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Profile
Close family encounters help ensure law firm’s progress
Peter Isola joined the family law firm in 1982 to manage its transition into an efficient, modern business: 25 years later, he thinks Gibraltar’s oldest legal practice has become the most progressive.
Ray Spencer finds out more
In his mid-teens this 60 year old senior partner flirted with becoming an accountant after completing modern
mathematics at ‘A’ Level, and architecture, which he then found tiresome – “I thought it took too long”. Isola’s ‘light-bulb’ moment came aged 18. “I really enjoyed studying history and English at ‘A’ level, so I thought that actually the law was a good fit – the use of English and history for the precedent of law”, he recalls.
Quietly spoken, Isola recounts: “I had to re-sit my ‘A’ levels at Oxford Brookes College and at the same time I did the entrance exams for Oxford University’s Pembroke College, which I passed, but after an interview I didn’t get a place for law; I could have done a history degree course, though.”
Instead, he studied law at Kingston Polytechnic, “which suited me because polytechnics at the time were more an extension of school; teachers tended to teach rather than be there for research.
“Moving from the corridors of a Jesuit School in the middle of Lancashire, where I had been at a boarding school for nine years – almost like a borstal – and to suddenly be thrown into a university where you had tremendous freedom, I think would have been a bit too much”, he concludes.
Taking the reins
He returned to Gibraltar after being called to the English and Gibraltar Bars in 1982 “to a practice run in a sort of liberal arts manner and I decided that it needed some efficiency and modernising; from an early stage that interested me”.
Management didn’t particularly interest his father, (Peter J Isola) or brother, (Albert, who now is Minister for financial services and gaming), so it seemed natural that he took that mantel on from an early stage in 1985. In the intervening period the number of partners in
Peter Isola proud to head a Tier 1 law firm
the firm grew from 2 to 10 to become the second largest Gibraltar law firm today.
In October, ISOLAS celebrated its 125 years anniversary, having been founded in 1892 by Horace Parody, whose family emigrated from Genoa and who was joined in his law practice 29 years later, in 1921, by Peter Isola’s great grandfather, Albert Richard Isola. It wasn’t until Peter J Isola’s father’s elder brother, William Isola, joined Albert in the late 1940’s and Peter’s father followed in 1950, that the firm became Isola & Isola.
Peter has three siblings – Albert, Rosanne Garcia, a property manager at Fiduciary Property, and Lawrence, who manages Sapphire Networks and also Europort. “We are a very close family as evidenced by our combined economy: we always share our interests, so we invest together – both our time and money – so for example Fiduciary we started in 1982 is owned by our three families, and a lot of our property involvement such as Euro Plaza and Kings Wharf we have developed together with varying partners.”
Despite the law firm’s long history, it lacked a partnership deed and that fact weighed on Isola’s mind for a decade as he struggled to find time to set things right by establishing ISOLAS as a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP), a cross between limited company and partnership status, and adopted progressively since 2001 by most UK law
firms. Last year ISOLAS became listed LLP number 00001, the first major lawyers’ practice to do so locally, and only the second Gibraltar law firm established as an LLP.
Previously, the firm’s equity had been totally family owned, and now Isola reveals: “As a family, we have given up 80% of the value of the business; that’s extremely significant and I think that is the future.” It was “to ensure the firm’s longevity, it’s continuity within a framework that enables younger lawyers in the firm to take a more active part”, he says.
Isola adds: “I think that as you get older you naturally become more conservative, less open to risk and new ideas. I’m conscious that the energy and entrepreneurial spirit that I had in the 1980’s and 90’s is hardly likely to be there going towards 2020.” He decided three years ago to recruit the former Financial Services Commissioner and qualified lawyer, Marcus Killick, in the new post of chief executive officer, charged with converting the partnership into an LLP.
Change takes time
Isola is candid: “Sometimes it’s easy to forget I am the highest fee-earner in the firm and have been so for the last 15 years. I do an awful lot of legal work and management has a very limited amount of my time.” Things were not getting done: “I was very engrossed in work and I could see that I wasn’t giving it the time, that’s for sure, and the LLP was never going to happen, because I didn’t have the time to do it,” he explains.
In addition, fellow lawyer, Selwyn Figueras, is now development manager, and there’s a chief financial officer and a human resources manager to complete a limited company-style management team that is strong on IT. “We have reports from each: the partners see all of the figures and we all know what we are all earning, including bonuses – it’s totally transparent and that is very important, which you may think is obvious, but it doesn’t always happen!”
As a result in part, ISOLAS in 2017 achieved Band 1 status from internationally- respected legal rankings firm Chambers & Partners. “Normally, it’s difficult for a firm of our size to be Band1–it’s a bit like a 5-star
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