Every year, thousands – yes thousands – of lawyers descend on some city somewhere in the world for the IBA Annual Conference. When I tell my non-lawyer friends that I am going (as happened this past month) to Mexico City for "the IBA", I of course get all the old lawyer jokes thrown at me – and then the quips about "another holiday?"
For a firm like Mishcon de Reya, being at the big IBA conference is really important. We are an independent firm, without loads of offices around the world – we do have an office in Hong Kong and Singapore, but not throughout Europe – and the IBA is a great place for meeting up with internationally-minded partners of other independent firms, who are, like us, all in one place to see each other.
So this year, our core team of five of us, went off to Mexico City. And we had something like 130 meetings, and dozens of different drinks events, breakfasts, lunches and dinners.
It takes about 6 months to prepare for the IBA, and about 6 months to recover and do the following up. And at least 6 months to lose the extra weight from all those meals.
If you are reading or listening to this, and we saw you in Mexico – excellent!! Let's hope you and we have followed up already! If we didn’t see you there, and you are going to be in London any time soon, let me know – we'd love to see you!
Kind regards,
Adam