Partner Interview – Sam Robinson

What will be the most important market trend affecting your clients’ sector over the next 12 months?

I have a particular focus on the FinTech industry and a lot of our recent work has related to cryptocurrencies, including initial coin offerings (ICOs). It will be interesting to see how this industry develops over the next 12 months, particularly the regulation of ICOs. With the Swiss regulator recently confirming how it will regulate ICOs, we are expecting other regulators to publish their approaches in due course.

What does quality mean to you?

Clients expect firms like CMS to provide good quality, accurate legal advice. However, based on my previous experience from working in-house at the Financial Services Authority and Santander, ‘quality’ also includes the general level of client care and service that is involved when providing that legal advice. This helps build an overall ‘quality’ client relationship that clients appreciate and can trust for the long term.

What is the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Benjamin Franklin once said, “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail”. This is quite true and is good advice for someone in the legal profession. A lot of what we do is complicated and if we do not prepare for pitches, meetings etc, then sooner or later, you can guess what is likely to happen!

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