Profile: Ken Fowlie
By Lucinda Schmidt | theage.com.au | 01 May
One year after Slater & Gordon became the first law firm in the world to list on a stock exchange, the man in charge of its fast-growing NSW operations, Ken Fowlie, says not much has changed.
Fowlie, who is preparing a class action over the Opes Prime collapse, says: "The key thing has been the transparency the market rightly demands - but our performance has always been out in the public domain."
The biggest change for him personally has been the scrutiny of his financial arrangements with the firm. A magazine recently included Fowlie, an executive director of Slater, on a list of Australia's 200 wealthiest executives (based on Slater shares worth $30 million). "That was kind of amusing," he says.
The $30 million may be a bit off the mark but there's no doubt Fowlie has done very well for someone who fell into law because he got the marks. (He originally planned to do commerce as a way into journalism but gradually the law component of his law-commerce degree took over.)
His first big case - the Wallis Lake oyster contamination class action - was in 1997, only a few years after he'd finished university. Over the next five years, the case went through to the High Court, against 17 defendants, before finally settling.
Since then he has run other high-profile class actions, including cases against Sydney Water, the tobacco companies and Telstra. "I like the multifaceted challenge of class actions," Fowlie says. "You have to manage the litigation, manage the clients and manage public opinion. And big cases test big issues."
His next big case looks like being Opes Prime. Fowlie has been flat out since the collapse, acting for two Opes clients trying to get an injunction to stop the ANZ selling their shares (they got the injunction but it was overturned on appeal).
Meanwhile, more than 100 Opes clients have contacted Slater's Melbourne office over a class action for damages. "One of the lessons you learn about class actions is you have to take things in steps and stages," says Fowlie, explaining why he's yet to issue a writ. "If you try and do everything at once, you just come a cropper."
Aside from class actions, his other big passion is acting for people with asbestos-related illnesses. He spent most of 2004 and 2005 negotiating a better deal for James Hardie asbestos victims, after the company moved its head office to the Netherlands.
He has also been negotiating Slater's expansion to NSW from Victoria, including eight mergers with other plaintiff law firms in the past four years. When he first transferred to Slater's fledgling Sydney office in 1996 (after completing articles in its main Melbourne office), it was just him "and a box of files". Now there are eight offices and 105 staff, and he has just taken over the Sydney law firm that rented him a spare office in his early days.
Not bad for an accidental lawyer. "Sometimes you have an ability in something you don't know you have," Fowlie says. "I was lucky because what became clear in first-year law was that the way of thinking - understanding problems through a prism of rights and obligations - came to me pretty quickly."
The big questions
Biggest break The fortuitousness of my coming to Slater & Gordon. I didn't have a lot of options left, to be honest.
Biggest achievement The James Hardie deal. It was the first deal of its type in Australia, negotiated over 12 months, involving $4 billion over 40 years. To be at the centre of that was a huge buzz.
Biggest regret When I was a kid I used to take the train to school past North Wollongong, and I remember thinking that would be a good place to buy a block of land. I never did but I reckon it would be worth a fair bit more now.
Best investment Slater & Gordon is going all right so far [it listed on the stock exchange in May 2007]. It's been long term, you put your effort in and you're not sure where it will end up.
Worst investment I borrowed money from my mum to buy my first car and I ended up paying it off for many years. My wife, who's an accountant, thinks I probably paid for that car three times over. But I suggested the repayment rate, so it was my own stupid fault.
Attitude to money I grew up in a family where we were not wealthy but my parents worked hard, so we never wanted for anything. That's what I'd like for my children too. Money doesn't drive me.
Personal philosophy Develop your own style with people. For me, that's being direct. I'm not one to sugar-coat things or beat around the bush.
First published by TheAge.com.au on May 01 2008
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