Expertise and understanding key to century partnership  

Ask  MacDonnells Law director Luckbir Singh about the changes he has seen in his 26 years with the firm and he smiles, asking how much time he has to tell you.

“Even when I started, I remember the partners talking about the amount of change they had seen in their careers, moving from telex to facsimile to replacing type-writers with computers and the start of emails,” he laughs.

 “Every generation of lawyers has faced immense change, but we are now in an accelerated phase where that change is rapid and in ways that effect every part of the legal business.

“The impact is far reaching from staffing composition, strategic positioning of law firms, marketing funnels and how you deliver legal services to clients.

“Specialisation has increased and there has an increase in the number of firms, in particular one partner/director practices.

“On the other end of spectrum, there’s a lot more international law firms that have shaped the landscape for the last 15 years, and the mid-market law firm mergers that have occurred. 

“Basically, you can do law in more ways than ever before. Choose your own adventure, as you please.”

It’s exactly that changing landscape that makes MacDonnells Law’s 100-plus-year relationship with ANZ all the more remarkable.

Luckbir agrees saying the key to its longevity is continuity, understanding and expertise.

“We’ve have enjoyed long tenure with the ANZ managers we’ve dealt with,” he explains.

“Tim James, our current manager, we’ve been dealing with him for 20 years. So that continuity within the organisation makes a material difference.

“But it’s not just the one manager we’re dealing with, we’re dealing with other team members at ANZ with the same consistency, whether it’s our regional team, the team in Brisbane or the professional services team in Sydney.

“I think that’s one of the great things about ANZ, they’ve got different specialties and different team members that can add different value.”

Luckbir said ANZ invests time in understanding what the firm’s needs are.

“We treat them as a partner in our business, in the sense of sharing our long term plans on where the firm’s going,” he says.

“We sit down with them regularly, talk about our strategy and what we’re trying to do over the next two, three, four, five years.

“We have regular update presentations, every 6 months, not because we have to, but because we see value in ANZ understanding our firm deeply, equally so does ANZ. We get together and talk about how we’ve gone, this includes the wins and things we have tried that have not worked, how we respond and what the next period of time looks like.”

He said that while it’s important for a law firm to have great lawyers and great staff, it is imperative to have a great funding partner.

“And that’s where banks play an integral role and I think sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of that,” he explains.

“ANZ has a very strong offering in the professional services space.

“They truly understand cash flow lending in particular. That’s something they’ve had a lot of experience across different industries and apply with confidence to professional services, in particular law firms.

“They’re able to move quickly and do things quickly because they’ve got policies and facilities built around cashflow lending, which suits a firm like ours that’s trying to be nimble.”

Reflecting on the strength of their century-spanning partnership, Luckbir says other than expertise, it’s the ease of doing business.

“No matter whether it’s your bank, or any other commercial relationship, it needs to be easy,” he says. 

“We live in a world with more information than ever before and answers to our questions at our fingertips, but people are finding too many things are over complicated and hard.

“A successful trusted advisor is on the same wavelength, outcomes-orientated and removes complexity to make the experience easy.

“Just as MacDonnells is that for our clients, ANZ has been that for MacDonnells.”

Find out more and talk to an ANZ specialist.