35 Years of Leadership: Christian Traichel, WLG President 2019–2021

Christian Traichel
Taylor Wessing
WLG President 2019–2021, Current WLG Membership Committee Chair

How did you first get involved with WLG, and what led you to take on a leadership position?

My first WLG conference was the Spring 2001 meeting in Lisbon, Portugal. I was impressed by the friendship among the delegates and their guests, the professionalism in doing business together and in dealing with the challenges that came up for WLG later that year. Since then, I only missed two conferences. It was Jean-Luc Soulier who had asked me to join the business development committee he chaired in 2003. Since then, I had the pleasure to act in a number of different roles, including hosting the 2018 Fall Summit in Munich. Dealing with friends made it easy to contribute and to serve in a leadership role. We are all ambassadors of our firms and I can only encourage delegates to step forward and get involved.

What was your most meaningful accomplishment during your time as president?

Shortly after I was awarded the honor to serve as president, almost everything we were used to was challenged when the pandemic hit us. We had to react very fast in the early days of 2020, at a time when the preparation for the Spring conference was already well advanced. In the end, we did not have a single in-person conference during my entire term. But with the great teamwork of the staff team, the Board, and the group heads, we succeeded in building up virtual offerings to replace what we were used to before, in redesigning our website to allow for many more direct points of contact between lawyers of our member firms, and in taking WLG to the next level. A lot of that is still there, although we are all glad that we are back to in-person meetings.

After all, I am particularly happy that we created and kicked off WLG’s first group-wide CSR initiative during my term and that we are now in its third year. Looking at the increasing number of member firms participating in what is now called WLG |impact, and the great initiatives these firms have taken and are implementing during WLG | impact demonstrates we are on track. To my knowledge, there is no other network of independent firms combining so many firms around the globe for a meaningful purpose.

While serving on the Board, what did you learn about WLG and its value to members?

The friendship among delegates, the respect for each other, and the legal excellence of the firms form a perfect basis for working together and creating joint business opportunities and opportunities for referrals. And frankly, this is why our firms are members. No other network of independent firms combines so many top-ranked firms.

As we reflect upon our growth during our 35th anniversary, tell us about the changes you've seen in the network during the years you have been involved and what leads you to believe our best days are ahead of us.

When I first got to know WLG it was more about referring work to each other when the occasion arose. The referral relationships were concentrated on the delegates meeting each other bi-annually rather than on other lawyers in the member firms. The group has developed a lot since, and meanwhile, WLG has so many offerings for members to create joint business opportunities. It’s much more than just a small group of lawyers meeting twice a year. Nineteen practice and industry groups combining many lawyers across the member firms, regional meetings for young partners, gatherings at global industry events and conferences, exchange programs and secondments for young lawyers, joint publications, group sessions, and of course our bi-annual summits. There is so much more that makes WLG so unique compared to where the network started and specifically compared to other networks.