Legal Voices: Alex Denny - GROW Mentoring

We spoke with Alex Denny, Chief Operating Officer at GROW Mentoring and Assistant General Counsel and Vice President at Bank of America, about his unconventional route into law, the transformative role of mentoring, and the progress and challenges in building a more diverse and inclusive legal profession.

You studied Archaeology before moving into law - what first sparked your interest in a legal career and how has that unusual academic background influenced your approach as a lawyer?

At school, my passion was always English Literature – when we had careers sessions, I was always asked if I’d considered becoming a lawyer (although this may be more because I was an argumentative kid!). However, the suggestion clearly stuck: I ended up working at a law firm (Stevens & Bolton) in business services before university. I enjoyed my role and found the industry really interesting, so it was a natural choice to explore for graduate jobs. 

Coming from a non-law background was a huge advantage for me. My degree was focused entirely on solving problems – for example, my dissertation was on why Middle Kingdom Egypt didn’t adopt a system of coinage despite interacting with other civilisations that did. In Archaeology, you identify questions and issues and work through them methodically, which gives you a great “toolkit” for advising clients in a legal context.

You’ve spent time working both in private practice and on client secondments. How has that mix of environments shaped your understanding of what clients really need from their lawyers?

Students applying for law will no doubt be tired of hearing about how commercial awareness is important in the profession – however, working in both private practice and in-house roles at both Goldman Sachs and Bank of America has driven this home to me. Knowing and applying the law is not enough; clients need tailored, practical solutions that meet their business needs.

Having this front of mind is important in both environments. As a private practice lawyer, your challenge is to try and pre-empt the issues your clients will face to deliver effective advice and value for money.

In-house lawyers do appreciate when private practice counsel has an intimate understanding of the client’s work and operations. This shows very clearly when they provide advice that can be passed on to the business itself in their own terms – many in-house colleagues will share my experience of receiving analysis from firms that needs to be “translated” out of lawyer-speak into terms that frontline business teams can understand and act on.

On the in-house side, your responsibility is to be an advisor to the business and this sometimes transcends law. When I first went on secondment to Goldman Sachs, I had come from a corporate private equity seat where our main focus on due diligence reports was examining the legal issues closely to flag to our clients.

In-house, my focus shifted to looking beyond the legal points in the same reports to reputational and operational risks. Instead of asking if something is legal on the facts, you may be looking at whether something is actually feasible or recommended on a risk basis – the maxim to live by becomes “if this was legally airtight for us but went wrong, would we still look positive in the national news about it?”

You’re COO and trustee of GROW, a legal mentoring charity. What inspired you to take on that role, and what impact have you seen the charity have so far?

I was very fortunate to work at a law firm before university as I was surrounded by a range of gifted, experienced lawyers who were incredibly generous with their time. Before beginning my degree, I’d had various areas of law explained to me, been given recommendations on different firms and their practice areas and was told a host of “dos” and “don’ts” for applications.

The lawyers I worked with wanted to help and give back in any way they could, and I was aware very early on that this was an incredible head start – I then saw students at university making mistakes and going down paths they wouldn’t have if they had someone in the industry to guide them.

I joined GROW when I secured my training contract at Allen & Overy as I wanted to give back the knowledge and experience I’d accumulated in the same way those lawyers had with me. I started in the charity as Finance Director, joined our Board of Trustees in 2023 and stepped into the COO role in 2025.

At university, I took on finance roles in a range of student societies as it was typically the least popular but most consequential position – now, it seems to also be something that has stuck for my career!

As COO, I manage our day-to-day operations and primarily oversee our finance, risk, and corporate governance processes; areas that, once again, aren’t always popular but are understandably important for the charity’s success.

During my time at GROW it’s been amazing to see us pair thousands of aspiring solicitors with mentors, and host dozens of well attended and reviewed events. The most rewarding impact I see in my role, however, is in our success stories – when students share the difference their mentor has made to their career and their life it drives home how transformational mentoring can be.

What’s the most valuable thing you’ve learned from the students or mentees you’ve worked with?

GROW’s students never fail to educate and surprise us in equal measures. A common point of feedback from our mentors is that their mentees end up teaching them about their own profession and help them to grow in their own roles as well. 

In my role as a mentor, I’ve been lucky enough to support a range of diverse and fascinating students who’ve taught me about a host of things they know about that I might never have known otherwise – what the parents of a second generation Persian immigrant in the UK expect for their career; how the legal industry in Guernsey works; or even how to apply transferable skills for an application from volunteer experience with the UN in Cameroon! 

Access to the legal profession is something you’re passionate about. Where do you think the industry is still falling short in terms of diversity and inclusion?

When I started my career, I worked with partners who had been recruited off the back of a cursory chat with someone at university and offered a job on the spot at prestigious firms in London – scarcely believable in today’s environment of thousands of applications for a single place, and sometimes three or four different assessment hurdles! The field has changed much more than most realise in the past five decades.

However, there are still steps to be taken to ensure everyone is operating on a level playing field. While GROW does support aspiring barristers, the majority of our community are aspiring solicitors. From our perspective, we have seen a number of trends in 2025:

• Trainee solicitor offers for non-Russell Group university students are on the rise – although this tends to disproportionately reflect non-Russell Group universities in and around London, who have more access to law firm insight opportunities; 
• 6% of solicitors now identify as having a disability, with more firms establishing disability and neurodivergence support – however, this still lags behind 16% of the UK workforce being disabled;
• While 62% of solicitors are women, only 37% are partners (with a higher proportion of salaried partners rather than full equity partners); and
• Well reported political headwinds have put diversity infrastructure at risk.

The profession has made significant strides towards improving diversity and inclusion – but there remains distance to cover to ensure a level playing field across all stages of legal careers.

(Statistics sourced from the Solicitors Regulation Authority diversity data tool)

You’ve worked in both paralegal and business teams. How has that broader exposure helped you in your role as an associate?

In your view, what’s the single most important skill or mindset a law student can develop to thrive in today’s legal market?

When I was applying for training contracts, a comment made by Allen & Overy’s Graduate Recruitment and Training Principal, James Partridge, really stuck with me – that the firm looked for people who were “creatively restless”, who sought out solutions to problems instead of trying to innovate for innovation’s sake, or being dogmatic about doing things “the way they’d always been done”.

Creativity is essential in the modern legal market: as more firms seek to position themselves as boardroom advisors, being able to approach problems from a range of different angles to your competitors isn’t just desirable, it’s essential.

For law students in particular, curiosity plays a significant role in this mindset. If you find an area of the law that you are fascinated by and want to continue learning more and exploring, you will stand out from the crowd both as an applicant and as a trainee solicitor or pupil.

Looking ahead, how do you see the role of mentoring evolving in the legal profession over the next decade?