INTERVIEW


Legal challenge


Above and inset: Geldards LLP’s modern offices at Pride Park in Derby


As Chairman of Geldards LLP, David Williams oversees one of the UK’s most respected law firms. He spoke to Business Network Editor Nathan Fearn about the firm’s values and the wider issues affecting the legal profession.


Having graduated from Chester College of Law prior to carving out an impressive career in the industry, you’d be forgiven for assuming that David Williams and the legal profession have always been intrinsically linked. However, that's not always been the case, as David explains. “I can’t honestly remember when I came to be a lawyer.


My father was a lawyer, he died when I was very young, so perhaps there was some DNA there. “Having originally done a history degree, I think an


interest for research and the distilling of information into something straightforward was probably the right kind of instinct for me.” While a natural aptitude for law existed within David, his career path has been rich and varied. “I did my training contract with a lively, ambitious small firm in Chester. I learned an awful lot from them about running the business and being a business developer. “Then I went to Eversheds, which is of


course a very large law firm, and, for me, that was like finishing school. It was probably intellectually more challenging in terms of the work I was doing. “When I left there I was a property


developer, estate agent and insurance broker for a couple of years. After that I got head hunted by a major building society to be general manager, so I ran a building society for two-and-a-half years. “Out of the blue I was contacted


by Geldards, which was about to open an office in Derby – which, as a place, I didn't I didn’t know at all – and they asked if I would


26 business network April 2017


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