Speaking
Challenging how businesses and lawyers think about legal stuff
The idea at the heart of every talk: why is legal stuff so combative?
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The legal profession is built around combat. Contracts designed to trap people. Disputes resolved by whoever fights hardest. Lawyers who measure success by how much leverage they can extract.
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But combat isn't really the root problem. It's the symptom.
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The root problem is that legal advice is almost always reactive. Something goes wrong, someone calls a lawyer, and by the time they arrive the relationship is already damaged, the options are already limited, and the only tool left is leverage. Of course that produces combat. What else could it produce?
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The alternative isn't just about being nicer or less aggressive. It's structural. When you get involved early enough - before things go wrong, before positions harden, before the battle lines are drawn - collaboration becomes the natural default. You're not fighting over damage. You're designing something that works for everyone.
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Proactive legal thinking doesn't just prevent problems. It frees you up to be genuinely collaborative. And that changes everything: for the business, for its relationships, and for the lawyers themselves.
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That's the idea behind every talk Andrew gives, as a legal speaker for business conferences. And it lands very differently depending on who's in the room.
For business audiences
​How to get faster, more-effective, longer-term results in your legal and commercial relationships by being proactive and collaborative, not reactive and combative
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Most leadership teams treat legal as a necessary evil, something to be managed, minimised and handed to lawyers when it gets complicated. That instinct costs them more than they realise. Because by the time the lawyers arrive, the relationship is already strained, the options are already limited, and the momentum is already lost.
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Through real stories, real examples and one or two moments that will make them wince with recognition, this talk shows leadership teams that there is a fundamentally better way. That getting ahead of legal and commercial issues, and approaching them collaboratively rather than combatively, isn't soft. It's one of the smartest strategic decisions a business can make. And it works.
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Suitable for leadership conferences, founder events, board away days and company-wide sessions. Keynote or workshop format. Audiences from 10 to 2,000.
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For legal and GC audiences
Why in-house lawyers are too reactive, too combative - and what to do about it.
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This is a deliberately provocative talk for GCs and in-house lawyers. It makes a simple but uncomfortable argument: that the reactive approach most in-house lawyers default to isn't just bad for their businesses, it's the reason they end up being combative. And it's keeping them out of the room where the real decisions get made.
The alternative - getting ahead of issues, building relationships before they're needed, and positioning the legal function as a proactive strategic driver rather than a reactive problem-solver - is more effective, more fulfilling, and more valuable to everyone involved.
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Honest, direct and occasionally uncomfortable. Which is exactly why it tends to land.
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Suitable for in-house legal conferences, GC roundtables, legal team away days and bar association events. Keynote or workshop format.
A speaker who has lived it
Andrew has spoken at events ranging from intimate leadership roundtables to the Economist GC Summit. Every talk is built around real stories (including a five-year global IP battle resolved not by legal argument, but by an apology) that make the ideas feel visceral and real rather than theoretical.
He is currently writing a book on collaborative legal thinking, drawing on years of newsletters, talks and client work.
Fees
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Talks for business audiences are available on a paid basis.
Talks for legal and GC audiences are currently offered on a complimentary basis for the right events.
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To discuss a speaking engagement, book a conversation below.
