Caroline Hill talks to Shell's Peter Rees QC about a career spanning senior roles at US and UK law firms, as well as the top legal role at one of the world's largest companies

"I've always been overly optimistic about what I can fit into the day," comments Peter Rees QC (pictured), six months into his role as Royal Dutch Shell's legal director.

When the former Debevoise & Plimpton litigation partner was appointed in November last year, he took on a global legal team of 1,200 and a position on the board of a company that operates in 90 countries with 93,000 employees and revenues of $368bn (£226bn).

In light of such numbers, together with the sensitivities 
and complexities involved in running a global energy company, one might expect a new senior executive to feel apprehensive – but Rees, who describes his 
new role as "fascinating" and "incredibly challenging," comes across as undaunted.

Despite his confidence, he is modest about his appointment, which came after headhunters approached him in April 2010 and asked if he would like to be added to a long list of potential candidates. "I said 'yes' and didn't think anything more about it because most general counsel are corporate and Shell is one of the largest companies in the world," he says.

However, Rees, who is recognised globally as one of the leading construction and energy disputes solicitor-advocates and who took silk in 2009, made it through to the shortlist, then the 'short-shortlist', and then "started to think, 'now I better think carefully about whether I really want to do it'".

Rees' CV contains a Law degree at Downing College, Cambridge in 1978; College of Law Chester in 1978-79; articled clerk at Norton Rose in 1979; partner in 1987 charged with developing a construction practice; head of dispute resolution and a member of the executive committee in 1997. In 2002, he was elevated to global head of dispute resolution and took a two-year MBA at Nottingham Trent, all while remaining one of the firm's top billing partners.

Had he not run for managing partner against fellow dispute resolution partner Peter Martyr and banking partner Jeffery Barratt in 2003 and lost, Rees would no doubt still be at Norton Rose. However, Martyr won convincingly and Rees says: "For my part it was a big disappointment and I wouldn't have stood if I didn't think I could win."

Unbeknown to him at the time, the development was the beginning of the end of his lengthy love affair with the firm. "In the long run it was the best thing that could have happened; if you gave me the choice to be managing partner of Norton Rose or the general counsel of Shell, it's a no-brainer."

Despite his disappointment at the time, Rees' dedication to the firm prevailed and he did not put his CV out to the market, instead in 2004 taking a board-level appointment as Norton Rose's head of international strategy, charged with developing and maintaining relationships with law firms in jurisdictions where the firm did not have a presence. "I was fully expecting to go through to my retirement which, given the financial incentives to retire at 55, would have happened in April 2012," he says.

It was a breakfast with Debevoise litigation partner David Rivkin that was to end his prospects of early retirement. "I had been approached by a couple of US firms and said no, but I was asked if I would have breakfast with David and I thought, 'I'll have breakfast and then say no'," Rees observes.

However, Rivkin – who Rees concedes is "a good salesman" – talked about the collegiality of Debevoise and the fact that it still operates as a single firm with a strict lockstep. "I have always been a firm believer in a strict lockstep and one thing I felt had diminished the team spirit at Norton Rose at the time was it had moved away from a strict lockstep."

Breakfast led to a meeting with 15 Debevoise partners in London and then a trip to New York, where Rees met 80% of the firm's partners and was asked to provide them with arbitration pleadings he had drafted. "I was really encouraged by the seriousness with which Debevoise took the process," Rees says. "The interest they took in you because you are joining their partnership is not reflected in UK partnerships, where if you were hiring, say, a corporate partner, they would meet the other corporate partners but it would be unheard of to wheel out all the shelllitigation partners."

Due diligence complete, Rees was offered partnership at Debevoise in March 2006 and almost immediately stamped his mark on the London office by bringing all of Debevoise's advocacy in-house. However, whereas at Norton Rose Rees he had been running and overseeing heavyweight construction, oil and gas arbitrations, to date he had done little court work. Suddenly he found himself arguing everything, from a jurisdiction case before the Chancery Division of the Royal Courts of Justice – which the firm won but later lost on appeal – to, more unusually, a coroner's inquest into the death of a Russian man who plunged from the 17th floor of a bank in Canary Wharf, where an expected verdict of suicide was changed to an open verdict after Rees' representations.

In February 2009, Rees' advocacy efforts received validation when he was awarded QC status. "It gave me a kind of external approval, so when I said to clients 'I can handle your case and take it to court' I had an external mark of merit," he says.

Just over a year later came the approach from Shell, and Rees has given up all direct involvement in arbitrations, as the likelihood of conflicts arising is high. In any event, it is difficult to see how he would reconcile a caseload with his management commitments – in May alone he travelled to Singapore, Malaysia, Poland, London and Australia largely in a bid to get to know his new team better, spending all of about four days on home soil.

"The in-house team at Shell is fantastic and the legal director is one of the eight-person executive committee responsible for managing the business of the company," he says. "It is a huge selling point – I have spent my life advising businesses but you never get access on the commercial side."

Overly optimistic or otherwise, Rees certainly fits a lot into his day.