Susan Kendall (Geography & French 1980)

Alumni Profile: Susan Kendall

Susan Kendall (Geography & French 1980) reflects here on her life in law, what brought her to live in Hong Kong and recalls her time in Exeter and shares how she has got back involved to support current students and the alumni community in Hong Kong.

"My life in law… Prior to retiring from full time practice in June 2019, I was a partner in the Disputes’ Group of global law firm Baker McKenzie, where I spent the last 20 years of my career. As a litigation lawyer, my principal task was to help clients avoid and resolve disputes.  My practice focused on 3 main areas – trust and wealth disputes; contentious employment and investigations; and cyber fraud and privacy.   The competing interests of these three diverse areas made for a demanding but highly interesting legal career.  In addition to running a busy legal practice, I was also on a number of the firm’s committees dealing with the training and development of junior lawyers, charitable pro bono work and global sustainability.  I had a particular interest in growing and nurturing legal talent at Bakers, so a large part of my time and energy was spent on the recruitment, training and mentoring of junior lawyers.   

There have been many highlights in my 35 year career in the law, but my time at Bakers is probably the most memorable, principally for the constant string of opportunities it afforded.  There, I worked across the globe with interesting and highly capable colleagues for top tier international and local clients on a broad range of challenging and exciting cases.   The firm provided a platform to travel frequently, meet a broad range of engaging people and develop a very interesting practice. A particularly high point in terms of challenge and achievement was spending 5 years seconded from Bakers to global IT management consultancy firm Accenture, where I acted as litigation lead for Asia Pacific handling all of their IT related disputes in the region.  

A more specific highlight for me has been the chance to play a role in the development of young lawyers.  Over the years, I have had the privilege of working with, coaching and mentoring talented juniors and helped them develop into strong, capable, successful and free-thinking young lawyers,  Being part of their individual journeys has been both heart-warming and thoroughly rewarding and, for me, is more inspiring than any academic achievement or trial victory.   

Why Hong Hong? … I have always been passionate about travel and since childhood have wanted to explore all corners of the globe.  Just after leaving Exeter in the early 80s, I decided to spend a year in Australia.  On my way there, I spent 3 weeks in Asia, including a short spell in HK.  Standing on the Kowloon waterfront one evening staring across the harbour to the city beyond, I determined that one day I would return to work in this colourful and vibrant place.   7 years later, the opportunity arose to come back, when my then long term boyfriend secured a position on a huge arbitration in the city.  I tagged along to explore Asia.  We planned to stay for 2 years, but fell hopelessly in love with Hong Kong and soon realised that 2 years would be woefully insufficient time to explore the rich and varied culture of the region.  Now, 30 years on, I am still exploring Asia (along with other parts of the world) - and I still adore Hong Kong, despite its current woes. 

My time at Exeter… At Exeter, I studied Geography and French – a perfect combination for me given my passion for the world and travel. At that time I had no idea I would become a lawyer. When I joined in 1977, I was placed in Thomas Hall - a now defunct all girls hall on the edges of campus beyond Duryard. With only 45 “inmates”, what seemed at first a disappointing stroke of bad luck (having wanted to join one of the large mixed halls), my year in Thomas turned out to be the most magical of times.  Dressing in gowns for Sunday Lunch, our small and diverse group of freshers from all backgrounds and disciplines became firm friends.  Even now, 40 plus years on, I remain good friends with several of those women – and every 5 years, a larger group of us meet for a weekend in Exeter to catch up and reminisce over our university years.  More recently, I reconnected more broadly with the university and for the past 10 years I have mentored a number of students wishing to explore a career in the law or work overseas.  Around the same time, I joined the committee for the Hong Kong chapter of Exeter alumni, which runs a number of social and career related events here in the city.     Reconnecting with the university has reminded me of my treasured time at Exeter and enabled me to give something back to the institution that launched me on the path of adventure."

Date: 11 June 2020