About Me - Motive Legal

ABOUT

What I love to do

Mark Brandon

Current experience

I am managing director of Motive Legal Consulting, which I founded in May 2010.

I’d been a legal journalist and a legal recruiter in my previous lives – see below for more details – but I set up Motive to try to help answer what I saw as a number of profound questions facing the legal profession.

Since 2010 I’ve been privileged to work with a number of the top UK and US law firms on a wide range of issues from ‘grand strategy’ – what do we do now? – to more localised issues involving recruitment support and service design.

I’ve also coached managing partners, heads of department and COOs, and produced advisory papers on mergers, undertaken a feasibility study for the opening of an international office, and provided crisis management advice.

I’ve produced original research – into the success of lateral partner hiring in the London market – which gained international recognition, write regularly for The Lawyer magazine (among others), have spoken at a variety of conferences and authored ‘Lateral Partner Hiring and Integration for Law Firms’, a 40,000 word special report from Ark Publishing in 2010 (second edition 2013).

Previous careers

I was formerly a senior recruiter at niche legal recruitment consultancy First Counsel specialising in placing partners and teams into top US and UK firms in the City of London.

Prior to that, I spent ten years as a legal journalist and editor. Experience there included two years as editor of The Legal 500, editor of In-House Lawyer magazine, editor of Law Firms In Europe, series editor of the Insider’s Guide to Legal Services (editor of the Insider’s Guides to Commercial Property; Brands; Digital Media & E-Commerce; IT & Telecoms), editor of Legal Times (weekly publication), editor of Square Foot magazine and features editor of The Lawyer magazine.

Personal

I am privileged to live and work in Shoreditch, hub of London’s ‘Tech City’ revolution, and a stone’s throw from most of the clients I work with, so am super-accessible to them if needed.

In what spare time I have, I walk the dog, lift big bits of metal up and down and write fiction and non-fiction – am currently ghost-writing an autobiography, and am an accredited movie reviewer for an animation website.

I’m also an avid gamer – tabletop RPGs, board games and strategy games for the iPad – and I love music; I used to DJ, and had a monthly residency at a London dance club for eight years.

“Whatever resources you may have in-house, it’s always good to get an external perspective and particularly from someone with Mark’s broad business and sector experience . In our case Mark was able to help us by using his extensive network of contacts to gain unique market insights into a project of commercial significance, and thereby develop a range of fact or knowledge-backed alternatives for us to consider in assessing how best to achieve the goals for our project.”

Group head, Top 10 international law firm

“Mark Brandon is a rare beast indeed. Not only is his knowledge, intelligence, insight and memory second to none, he is honest, transparent, courageous and quite unique within his sector. Mark provides a specialist consultancy service, has a wide periphery and his in-depth expertise of UK, US and International law firms is first class. He is of the highest integrity, doesn’t take himself too seriously and has a great sense of humour. Mark is his own man and will tell you the truth even if it costs him – he is the guy you want on your side.”

Head of HR, AmLaw100 law firm

“We have now worked with Mark on a number of projects; he has a great insight into the legal market and is willing to challenge preconceptions. Has provided us with some really valuable advice. He is now our go to person for all strategic projects”

Group head, Top 20 international law firm

“I have worked with Mark as both a recruitment expert and most recently a business consultant. Not only is Mark able to engage swiftly and with great insight, his market knowledge is evident in its depth and range. Mark is a name within the sector and for good reason. Mark has exceeded my expectations, working closely with me to shape and deliver an unorthodox and far reaching brief that is based in business needs and requires the expertise of a well rounded and commercially focused expert. I have no concerns in trusting Mark, giving him exposure to the business and our clients. A pleasure to work with and one of the few suppliers to the sector that I would heartily recommend!”

Recruitment manager, Top 20 National/International firm

“I’ve known Mark for some time as he did work for us in his First Counsel days. In more recent months though, we’ve been looking together at a couple of innovative and exciting and potentially disruptive service delivery models for the legal services market. Mark has impressed me greatly with his passion for what he does and his no nonsense advice. He tells it like it is and gets you thinking hard about why you’d want to do things a certain way, or even at all. I really value his perspective, which is built on a really good knowledge and understanding of the legal services market. If you’ve got some unusual ideas for service delivery, or if you need some, I’d strongly recommend you speak to Mark.”

Executive partner, Top 50 firm

“Mark is someone that I trust. He has the ability to get to the heart of an issue and then apply his skills in resolving the problem. He has the ability not only to shape the thinking of his clients, but to say “no”, an ability that most consultants never gained. When I want an honest opinion, or a solution to an intractable problem, I will call Mark.”