Mike McClure KC – Herbert Smith Freehills

Mike is a solicitor advocate appointed to King’s Counsel in 2023. A partner and global co-chair of Korea Group at Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) in the City of London, Mike has expertise in arbitration, court, and expert determination proceedings, with particular experience in the energy, construction, infrastructure, and financial services sectors.

Growing up just outside Reading, Mike had no family or professional links with the law but at school he had a great love of debating and mooting, and a career in advocacy felt like a natural choice for him.  Mike relished the adversarial aspects of his legal training and had originally considered becoming a barrister rather than a solicitor. But at the time there was no funding available for pupillage and for Bar school whilst, in contrast, the big law firms offered scholarships for law school to suitable candidates. Mike also found that he enjoyed being able to work with clients for the two- or three-year life of a matter and preferred this to just coming into a case at the end as many barristers would do. As a junior solicitor, Mike successfully applied for Higher Rights of Audience, enabling him to combine the long-term client work with opportunities to carry out the oral advocacy himself rather than necessarily instructing a barrister.  Mike also had a desire to live and work abroad and so a career in international arbitration was a natural fit.

It can be difficult for solicitor advocates to gain the same sort of advocacy experience ‘on their feet’ as barristers who appear more regularly before the England and Wales highest courts, but Mike emphasised that this should not be deter solicitors from aspiring to silk, especially those practising in international arbitration.  KCA’s guidance for applicants made it clear that the process takes account of the full range of work carried out by advocates, including written advocacy.  Mike also recognised that he was fortunate in that HSF had a culture that encouraged its senior associates and partners to do their own advocacy – which he greatly enjoyed – and which helped him to build up his experience.  As part of this, Mike benefitted greatly from working alongside “inspirational role models” on large and substantial cases – including his current partners Paula Hodges KC, Chris Parker KC, and Simon Chapman KC and former partners Tom Leech KC and Adam Johnson KC (now both judges) and Ian Gatt KC.  Mike said it is vital that younger colleagues who seriously aspired to becoming silks should “grab every opportunity” that comes their way to do the advocacy in substantive cases, working alongside the best people in the field, both barristers and solicitor-advocates.  This would “get you into the rhythm” of high-level advocacy early on in your career.

As to preparing for the KC competition, Mike said this was a long-term task, building up your ‘flying hours’ so that when you came to apply for silk you had the necessary number of substantive cases in the three-year period to populate your application form. You needed to think very carefully about your cases, in terms of the Competency Framework, especially as a solicitor-advocate. The application form took a good deal of time to complete to a high level and that should be considered when you contemplated applying for silk. Mike said he was very much used to working within and thinking in terms of the team, and the application process required a rather different way of looking at your work, in terms of your own individual accomplishments and approach – “not a natural headspace” for Mike who was used to working as part of a team. He would advise applicants to speak to those who had been through the process, who knew what was involved; in his experience friends and colleagues were extremely happy to assist and provided a very solid support structure during the whole application process, particularly at its key stages. The competition occupied his mind far more than he had imagined, and applicants should expect the competition to be mentally demanding, though overall a worthwhile experience.

Mike carved out some time in his diary for the interview so that he could go over his form thoroughly and ensure that he was across his cases and the evidence required against each of the competencies.   He spoke to people who had recently been through the process who were able to give him some helpful tips and identify areas that might crop up. Although in the event none of the areas did crop up, Mike was still grateful for the confidence that this assistance provided and got him in the right frame of mind.

The interview itself was rigorous but not combative and he was given plenty of opportunities to speak about his cases and provide examples relevant to the particular question. Mike was very impressed at how well prepared the two Panel members (one lay, one legal) were for the interview.  They were extremely familiar with his application form and his cases. Indeed, the thoroughness of the whole process greatly impressed Mike – it provided great reassurance in the rigour of the KC selection process.

Mike had noticed no real change in how busy he was after obtaining the prestigious two letters after his name – he found he was just as extremely busy as he had always been! But it was the clear that clients across the globe recognised the importance and value of the accolade. Finally, Mike said that he would be extremely willing to help future applicants for KC, especially solicitor-advocates (who continued to be under-represented in silk), passing on the formal and informal mentoring that had been so valuable central to his own career development and been so generously given over the years.