across every part of the business”. Second, the client base: “We act for more of the FTSE 250 and FTSE 100 than any other firm,” Bacon notes, with the happy consequence that “you are constantly seeing something you are working on in the pages of the FT“.
Third, and most distinctively, the culture. Collegiality is a word thrown around a lot in law firms, but Bacon argues that Slaughter and May’s structure provides the foundation for this to work. “Our structure underpins the firm’s collegiate and collaborative way of working.” Nobody, he adds, has hours or billings targets. “There is no self-promotion and no sharp elbows; it is about enjoying the work, supporting each other and doing the best for our clients.” Add to this the breadth of work (“we do not confine ourselves to narrow disciplines, nor do we confine ourselves by sectors”) and an entrepreneurial licence that Bacon reckons larger, more centrally managed international firms cannot match. “If you see an opportunity, you have a huge amount of support to explore it and build something.”
As for the PE market itself, Bacon’s verdict is brisk. “Private equity has become a lot more complicated, and that is the defining feature.” Sponsors are now “diversified asset managers” running strategies across real estate, infrastructure, energy, ESG and even digital infrastructure, meaning transactions are often more complex than they once were.
What has not changed is what makes a good private equity lawyer. Drive and energy come first, “because the deals are very fast-paced”. Then communication, “you need to speak their language, be concise, direct, and make sure you are answering their questions as quickly and in as few words as possible,” says Bacon.
Creativity matters just as much. “People come to you with an idea, and you have to take that idea and turn it into something executable or investable.” Technical precision is non-negotiable, and usually required at speed: “You have to know it well, get on with it, and do it fast.”
Finally, there’s the quality junior lawyers are least likely to see on a job spec. “It’s a challenging job, but that shouldn’t prevent you from having fun,” Bacon says. “Enjoy it and make friends along the way.”
On AI, the firm has partnered with Harvey, a move Bacon describes as “phenomenal” and “hugely exciting”. Rather than focusing on doing the same work in less time, “it is about empowering our lawyers to have more time for interesting and challenging things”. That shapes the training at Slaughters, too. “We are less focused on training people how to use AI and more interested in training them on how to think and integrate it into their thought process,” Bacon explains.
Which brings us to the future. New roles are already emerging, including legal engineers, and Bacon is adamant that AI is as much about creating new opportunities as it is about transforming existing roles. Better still, today’s aspiring lawyers start with an advantage. “The generation of lawyers entering the industry now are brilliantly placed because they have grown up with this technology,” Bacon says. “It will be a new, highly talented, and capable generation of lawyers, and that should be extremely exciting for anyone looking at a career in law.”
Harry Bacon will be speaking on the panel at ‘What does a world of difference look like? With Slaughter and May’, a virtual event taking place on Tuesday 15 September. Apply to attend.
