In our latest Q&A with our recently appointed partners, we get to know Sydney-based general liability specialist, Patrick Thompson.

Tell us about your journey to becoming a partner at W+K.

I have endless admiration for those who’ve always known what they wanted to be, however my story is (I think) the more typical one: years of meandering and soul searching until finally everything clicked. In law school, I threw my hat in the ring for a summer clerkship at the big corporate firms and managed to snag one – not from any burning passion but because everyone else was doing it. It didn’t take long for corporate law to lose its shine, so I took a job in a government legal office. I could have been placed in any number of teams, and I sometimes wonder what I’d be doing now in a parallel life had I been placed into child protection, native title, admin law or criminal law. But life’s sorting hat placed me in the torts team and I took to it! It was more grounded than corporate, with a human story at the core of every case. There was scope to step up, even as a junior, and to run a little practice of my own. And I loved the thrill of getting into court and watching it all unfold.

From there it was easier – a transition back into private practice and getting stuck into the broader insurance world beyond government. Then years of refinement. I’ve had the privilege of working alongside many talented and wonderful people along the way, particularly here at W+K. It’s no accident that W+K was the place where it all came together for me and it’s a privilege to now be able to pay it back and help nurture the budding talent here.

What made you decide to become a lawyer?

I first did an arts degree majoring in history and was fixed on the idea of becoming a historian. Law was the plan B after realising I didn’t have the self-discipline to continue on with academia. It all worked out in the end; I’d have been a hopeless academic. Although, there is still a part of me that wants to understand and then explain everything.

What do you think is a major issue facing your area of insurance law?

I’m all for commerciality, but we’ve got to consider commerciality from a broad perspective. You can throw money at a weak case to settle and save litigation costs if looking at it myopically, but stepping back, what if that approach inspires more weak cases in the long run? Then we end up just lopping heads off a hydra and watching them regrow. There comes a time when the right move is to run a test case to bring some clarity to the law, or to take a principled position to discourage other claims. We need to be smarter about helping clients manage their claim portfolios holistically. And we need to stay close to the courts.

What’s the best piece of advice (work or personal) you’ve been given?

From my partner: shave your head. Beyond that, this from actor Mads Mikkelsen resonated with me recently:

“My approach to what I do in my job – and it might even be the approach to my life – is that everything I do is the most important thing I do. Whether it’s a play or the next film. It is the most important thing. That means I will be ambitious with my job and not with my career. That’s a very big difference, because if I’m ambitious with my career, everything I do now is just stepping-stones leading to something – a goal I might never reach, and so everything will be disappointing. But if I make everything important, then eventually it will become a career. Big or small, we don’t know. But at least everything was important.”

I like it. Make everything important.

What do you enjoy most about working at W+K?

It’s the people. Not a unique answer as it has come up in many of the past Q&As. The talent of my colleagues at all levels is undeniable. Equally important – they’re just a great bunch of people to work with. This didn’t just drop into our lap – it’s part of a concerted effort by management to drive a ‘people first’ culture, and I think that is paying dividends in terms of our ability to attract and retain the best and the brightest in the profession.

What do you get up to outside of law?

My partner and I travel when we can – the past few years have been testing! Beyond that, I still manage to squeeze in a few hours of video games here and there.

Complete this sentence: If I wasn’t a lawyer, I would be… 

A very bad historian!