When the office in Stockholm opened in 1991, Sten Bauer was one of the original employees. He had already worked as a lawyer for a few years at Landahl & Bauer, which Sten's father Sven Harald was involved in running. Landahl & Bauer was later split to partly merge with Baker McKenzie.
With Sten's long career, he has experienced many events worth sharing. In this text, we have selected three things that in different ways reflect Sten's professional development and what it is like to be a part of Baker McKenzie.
Meetings with Christine Lagarde in Geneva in 1992 and in Stockholm in 2002
Christine Lagarde is currently serving as president of the European Central Bank. She has previously also served as managing director of the International Monetary Fund and minister of the economy, finance and industry in France. But she spent the first two decades of her career at Baker McKenzie, and was global chair of the Firm between 1999 and 2004.
Here is Sten's experience:
"In 1992, I had worked as a lawyer for a few years when I had the opportunity to represent the Stockholm office at an internal meeting in Geneva. We were 20 employment lawyers who met to discuss current issues and exchange experiences, and one of the participants was Christine Lagarde. She was already a colorful and brilliant person, and I remember that I was particularly impressed by her during the meeting.
A few years later, in 2002, Christine had become global chair of Baker McKenzie and travelled to Stockholm to visit the office. During the visit, she wanted to take the opportunity to meet with the then secretary general of the Swedish Bar Association. At first, her invitation was declined — Anne Ramberg felt that she did not have the time to meet with a chair of a global law firm. I had to call Anne and persuade her. In the end, there was a meeting between Christine, Anne and the Bar Association's former chair Elisabet Fura-Sandström. Anne may not have thought that the meeting seemed important, at least not initially, but Sweden's largest business magazine Dagens Industri thought so and published a long article on the center spread together with a picture from the meeting between the three prominent women."
Became partner in 1996 and had Stockholm's current managing partner, Anders Fast, as an associate
"In 1996, I became a partner and was given greater responsibility for both the office and our lawyers. Among others, I was given responsibility for a newly hired junior associate and former fighter pilot named Anders Fast. Even back then, Anders had a strong presence, instilled great confidence and was already very good at winning clients' trust. After a few years, we lost Anders to McKinsey & Co where he tried the role as a management consultant. Fortunately for us, he chose to come back after two years and gradually got freer reins in a more senior role. Twenty years after Anders joined the Firm, he was the one who took over as managing partner after me when my term was over. Of course, I felt very proud. I consider it to be the responsibility of every leader to have a good replacement ready when needed."
Managing partner in Stockholm from 2010 to 2016
"In 2010, I took over as managing partner for the Stockholm office. During my six years at the post, my fellow partners and I focused on bringing the office into the future. In close collaboration with Paolo De Mora at Implement Consulting Group, we went from an old-fashioned and somewhat sprawling partnership structure to becoming a modern company with united forces toward a common goal. We worked hard to break up the conservative hierarchy and replace it with better team spirit to increase internal cooperation locally and globally. During this period, we also made several key recruitments, including many lawyers who are partners today. All of these efforts together contributed to us increasing our profitability in a healthy way. Since then, we have continued our common efforts in these areas and developed them further, and I am very proud of the Stockholm office's great unity and performance today."
