Managing a law firm's art collection is not just about passion for the work, there are also huge benefits in client relations, attracting star recruits and creating an enviable work-life balance. James Boxell reports

To hear David Stone describe the London office of Simmons & Simmons, he could easily be talking about the nearby Whitechapel Gallery or the Tate Modern across the Thames. "Clients arriving in the building are immediately confronted with the collection," says Stone, a partner in the firm's intellectual property practice, making reference to a huge paper art work of a black road stretching to the horizon flanked by towers of stereo speakers. "Then as you walk to a meeting room, you pass works by Chris Ofili, Rachel Whiteread, Gary Hume, and Jake and Dinos Chapman."

Simmons is famed for its art collection of more than 400 works, which has its genesis in the early days of the Young British Artist (YBA) movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

When Legal Week visited recently, the firm was showcasing female artists such as Hannah Starkey, Abigail Lane and Nicola Tyson, while established names such as Sarah Lucas and Peter Doig continued to adorn the walls of corridors and conference rooms.

The pieces are curated and acquired by Stuart Evans, a former Simmons corporate heavyweight who has carved out a second career as a fixture on the international arts scene.

Stone has been roped in by Colin Passmore, Simmons' senior partner, to help manage the sprawling collection. As such, he is part of a new generation of senior corporate lawyers, including Weil Gotshal's Marco Compagnoni and Clare Ferguson at Taylor Wessing, who have eagerly thrown themselves into looking after their firms' art works and building their relationships with the contemporary art world.

"To me, it's having that sideline of being a very low-level museum director without the risk of ditching the law and doing that full time, which I certainly don't have the skills to do," says Stone.

But for the Simmons partner and his counterparts, their involvement is not simply a case of appreciating the worth of what is on the office wall or seeking out the next hot new artist in east London or Latin America. They argue that there are real business benefits to be gained, such as improving client relations, making their firms more appealing to young legal talent, nurturing their own work-life balance and supporting local communities.

"Many clients will have heard of the Simmons collection and after an initial meeting will ask 'Can you show me round?' So it's an instant ice-breaker," says Stone. "Whether they like the Wolfgang Tillmans or the Tracey Emin picture in the meeting room doesn't really matter. It's the start of a conversation, without having to go straight into 'well what's your problem and how can I help fix it'. It always helps to have something to talk about other than law."

It is a view echoed by Compagnoni, who recently commissioned Hinge, an imposing work by Antony Gormley, for the atrium in its Fetter Lane offices: "Art is something that a lot of people can engage with. It's more generic, more international, less 'type specific' than some interests like sport.

"A lot of clients and contacts are genuinely interested. You find you are sitting with someone from Bogota and they say 'Oh, I went to this show' and you immediately have a connection. That's not a legal thing. It's just interacting with people internationally. It has a standing whether you are in Russia, Dubai or New York."

Evans, who has recently undertaken installations at Simmons' Munich and Singapore offices while seeking work from new talent in both cities, agrees: "I think it's good for client relations to have a hinterland."

Life balance

Those involved are also united in their belief that a deep interest in something outside the law helps make them more rounded individuals, better able to cope with the relentless stress of working in a workaholic industry.

"It helps you as a person, the more things you draw on, whether it's contemporary art, fishing, collecting motorbikes or whatever it is," Compagnoni explains. "It helps to organise your mind and de-clutter it. It gives you a moment when you are thinking about something else when your mind can do its business filing."

Stone – a trained opera singer who has a Goya etching among his personal holdings – adds: "It's important to have a life outside the law: if all you ever did was law, that would be somewhat limiting. There are creative aspects to being a lawyer and I certainly enjoy trying to solve legal problems creatively. But I think having an interest outside the law, particularly a creative interest, is a good way of balancing life."

Blurred lines

This question of whether there are creative parallels between the life of a corporate lawyer and that of an artist – or at least someone with an appreciation of art – is something that draws a more mixed response from the partners.

"The two things are very separate," Compagnoni insists. "One is a very personal reaction to the art and the other is what I do as a job. I don't think being a lawyer makes any difference at all to how you look at art. It's something you either have a predisposition to or not. You could be a dustman or a doctor, an accountant or a housewife. It doesn't matter."

Evans, known as the godfather of London's legal art scene, has a different view: "I think there are real crossovers. I know that good artists work every bit as hard as the impossible hours of lawyers and what the good artist is doing is charting previously unexplored territory and in a sense that is what good lawyers are trying to do. They've got to be able to take things apart and put them together in new ways. So I think there are very direct parallels in terms of creative process. 

"Some people are a bit cynical about it, but I think that's what I did. I can remember years ago when PCCW was buying Cable & Wireless HKT. It was the largest deal in Asia in 2000 and I created an approach to doing a takeover bid that had never been done there before. When Walmart came to the UK, I was the lead lawyer buying Asda for them, and these are cutting-edge deals where you have to talk to people for whom this sort of thing is new. So I guess what I was good at was explaining very complex things in simple terms and that has real parallels with making art."

Art of attraction

Evans is similarly adamant that Simmons' renown in this field has proved a strong draw for bright young lawyers: "All the larger firms are looking at a fairly small pool of brilliant recruits each year and there is anecdotal evidence to suggest that some of our people who had lots of offers joined because of our art collection and what it said about Simmons." 

As a firm, Simmons has also explored the possibilities around corporate social responsibility that come from its involvement in art, exemplified by its championing of young local artists around the world. This year it appointed its first artist in residence, Sarah Strang, a north Londoner who has worked collaboratively on a project with pupils from a school in Walthamstow.

The firm is also eager to point out that all of its staff have access to the art, which is not hidden away in client meeting rooms, boardrooms or senior partner offices. 

"It's not just in the public rooms. The collection hangs throughout the firm – even 'backstage' as you could call it – so everyone gets to see it," says Stone. "And it's not just pictures that get stuck up and hang there a long time: we do move them around, including internationally. We have one of Damien Hirst's largest spot paintings on the wall of the cafeteria – that has only moved once, and won't be moving again anytime soon."

Good for business

Beyond the altruism, there are even occasional business opportunities here for an enterprising lawyer. Compagnoni, a senior private equity partner, says the art world can be "difficult to penetrate unless you have someone who shows you the way, but once the door was open it was easy to continue. Then after that, quite a few arts friends and artists said 'Oh, we have this little legal problem' and, while it's not my field, I can help them."

But despite such possibilities, and the seductive glamour of the art world, Evans insists that he is still driven most by his passion to find great new work, speaking with enthusiasm about a young Singapore artist's piece that looks like a Mondrian but is in fact made up of tiny pictures of shoes in the layout of an apartment block.

"I know Tracey [Emin] and Sarah [Lucas] and Gillian [Wearing] quite well," he concludes, speaking about three of the biggest stars of the YBA era. "But I think you have an entirely different relationship with artists if you buy them because you believe in their work rather than being a trophy hunter."

Top: Hannah Starkey: October, 1998 (C) The artist and the photographer 
Middle: Abigail Lane: It Was On The Tip Of Her Tongue (C) The artist and the photographer 
Bottom: Nicola Tyson: Untitled #79 (C) The artist, courtesy Sadie Coles HQ
All photos from the Simmons & Simmons collection