Leon Zwier: corporate law world’s ‘Mr Fixit’ in the zone

Leon Zwier is loved by his clients and feared by opponents.

Corporate lawyer Leon Zwier: ‘I am never two-faced and that is why I am successful as a lawyer. Black is black and white is white’. Picture: Aaron Francis.

It’s almost impossible to think of a question that stumps Leon Zwier.

But ask one of the nation’s top corporate lawyers what is his greatest weakness, and for a few moments there is a most unusual and slightly uncomfortable pause.

He glances out the window of his plush corner office on the 21st floor of one of Melbourne’s most decorated office buildings at 333 Collins Street, which in the corner has a nondescript couch upon where he sleeps for what he calls “over-nighters”.

The cupboard behind him isn’t filled with documents or books, but rather a two-week supply of clothes — neatly ironed shirts, suits, shoes and even a bottle of fine red wine because he never knows when a client will want him, anywhere in the world, at any time of the day or night.

The wall opposite is adorned with framed photos, newspaper articles and documents recounting his most famous victories over a 25-year career as the lead restructuring and insolvency partner at independent Melbourne law firm Arnold Bloch Leibler.

Zwier has also been the man some of the biggest and most controversial names in Australian business — think Richard Pratt, Steve Vizard, Peter Scanlan, Bruno and Rino Grollo, Trevor Kennedy and Ray Williams — have turned to when, as one client puts it, “the shit hits the fan”.

He’s earned the moniker in the corporate world of “Mr Fix-it”.

Near the couch there’s a model Ansett plane, a memento of his work on Lindsay Fox and Solomon Lew’s failed bid to save the now collapsed former icon of the Australian skies. And in front of the plane is a small framed photo that almost seems out of place. In it are his two granddaughters.

“This is probably revealing of me,’’ he finally replies to my ­question, his voice dropping to a whisper.

“But I have worked too hard. I work too hard and I remain too ­focused. Sometimes I think it would have been better if I just slowed down a bit. I am very ­focused, and when I am in the zone, I am incapable of slowing down or turning off.’’

One consequence was the break-up of his marriage, which he politely declines to talk about out of respect for his ex-wife Sandra, with whom he remains on good terms. (His new partner is commercial lawyer Arianne Rose.)

But he is willing to speak about the impact of his work on those closest to him.

“It has been hard. I have four children. That focus I speak about has broader implications. My children would sometimes say, ‘Dad you are here, but you are not present.’ What they were really saying to me was ‘We can see you are here with us but your mind is immersed in your work’.

“When they were younger they hated it. They would describe my glazed look and could see I was in a different space. I tried to snap out of it, but it was hard. It is very hard for me to actually let go. I live and breathe these cases. I was probably better at letting go when I was younger and the connectivity to clients and work was not as instantaneous and pervading as it is now. I have gotten worse.’’

But such is the life of Leon, the son of Polish and German immigrants who is loved by his clients and feared — even hated at times — by his opponents. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

His fans laud his brilliant legal mind and his trademark aggressive advocacy. His critics simply call him a bully. Or worse.

Zwier has been in the middle of some of the biggest battles in corporate Australia in recent times.

Think the collapse and subsequent rescue — announced last week — of steelmaker Arrium and the demise of legal firm Slater & Gordon, which this week settled a massive legal case with its own shareholders.

Zwier was also involved in the hardware wars between Woolworths and Lowe’s, the ugly boardroom coup at fallen sharemarket darling Bellamy’s and now he’s popped up in the bid to rescue ­another corporate icon, the Ten Network.

Earlier this month he celebrated his 60th birthday with a roast at St Kilda’s Newmarket Hotel attended by legal luminaries as well as Opposition Leader Bill Shorten and wife Chloe. Shorten is an old friend who Zwier represented pro bono in the 2015 trade union royal commission.

Shorten’s roast, one of 11 during the marathon evening, even included a video message from former prime minister Tony Abbott.

Zwier says he was talked into the idea of a birthday roast by his children, who now range in age from 22 to 33. One of his daughters, Rebecca, works at ABL, although never on her father’s cases.

Their contribution on the evening included a parody of the infamous Wolf of Wall Street movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio. Except in this version, The Wolf of Collins Street, the lead character — played by Zwier’s son — was his ­famous bespectacled father.

“My kids know that if anyone would come along and say nice things about me I would be decidedly uncomfortable. But if they come along and roast me, I can cope with that a lot better,’’ Zwier says with a wry smile in a wide­ranging interview with The Weekend Australian conducted before the roast and before the collapse of Ten late last month.

Indeed, few characters in corporate Australia polarise opinion quite like Leon Zwier. His supporters call him the best insolvency lawyer in Australia, without a peer. Property mogul Rino Grollo even named a difficult ski run on Mount Buller the “Zwier Zig Zag” to reward his favourite lawyer for his work. (Zwier’s favourite pastimes are skiing and watching cricket.)

Yet Zwier’s adversaries speak of his brazen lack of discretion and his win-at-all-costs attitude. They claim he enjoys “torching people’’ and “going in hard”.

Some clients have also been allegedly frustrated by Zwier’s preference for giving aggressive verbal advice over more measured, written correspondence in their cases.

Others call him “two-faced’’ and claim his sharp humour is often used to belittle others.

They are all charges Zwier rejects. “I am never two-faced and that is why I am successful as a lawyer. Black is black and white is white,’’ he declares in response.

“The better lawyers are always that way.’’

He says his penchant not to use the verbose written word — his plain English briefs usually run to no more than a page and a half — is more in keeping with a US-style lawyer who is “focused on the outcome”.

Ask Zwier about making enemies, and his response is swift. He couldn’t give a damn. “I have no concerns about that. None. Because those people that regard me as their enemies fail to understand what I am doing. I am an advocate for a client and not their enemy.”

He seems proud of being feared, but in the right context.

“As a lawyer you need to develop many attributes. Obviously, a lawyer must be able to be affable and available. But a lawyer also needs to command respect and at times be feared,’’ he says.

“All of these attributes form part of the armoury of a successful advocate. Yes, sometimes I am deliberately fearful and unpleasant.’’

Zwier has at times pursued some of the great injustices in Australian society. He describes his work for building products giant James Hardie, which led to it signing the nation’s largest compensation deal for asbestos victims, as his greatest victory.

He also acted for the McCabe family in its landmark win against British American Tobacco.

But his work for alleged white-collar criminals has drawn criticism. So how does he feel about defending people some have simply labelled “corporate scum’’?

For a moment you glimpse something of the bully Zwier’s enemies love to hate. His voice is raised. He looks you straight in the eye and twitches (as he often does, especially when riled). The boxing gloves are well and truly on. And he gives you his best right hook.

“They fundamentally misunderstand the issues,’’ he begins.

“These people view some of the most successful entrepreneurs in the country’s history myopically. What a terribly imbalanced perspective on Australia’s most successful entrepreneurs. Every person you deal with has their good and bad characteristics. This observation fails to balance the contribution these people have made to business, employment, philanthropy and Australian society generally.

“We are all going to make mistakes. No one is infallible.

“People in business are often focused upon business outcomes and the lines between right and wrong on complex transactions get blurred. Most of those cases concern a person allegedly having stepped near to or on the wrong side of that line.

“But I tell you this, the one thing I know is that most of those people caught up in these imbroglios will never, ever go near that line again having realised they have come near to crossing or have crossed it.’’

It sounds like an apology for people who have broken the law, perhaps? But he goes on.

“People do not deliberately cross that line,” he says. “If they have crossed it they are smart enough to know they have made an error of judgment. But it never makes them scum.”

Indeed, part of the reason Zwier takes on the seemingly impossible cases is that he is a born optimist: arguably the opposite of the traditional risk-averse lawyer. He muses that most lawyers have somehow lost that childlike ability to take on an impossibly complex problem with confidence.

“If you go to a child and say, ‘can you fix this problem’ or climb Mount Everest, a child would say, ‘If I want to’. Most adults, lawyers in particular, would think when presented with a professional Mount Everest, ‘I can’t do that’.

“Lawyers need to be more creative and willing to take a strategic, considered risk. A person like me looks at these professional challenges as difficult peaks to climb. My immediate response is: ‘ABL can climb that peak’.’’

Which brings us to another criticism of Zwier — that he is a show pony.

As one Melbourne-based observer puts it: “He’s more of a Sydney-style than a Melbourne-style.’’

Zwier regularly breaks one of the golden rules of the legal profession: he actually engages with the media. And is proud of it.

That doesn’t mean running a case through the press. But he ­argues that from time to time it is incumbent on lawyers to back­ground media and provide them with a balanced view of what is going on in a case.

“Lawyers have a responsibility to now move away from their traditional conservative and old-fashioned view that lawyers should not engage with the media,’’ he says, noting his engagement with what he terms the “responsible’’ media has been extremely positive.

But in these engagements he lives by one golden rule: never lie.

“You have to be respectful of the media to be respected by the media. And finally let me say this — there are a large number of matters that I deal with that the media are interested in. And if a journo was to cut across me or burn me, I will never deal with that person again,’’ he says. They are, as he terms it, “zapped’’.

“That is, I will deliberately remove them from the list of people that I would otherwise talk to.’’

Part of the reason Zwier is able to engage with the media is the culture of autonomy that pervades ABL, where he has worked since 1991. Not that it hasn’t got him into trouble. “From time to time (ABL senior partner) Mark Leibler would observe some mischief created by me and yes he would let me know in very clear terms he was not happy. But he also understands that the creative mischief is also connected to the professional successes,’’ Zwier says. “Mark is a brilliant man who has remarkable perspective on not just legal issues, but all issues.

“He has impeccable judgment and always has a contribution to make. But you need to be prepared for his directness. Mark never minces his words. It is a great strength.”

The relationship between Leibler and Zwier has provided much of the foundations for ABL’s success, even if they are but two of a team of many including Leibler’s son Jeremy.

They describe each other as friends, even if they don’t socialise together.

“What most people see in Leon are the qualities that make him such a formidable lawyer and advocate — deep knowledge of the law, and this rare capacity to think out of left field and hone in on solutions to seemingly intractable conundrums,’’ Leibler says.

“What is less well known is that Leon’s tough exterior belies the intense empathy he feels for clients and their concerns. He is incredibly loyal, both to clients and to his fellow partners.’’

That loyalty was perhaps best illustrated in Zwier’s passionate defence of the late Richard Pratt when Pratt was charged with perjury for giving false testimony to the competition regulator after he admitted sanctioning a cartel in the cardboard box industry with rival Amcor. Pratt was exonerated on his deathbed when the charges were dropped.

While Zwier’s Polish-born father ran an army disposal store when he first came to Melbourne, his grandfather and Pratt were ­actually distant cousins. The case was one of the few in which Zwier admits he got emotionally involved.

And he was heavily criticised by some of the most senior business figures in Melbourne — especially in parts of the Jewish community — for his apparent personal crusade against former competition regulator Graeme Samuel, which carried on for years afterwards.

Zwier feels he was righting a terrible wrong committed against his client and wouldn’t change a thing if he had his time over.

And despite speculation some members of the Pratt family were angry about the way ABL handled the cartel case, Zwier says the relationship with the family remains “strong’’ and was not damaged in any way by the affair.

The firm continues to do work for the family and its current and former executives attended Zwier’s 60th birthday celebration.

But the Pratt case and hundreds of others over decades in the law taught Zwier one important lesson above all else, at some personal cost: work as a lawyer is a marathon, not a sprint.

That learning became embarrassingly apparent for the first time publicly several years ago during a speech Zwier gave to hundreds of law graduates about the battle to save the failed music retailer Brash’s.

He told them that the transaction to save the company settled the morning after one of his “over-nighters’’, before musing that this particular office sleepover upset his ex-wife no end, and he could never work out why.

Then in winding up his address he noted the deal culminated in the execution of a deed of company arrangement on July 5, 1994.

In front of 600 people it suddenly hit him, and he uttered three more words, almost under his breath: “My wedding anni­versary.”