In conversation with Will McCullough, principal lawyer at MCC Advisory
In this blog post, we speak to our dear friend Will McCullough, who has recently founded his own law firm called MCC Advisory. Will is one of the most talented lawyers we know, but also one of the funniest. His signature laugh sets us off every time! Will has been around the world and has worked in many capacities including in private practice, on secondment with huge clients (which is where he met the love of his life too - that’s a whole other story) and now running his own successful practice. He offers some excellent advice to our next generation too, including in light of COVID-19.
TLC: What made you want to study law?
WM: I was a bookish and slightly belligerent teenager, and at the time I was under the impression that lawyers spend all their time arguing. That’s why from a young age, I became interested in pursuing a career where I would be paid to argue!
Along the way, I discovered that being a lawyer is less about arguing and more about finding common ground between parties… but that discovery came a bit later.
TLC: Tell us about your journey to how you got to where you are.
WM: I grew up in the UK and since the age of 15, I spent my summer holidays working as a law clerk in a small high street law firm. It was a mixed bag of criminal, family, real estate and commercial law. There was also a lot of photocopying and coffee-making…
After that, I applied to read law in the UK at Newcastle University, focussing on corporate and commercial law. I then followed up with a Masters degree on European competition law. During university holidays I did more legal placements, this time with larger commercial law firms.
After university, I joined a great corporate team at a mid-tier law firm in Newcastle, UK. In my experience, one of the benefits of training at a mid-tier firm is that you get more direct contact with clients and supervising partners. I spent many years in that firm’s boutique corporate practice working on mergers and acquisitions, venture capital and private equity transactions. I keep in touch with many of my old colleagues and clients (and continue to work with some of them from the other side of the world).
In 2015 I moved to Sydney and joined the IP, technology and commercial law team in a mid-tier law firm. My years in that team were excellent and I worked with (and against!) some of Australia’s (and the world’s) biggest companies. Some of the matters I worked on were cutting-edge technology developments in IoT, 5G and Big Data.
Many of my best experiences as a lawyer were not actually through practising law, but the ancillary activities that I got involved with, like organising networking events, attending London Tech Week and mentoring tech start-up businesses across Sydney and Brisbane.
That brings me to October 2019 when I made my biggest career decision to date and left the amazing team that I worked with to set up my own legal practice. I had seen a gap in the market for a legal practice that was really responsive, great value and could still deliver high quality advice in a fast-paced environment, so I started MCC Advisory. I am enjoying every second of building a legal practice from scratch and the feedback from clients is really positive.
Of course, no one could have predicted the arrival of COVID-19 and the impact it would have on businesses. Fortunately, with low overheads, I’m hopefully as well-placed as possible to weather this bumpy patch. In fact, I’ve seen a slight increase in client enquiries for assistance with contract negotiations (especially force majeure clauses) and funding.
TLC: What is the funniest or weirdest moment you've had in your legal career?
WM: I’ve had my fair share of funny moments, but I think one of the most unique was meeting my fiancée while on secondment with a client. The instruction I got from my supervising partner was to make sure I took ‘every opportunity with that client’ - it’s safe to say I did that!
TLC: What is your one piece of advice to law students of today?
WM: Let me offer two pieces of advice:
The lawyers of tomorrow will need to be extremely proficient when using new technology. I’ve always been interested in adopting new technology, and the efficiencies it can bring, and this has often allowed me to work more efficiently than others. In the future, I don’t think being tech-literate will be a differentiator; I think it will be a necessity. This is already proving to be the case given COVID 19 through the use of remote working and other collaboration tools.
Explore all the different career options that are available to you with a law degree. Working for a law firm is an obvious one, but now in-house roles are an established career path straight out of university and I think they are (rightly) becoming an increasingly popular career choice. There are also plenty of other careers available to law graduates like risk and compliance, policy and journalism. Above all else:
“Try to get as much work experience as you can, as early as possible, whether its legal or non-legal work, volunteer work or otherwise. ”