Mr Blacket reflected on how his first job opened him to a multidisciplinary way of thinking. He worked at the merchant bank JT Campbell, which functions as a government relations firm and law firm. There, he was first exposed to business outside the legal industry.

“For a 10-year period, I was exposed to business as much as I was to law, which probably was the impetus for the seat I’m in currently,” said Mr Blacket.

The second factor that stimulated his idea to create the business was a piece written in the Harvard Journal of Law & Technology in 2000, called Lawyers as Venture Capitalists: An economic analysis of law firms that invest in their clients.

The piece analysed the success of Californian professional services firm Cooley, which operated under a multidisciplinary business model. 

“It essentially examines that co-mentality, A: can it happen? B: within the parameters of conflicts? and C: how should it happen and who can win on both sides of the fence?

“It looks at the practical scenarios which arise, which is really what appealed to me first and foremost.

“As an example, some lawyers sitting in a room talking to a company that’s developing software and becoming so intimately aware of that business and how they operate, and then thereafter being aware that company itself might be raising capital — it’s just a left and right analysis, and how really a one-on-one can equal three scenario,” said Mr Blacket. 

The piece also explores the regulatory framework, from a mentality of “should this happen?”, as well as its perceived success as a business framework, noted Mr Blacket.

“I was exposed to how well that firm grew,” he said.

“Really upon completion of reading, I decided to do it.

“After a long process of DD validation, regulatory checks and balances, et cetera, we decided to essentially start, which was, to my knowledge, and I think it is still the case, the first model of its kind in this region.”

EMT operates in four sectors: entertainment, media, technology, and sport, and covers Australia, New Zealand, the Asia-Pacific region and North America. 

One arm of the company is a law firm, EMT Law. 

The second is EMT Advisory, which functions in two parts as a merger and acquisition firm and a firm that buys and sells deals, as well as talent buying (which structures commercial transactions involving financiers and international celebrities). 

The third arm is EMT Investments, where EMT invests directly into companies both clients and non-client companies — off balance sheet. 

The business reaches across different industries and is innovative and progressive. Mr Blacket’s entrepreneurial mindset, combined with an openness to risk-taking, has served him in the venture. 

“I learnt about the Cooley journey, studied the Harvard publication and some of the frameworks behind that, and that was all.

“I had a ‘this should work mentality’, but largely it was an entirely unknown path ahead,” said Mr Blacket. 

“It seems to be working.

“While we’re still a young company, the journey to date has been very strong. The appetite for clients to be advised through multiple lenses and for us to contribute financially has been strong.

“We’re on a pretty significant growth and capital path ahead.” 

Mr Blacket noted a key challenge for the operation of the business; there are many conflicts of interest areas that need careful management. 

“If the law firm was to say to a client, ‘you’ve got a great company, you should raise some money, and by the way, we’ll draft you the term sheet and structure the term sheet and we’ll put some money in.’ You can see just from that statement alone, there’d be a deep, deep conflict.

“There are many procedural steps you need to take to ensure that you’re only ever on your side and their side independently,” he said. “There’s a significant, robust framework to operate within.”

Mr Blacket gave insight into how they’ve been successful in forming the company: “I think the answer lies within the people that work in our firm.

“I would best describe it as, we’re multidimensional meets multidisciplinary.

“For example, Peter Davey, the CEO of EMT Partners, was an Australian lawyer who subsequently did his master’s of law at Columbia in New York and worked for a New York law firm.

“He then switched hats for a minute and worked in TMT sector investment banking, and then switched hats again, and worked in M&A for a listed company.

“If you use Peter as an example of someone that’s had a very diverse perspective in terms of how businesses and clients think, that would be an example of my recommendation to others.

“It’s not to put the legal pen down, if you will, but to the extent that you can either partially put it down and work in a different company where you get a different perspective.

“If you want to be an entrepreneurial participant in the law, it seems to me that you need to step out of the norm.”

Mr Blacket noted that his interest in the business has not faltered. “I’m as excited now as when I first started,” he said.