legal partners and friends all over the
world. An early connection was Graeme
Menzies, a lawyer in the United Kingdom
who coordinates his firm’s international
practice. He has worked with Steger on a
number of international projects during
the past 20 years.
“Many law firms think they have an
international practice if they open a few
foreign offices,” Menzies says. “Martijn
is unusual in building a convincing
international practice in Columbus
by spotting market opportunities—for
example, in China, India, Mexico, the U.K.
and the Eastern Mediterranean—and
building and nurturing excellent relations
with businesses and partners in those
places, amongst others, and by getting
to know the cultural and business issues
there. He has also hired great lawyers
from other jurisdictions and has built an
impressive international team.”
Gerhard Manz, a partner with the
German law firm Friedrich Graf von
Westphalen & Partner, teamed up with
Steger on a transaction for a U.S. company
that wanted to buy divisions of a German
company located in the Czech Republic
and the Ukraine. The challenge was to
coordinate a multinational team of lawyers
and accountants on one side and the
in-house team of Manz’s client on the
other side. At the same time, they had to
manage negotiations with the German
seller and its advisers.
“During endless conference calls
[Steger] never lost his patience,” says
Manz, “nor his goal to get the deal done to
the fullest satisfaction of the client.”
STEGER FOLLOWS THE EXAMPLE SET
by his parents. “My dad immersed himself
in whatever we were interested in,” he
says. “My mom was a real caregiver, which
translates to client service. And both of my
parents taught me how to look at the world
through other people’s eyes.”
He remembers his grandfather taking
him one summer to see a sign on his Dutch
town’s hall. It read: “Listen to both sides.”
“If my family had a motto, that would
be it,” says Steger, who has two grown
daughters of his own. “That’s how I look
at the world. I have my own biases, but
everyone else has their own as well. I
need to be able to look at things through
their eyes.”
That philosophy is not only helpful
in building a global practice from
Columbus; it also helps during
bureaucratic annoyances incurred while
building such a global practice.
Rather than yell at the airline employee,
he said, “‘Take a moment and walk around
your desk and stand here in my shoes.
What would you do if you were me?’ She
looked at me for about 10 seconds, picked
up the phone, called the airline in London
and got my reservation reinstated. It
makes such a difference when we step into
someone else’s shoes.”
