That kind of continuity is rarer than it used to be. But for Richard, it’s about being at a firm that’s continually evolved over the last 25 years, and being able to have a career that thrives within it.

Structured thinking and human relationships

Richard didn’t arrive at law through a lightning-bolt moment. Like many, he describes “falling into it a little.” What pulled him in was the structure: the logic, the frameworks, the rules.

But the longer he stayed, a more rounded perspective emerged: “the work may be technical,” he says, “but the profession is deeply human. Even in corporate law, perhaps especially there, the most valuable part is the relationship. I absolutely loved being a corporate lawyer, because you get to talk to clients about their whole business.”

The advantage of deep roots

That curiosity about what makes organisations work, and why people make the decisions they do, shapes how Richard approaches leadership today. It is also something that has been strengthened by time. His long career at the firm brings a depth of institutional understanding that only comes from seeing a firm from the inside, across different roles and stages of growth.

Browne Jacobson is a diverse practice spanning multiple geographies and areas of law. Richard’s long view means he understands not only how those different parts connect, but also the culture that holds them together.

“Law firms talk a lot about culture,” he suggests. “But the difference is knowing what that word actually means in your organisation, how it shows up day-to-day, how it’s changed, and what should remain constant even as everything else evolves.”

Growth is cumulative

Across two decades of M&A, Richard saw plenty of headline moments: the big exits, the major wins, the transformational deals. But the lesson that stayed with him is that sustainable success is cumulative.

“The businesses that endure,” he says, “are the ones that stack up small wins. They make good decisions repeatedly. They keep advancing, incrementally, consistently, and that’s what becomes momentum.”

It’s a lesson that translates cleanly into leading a law firm in a period where lots of things are shifting at once. “The firms that will win are the ones who compound progress,” Richard says.

Social mobility

An area that stands out at Browne Jacobson is the progress it has made around diversity, equity, and inclusion for the law industry. In a business built entirely on people, the strength and breadth of talent directly shapes performance. Inclusion, in that sense, is one of the forces that drives success.

But the area where the firm has focused particularly hard is social mobility, and tackling it as a structural problem to be solved.

If you take work experience as an example. Browne Jacobson realised that much of the traditional pipeline was unintentionally closed. Work experience tended to go to children of partners or clients. “That may always be part of the ecosystem,” Richard acknowledges, “it can’t be the whole story though, not if you want to attract and retain talent from every background.”

But they soon realised that even if you offer work experience more broadly, many students can’t afford to take it.

“They may not have the wardrobe. They may not be able to travel. They may not be able to stay away from home. They may not be able to step out of paid work.”

So the firm turned work experience into something that was funded, designed to remove the real barriers, not just the obvious ones. The pandemic then forced experimentation with online programmes, which widened access further. Those blended models have continued, alongside outreach sessions targeted towards lower socioeconomic areas, with thousands of students joining.

Richard describes this as a moment where purpose and productivity genuinely coalesce: a “win-win” where doing the right thing also strengthens the firm.

And the results have been recognised, including Browne Jacobson being ranked number one in the Social Mobility Employers Index multiple times – a national list spanning multiple industries.

But Richard sees this work as part of a much broader conversation about opportunity in the profession, particularly as the nature of legal work itself is changing.

AI, training, and the new social mobility question

Junior legal careers is one area already shifting from multiple directions at once: The Solicitors Qualifying Examination (SQE) replacing the Legal Practice Course (LPC), hybrid working patterns changing how people learn, and AI beginning to reshape the texture of day-to-day work.

Richard sees real promise in AI as a leveller, but not in a simplistic way.

Tools can support people in how they communicate: vocabulary, structure, but without losing personality, in a profession where “polish” has often tracked with background. But he’s equally quick to recognize that digital fluency is not evenly distributed.

If AI becomes part of the expected baseline, then unequal access to technology, and unequal confidence using it, becomes a new barrier.

That’s why, for Browne Jacobson, the response has been investing in the underlying digital fluency that helps people succeed in an AI-enabled workplace. This gives people the capability to work alongside modern tools, responsibly and effectively.

What will actually differentiate firms

Richard’s take on differentiation is clear. He doesn’t believe the future belongs to whoever buys the shiniest product first, especially as tools become more widely available.

He sees three things that will separate firms over the next decade:

“First,” he says, “is enablement. Don’t just hand people an AI tool. Teach them how to use it, how to integrate it into their work, and what “good” looks like.”

“Second, is use cases. Value isn’t abstract. It’s built when firms design workflows that reflect their clients, their sectors, and the problems they’re solving. Tools like Legora create space to build solutions that suit real client needs, but only if teams are empowered to collaborate and experiment. People showing each other what they’ve tried. Sharing prompts, and comparing approaches. Turning individual experimentation into collective momentum.

“And third, are the old differentiators that still matter, and may matter even more as technology levels the field: judgement, empathy, commercial context, relationship-building, and the “joy of working together.”

“Clients don’t choose firms because of a tool. They choose firms because of trust. Technology should create more capacity for human work, the critical decisions, the strategic calls, the moments where experience and judgement are non-negotiable.”

Choosing technology partners with discipline

Like every firm, Browne Jacobson is being approached constantly, by providers of all kinds, not only in legal tech, all eager to present their “AI solution.” Richard’s answer to that overload is strategy and discernment.

“Know who you are. Know what you’re trying to achieve. Review it often, because the world changes quickly, but keep coming back to the same filter: does this take us towards what we’re trying to achieve?”

For Browne Jacobson, that strategy spans both the practice of law and the business of law. At least a third of the firm’s people are not lawyers, but their work is law-adjacent and essential to service delivery: marketing, people, procurement, operations, and more.

That’s part of why the firm pursued an enterprise licence for Legora, to create impact across the whole organisation wherever teams are working with contracts, risk, communication, and complex information.

A permanent fixture

When Richard describes the impact of Legora, he leads with the impact on quality.

“Yes, there are efficiencies. But the deeper shift is an extra layer of challenge and checking, a way to take work that would have been good and make it great, without necessarily increasing client cost. A more robust standard, delivered more consistently.”

Richard is no longer a practising lawyer, but he readily describes himself as “a bit of a nerd.” He’s a daily user of Legora, for communication, structuring thinking, and processing complexity.

“It’s permanently open on my desktop,” he says. “Habit breeds adoption. And habit is built when people feel the tool makes them better at their work.”

Curiosity as a leadership skill

Asked what advice he’d give a trainee joining Browne Jacobson today, someone who might one day lead the firm, Richard starts with curiosity.

“Be curious about clients and their businesses. Not just what they want, but why they want it. Then turn that curiosity inward: towards how the firm works, why it makes decisions, how technology fits, how people develop, how the business runs.”

“Don’t just take things at face value,” he says. “Ask why. That mindset creates builders, people who deliver solutions rather than tasks, and who can shape the systems around them.”

A legacy measured in impact

Richard points to a strategic pillar that has guided Browne Jacobson’s direction: being at the forefront of society’s biggest issues.

That includes social mobility. It includes helping clients through the technology revolution. It includes supporting green technologies and responding to climate change.

It’s a broad framing, but it’s also a useful one. Because it ties together the themes that run through Richard’s career: structured thinking, cumulative progress, systems that widen opportunity, and a belief that the legal profession can be both commercially excellent and socially consequential.

“If, in ten years, people look back and recognise that Browne Jacobson helped move those issues forward, inside the firm and beyond it, I’ll be delighted.”

And it’s hard not to believe him. Because the way he talks about leadership is deeply practical, and built the same way he believes sustainable success happens: one small win at a time.