Having already had a distinguished career in the law for many years, John Weber found his true calling in big-business management when he was appointed chief executive partner of Minter Ellison. He talks to Andrew Jennings about travelling, the bigger picture and the possibility of a global link-up.

IT’S hardly surprising the phrase “as pretty as an airport terminal” has yet to find a place in the English language. 

For John Weber, chief executive partner of Minter Ellison, the airport terminal departure lounge has become something of a second home, a place where marvellous words such as “baggage claim check”, “priority boarding” and “hot moist towel” have become very familiar to him.    

“I travel an awful lot ... that in itself is a challenge,” says Weber. “With the amount of travelling I do, I’m thankful Qantas is a good client of the firm.”

Evidently it’s not the hypnotic hum of the baggage carousel that keeps Weber in the air, but the travel he deems necessary to do business across Minters’ ever-expanding empire.

“The spread of the firm is now very significant,” he says. “Our integrated business is spread across all the major cities in Australia, all the way to Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing, London and Ulaanbaatar in Mongolia, where we opened an office earlier this year.

“Just the machinery of getting to the various offices is quite a challenge.”

With travel commitments that would make Captain Cook sweat, Weber has turned time management into an art form.

“As chief executive there is extraordinary time pressures constantly upon you … my diary is always full. The challenge is to focus on getting time to work on the things that will make the big difference,” he says.

Thinking big

In order to properly understand the “big picture”, Weber has mentally conditioned himself so that he doesn’t get obsessed with the finer, more minor, details of the Minters machine.  

“I’m required to think deeply about the challenges of the business and how it can be directed to make progress in the future; to think about the strategy of the firm going forward rather than getting bogged down in the morass of the day-to-day details.

“If one chooses to do so, you can be consumed, overwhelmed, covered completely by the machinery and daily grind of a law firm.”

Growing up the third of five boys – and with his two older brothers studying law before him – the arc of Weber’s own career owes plenty to the academic path tread by his elder siblings.

“There’s no doubt my older brothers influenced my decision to study law. There was a clear expectation in my family that we’d all go on to study at university,” says Weber, who now has three sons of his own.

After graduating with a law degree from Australian National University in 1986, Weber started practicing as a commercial litigator the following year at Sly & Russell in Canberra, the firm that later became Deacons and, more recently, Norton Rose.

In 1994, Weber succumbed to wanderlust when he accepted an offer to work as a litigator at William Fry Solicitors in Dublin.

“I worked in the insolvency group,” he says, “where we did some fantastically interesting work. It was a rather dynamic time in [the] Irish economy, which was running pretty hot back then.”

Weber eventually moved back to Australia and was made partner at Deacons in Canberra. In early 2000, Weber, along with the other partners at Deacons, moved the entire firm to Minter Ellison.

Weber was made managing partner at Minters’ Canberra office in 2003, performing the role with distinction until 2008, during which time he also headed the national government practice for three years.

It was during that period that he discovered a genuine zeal for the complexities of big-business management.

“Over time my interest in how I could contribute to the firm, and my own personal interest, really became the management of the firm,” says Weber.

“I went onto a committee of management partners that drives the whole enterprise, so I had a very clear view of the way the whole of the firm operated across all of its offices. Law firms of Minters’ size are big, complex businesses. I took a great interest in the machinery, strategy and operation of the business.”

Weber’s flair for management was rewarded when was appointed chief executive of the firm in January 2009. The top job at Minters appeared to come at the most inopportune time for Weber given that the world economy was shuddering following the cataclysmic impact of the GFC.

“It was a rather challenging period to take over the running of a big law firm,” says Weber. “Day one in the job was really the start of the market correction, by March all of the big law firms were starting to realise the profound effect the GFC was going to have.”

In response to the GFC, Weber got to work implementing measures to contain the firm’s expenditure and refocus toward its existing revenue streams.

“The firm was well organised and focused on counter-cyclical strong practices, so during the good times we had maintained a very significant tier-one insolvency capability ... all of a sudden those lawyers were in acute demand,” says Weber.

“Minters travelled well through the GFC because of the nature of our practice and strategy we took. The firm actually grew its revenues and profitability year-on-year.”

Smells like team spirit

One of the major changes Weber has introduced is a strategy known as ‘One Firm’. The strategy, he says, drives the whole organisation in a very integrated way, so everybody works to the maximum extent possible across all borders and internal boundaries within the firm.

“The operating divisions of the firm are very closely interlinked,” says Weber. “We have a very significant flow of people from various offices working with each other. The idea is to bring the best and brightest together for the benefit of a client, regardless of where they are, so that the client gets the best team.”

Weber has also overseen the lengthening of Minters regional reach in the past two-and-a-half years, spearheading the opening of new integrated offices in Perth, Beijing and Ulaanbaatar.

“We’ve been significantly focused on growing our energy and resources practice and growing our corporate practice,” says Weber, “also our inbound work with foreign direct investment out of China and into Australia.”

Last September, Minters suffered the mass defection of 14 of the firm’s partners at the Perth office to global firm Squire Sanders. Weber says that the subsequent integration of the Perth office to the Minters’ national network was not a knee-jerk reaction to the loss of so many partners at one time.

“The notion that it took the departure of people to do something is a misnomer. We ordained that we were going to run the Perth operation in a certain way and the people who decided not to partake in that left. It wasn’t their departure that forced us to act; it was us acting that caused their departure,” he says.

Going global?

Despite being open to the prospect of a global merger, Weber says that he’s content with Minters’ current direction and is in no rush to follow its top-tier rivals, Blake Dawson, Mallesons Stephen Jaques and Allens Arthur Robinson, in linking up with a global firm.

“We have had any number of approaches from firms in the UK, the States and some other countries seeking interest,” he says.

“We examine all of these things very closely, but to date we haven’t had a merger proposal that we thought would be beneficial for us and our clients. If one was to come down the path that we think ticks those boxes, we will do it.

“We don’t feel pressure to make a move. The firm is at a point in time where it’s running profitably and is strategically well focused, so perhaps we haven’t had some of the drivers other firms have had to do it.”

Weber believes the issue of depression within all arms of the law profession is a real problem and he is endeavouring to tackle the issue at Minters.

“Everybody at the firm works incredibly hard and we know it’s a performance environment. Having said that, we aim to create a very caring environment and try to alert people that depression is a problem and provide a way for people to seek help.

 “We have a helpline within the firm for people with any personal problems, where they can talk to a councillor and be directed to the right kind of medical help.”

Weber is also proud that the firm runs as a meritocracy, where gender is not the driver of how people are promoted. “So long as people have the merit and capability to do things, we will appoint the best person to do the job regardless of gender, ethnicity, or sexual preference,” says Weber.

“In fact, in the last three years we have promoted more women to partnership then men.

 “We’ve also had people who’ve been on parental leave appointed as partners when they’ve actually been on full-time leave”.

Although Weber’s three-year stint in the Minters hot-seat is due to come to an end in December, he admits he would be “interested” in reappointment for a second term if the firm asks him.

And if he does have to step down, what legacy would Weber like to leave?

“I want to see a firm that I can be proud is better for the period of time that I spent as chief executive. I want to see an organisation that is better integrated and operating to the fullest of its potential.”