Before committing to being a lawyer, Mårten thought he would become a business leader. It was the aspect of being involved in impactful things and solving important problems on behalf of clients that got him hooked. A committed M&A practitioner, Mårten emphasizes that there’s no shortcut to great legal intuition; it’s about having the right experience, understanding the big picture of what’s going on in the world, and great collaboration. 

Mårten reflects on his journey from a law student making coffee to leading an international law firm. We discuss the importance of curiosity, quick decision-making, adapting to an evolving industry… and fetching the buns for the office on time.  

Let's start from the beginning. You're now the Managing Partner for Bird & Bird in Sweden, but how did it all begin?

I usually say that I've had two employers during my adult career. I've always been a lawyer or worked at law firms—you don't become a lawyer until you have certain experience. Anyway, I've worked at law firms and focused on M&A, which is my specialization. From the beginning, I've worked more or less with private equity firms and their investments and portfolio companies. So in that respect, I have a somewhat unexciting career path, but there have been some exciting things along the way. It all started as far back as 1994.

Was it obvious from the start that you'd go into M&A?

No, it probably developed when I joined a law firm. I wasn't very familiar with the legal profession from the beginning. It wasn't the same back then; we didn't have clear communication towards students like we do today. Now, it's almost as if you need to entice students as they come into the university lectures.

By offering buns and coffee?

Exactly—offering coffee and talking about ourselves. It wasn't like that at all in the '90s. The legal profession didn't have the right to market itself because it was considered unseemly to promote oneself. The associations there were with ambulance chasers who market themselves and slip a business card into your hand when someone's been in an accident. That's not what business law is about, but there was kind of a ban on marketing legal services. We weren't visible in society in the same way or towards students back then, and perhaps the best is if you'd never met another lawyer in your life.

It wasn't that I began my studies thinking, "Now I'm going to become a lawyer." I started studying law because I thought it was a good foundational education to have. I was going to become, as one thinks when one is young and naïve, a business leader. And then it's good to have a legal background because you have a solid foundation. I was also into economics, but started and never finished. That was in Finland, where I'm from.

But my career at a law firm really started when I heard that a friend who had been working at a law firm was going to quit. He worked as office help, or you might call it a messenger boy nowadays—buying buns, delivering envelopes, and going to deposit cash at the bank, as you did back then. I knew he was leaving, so I called the law firm Roschier-Holmberg & Waselius and said, "I'm the man you need—you'll need me." Back then, a partner was responsible for all functions at the firm. He cleared his throat and said, "We'll see; we have some different thoughts here and different strategies on how we'll do this going forward, but thanks, we can get back to you later." Then maybe one or two weeks later, he called back and said, "Well, it was just as you said—we need you." So that's how I started.

And how old were you then? Was this before you'd started studying law?

It was actually my first year, second semester as we'd say in Finnish—it was just when I'd started my studies. I jumped in to start working. It was good to get a foot in the door and earn some money to finance life. I started in the fall of 1994, and you could almost say that's the path I've been on. A lot has happened along the way—I've changed countries, and I've also changed firms. I started working, and of course, the idea was to work on legal tasks, but it was actually concretely about fetching buns on Fridays. If you forgot that, you could count on getting a reprimand. I recall an anecdote when I overslept for work (for once in my life). It was a Friday, and it was not fun when everyone was waiting for the Friday buns to be delivered from Fazer Konditori.

What was the moment when you shifted from thinking you'd become a business leader to feeling like it would be exciting to become a lawyer instead?

Well, it was probably when I came into the firm and saw what it was really about. I got quite close to various operations quickly, got to do a lot beyond the messenger job—helping out here and there, and maybe on a weekend jumping in when there was a larger arbitration that needed to be handled. Then you could maybe write up minutes or fix coffee. Back then, everything was much more manual, so there would be large amounts of paper when signing a larger transaction. I started to feel that this was quite exciting.

Leadership is fundamentally about organizing and leading people and getting people to do the right things in the right way. Not that I, as a law student, was directing and controlling anything, but you came in and worked in a team and solved issues. Many times, it's very much about project management, and I like that. That was what started to attract me—that you got to be part of big, exciting things happening in the market. You get to do big things for others.

You're really a fly on the wall in many rooms.

Exactly. That's what attracted me. Then at that firm, I slowly but surely got into transactional work and started working explicitly with the transactions group during the summer. I thought this was at least as exciting as being out in a company and working your way up the hierarchy. That's when I got hooked. I then got good feedback that I was doing well, which also fueled my interest.

Is there such a thing as legal intuition? How long has it taken to develop it, and how much of a natural aptitude for it can one have?

I think personality plays a big role, for better or worse. There are those who are real cowboys and don't need any intuition at all—they just go on their first feeling. And then there are those who, regardless of how much life experience or work experience or previous experience from similar situations they have, find it difficult to commit.

I think personality fundamentally works, but to develop the skill on both sides, you need a lot of experience. What can one say? I think you need to work probably eight to ten years to gain confidence in yourself, and then you need to work quite a lot with the same things, because you can't generalize everything—I can't jump into dispute resolution and think I can draw the same conclusions. I can't draw the same conclusions there as I can in an M&A transaction—which I've seen many of. So you have to have relevant experiences, for a number of years.

Bird & Bird is a truly international firm. What major challenges do you think European law faces right now?

I think a common denominator is the increased complexity and increased regulation that everyone has to relate to. That's probably the biggest challenge as such. It becomes incredibly more complex all the time, and one can say, "Well, that's good for lawyers because then people can't do anything without turning to a lawyer." Yes, and at the same time, it places significantly greater demands on lawyers to keep themselves updated and maintain their form and sharpness. You achieve that by making sure you stay updated and continue your education but also by continuously acquiring experience that you can benefit from in the future. That's one thing.

Then the other low-hanging fruit is that perhaps—and this might not be so much in the law but still—the whole technical and digital revolution. While everything becomes more complex, everything is also more accessible and more or less undergoing automation. It might not be the legal profession that is known for being at the forefront of digitalization if you look at the big picture and how society works, so we're at the beginning there. A challenge is to adapt the law and the entire legal profession to the surrounding world.

Is it the legal profession that must change and adapt itself, or is it rather society that must change, including politics and legislation?

I think it's a collaboration. It won't solve itself. We won't be able to go back to what the traditional lawyer thinks and appreciates, but at the same time, perhaps we can't move forward as quickly as we have done so far. It's a collaboration.

Are there any skills that you think a young lawyer needs in today’s world, that you as a young lawyer didn't need?

I think what's often very important, regardless of what you do, is a genuine curiosity and a willingness to be curious about "Where is this heading?" and "Why are they doing it this way? Why are they writing it this way?" That takes you a long way. 

Yes, exactly—the need for curiosity exists in all times.

Yes. You simply have to be curious about the whole thing. Only if you're curious and really enjoy what you do will you become good at it. You won't become good at something you're not curious about.

Do you feel that you still have the same curiosity as you had when you started?

Yes, it becomes a bit about other things, so to speak, but sure, the curiosity is there. It comes and goes, but absolutely. It's hard to keep going and do what you do if you don't have it.