Legal Brick Road meets corporate commercial lawyer Suzanne Dibble

Today we welcome corporate commercial lawyer Suzanne Dibble.  Suzanne is founder of  Laywers4Mumpreneurs.  Suzanne has held senior roles with DLA Piper, ITV and Hamptons International.  Suzanne was also runner up for The Lawyers ‘Associate of the Year’ award in 2003 .

Welcome Suzanne, great to have you with us on Legal Brick Road today.  Please tell us more about where you are now and how you came to set up lawyers4mumpreneurs?

In 2009 after just having been married and starting to think about having children, I decided to set up my own legal practice in order to work flexibly around my children. I knew that I didn’t want to hand over care of my children to a nanny or childminder and setting up my own practice seemed to be the perfect solution. When I thought about who I wanted to work with, I realised that my passion was in helping women like me – namely those women who had decided to start their own business in order to work flexibly around their children. Hence the name lawyers4mumpreneurs… I started networking whilst I was pregnant so that by the time Amelia had come along, I had already established myself as the lawyer of choice for mumpreneurs. I have been lucky enough to work with some amazing mumpreneurs and I can quite honestly say that I love working with them and helping them set up or grow their business.

Can you tell us more about your earliest ambitions in law and what inspired you to become a lawyer?

I went to a school where the careers advice was literally if you’re good at science, be a doctor, if not be a lawyer – I wasn’t very good at science…

You were runner up for the Associate of the Year award back in 2003, can you tell us more about that?

It was a great honour to be nominated for the award as to my knowledge until that time DLA Piper had not nominated an individual solicitor at the Lawyer Awards.  DLA Piper’s Managing Partner Sir Nigel Knowles together with Helena Samaha, the then General Counsel at Virgin, jointly nominated me for my work undertaken at Virgin whilst on secondment there from DLA Piper. Amongst other things, I had coordinated a group wide project with Microsoft which made the group significant savings and I had impressed Richard Branson sufficiently for him to offer me a job on the spot – I turned him down, very politely of course… I was amazed when a partner came into my office and showed me a copy of The Lawyer showing that I had been shortlisted. Attending the Awards Ceremony was definitely a highlight of my career – I was sitting between Nigel Knowles and Helena Samaha with my new haircut and poshest frock and as it progressed to my award, the butterflies increased. I was rehearsing my winners speech in my mind (just joking, there’s no speeches just a cheesy photograph!) but alas I didn’t win – the worthy winner had worked on a huge infrastructure project in Africa that had saved many lives, so what I had done didn’t really compare!

How have your perceptions changed since you first began to study law?

I was hugely ambitious when I started out – I wanted to be Managing Partner of a City law firm. But after many years of working the hours that a busy corporate department in a City law firm demands, I realised I was living to work rather than working to live and that there really was more to life. I now see that I can be very successful in other ways that bring more joy to my life such as working with fantastic small businesses and spending time with my daughter.

Its more competitive than ever out there, what would your advice be to future lawyers today?

Be really sure that you want to be a lawyer and that you are cut out to be a lawyer. A lot of people absolutely hate it. I am very pleased with where my career has ended up but I wish I had been given the opportunity to think about other careers such as venture capital, tv production and more business related roles. And of course travel show presenter…Oh and if you need to leave at 5pm every night to go and look after your horse (as one trainee did), you really aren’t cut out to be a City lawyer.

As a mother you understand the pressures women can face when they return to work after having children.  What are your thoughts on work life balance in law and how do you see this evolving in the future?

In my experience, there is no such thing as a work life balance in private practice. It is slightly better in-house but law as a profession is not particularly flexible. I think that law firms are trying to address the issue as they realise they are losing a lot of female talent but I think that ultimately, as long as there are sufficient talented men able to do the job, they probably aren’t trying that hard! I am not optimistic about significant changes to introduce a better work life balance.

Legal Brick Road like to know what lawyers like reading.  What’s the best book you’ve read so far?

That is too difficult a question! But I do love Jack Reacher – men want to be like him, women want to be with him… (a Lee Child character for the uninitiated!)

Finally Suzanne, what would be your perfect dinner party if you could bring any legal types together from the past and the present and where would you be and what tipple would be in your glass?

The easy bit of that question is the tipple – a glass of fine or even mediocre wine will keep me happy. I don’t have a particular favourite. My legal types past and present would be Lord Denning (who is possibly the only Judge I remember from University), Charon QC who I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting yet but I love his blog, Nigel Boardman from Slaughter and May as I have heard lots about him and am very curious and Peter Wayte, the ex senior partner at DLA Piper because he is great in a kind of Alan Sugar way. Oh and for a token woman, Baroness Warsi as I would be very interested to hear about how she came to be a Baroness.

Thank you Suzanne, its been an interesting interview and great to have you with us today. Please keep in touch with us, we’d love to know more about the developments of  your new venture.

 

Further information:

You can follow Suzanne on Twitter : @law4mumpreneurs

You can go straight to Suzanne’s website here:  Lawyers4Mumpreneurs

 

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are not representative of Just Go Direct Limited and we disclaim any liability in relation to the content of this interview.

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