I co-manage and co-own Hughes Krupica, a law firm based in Phuket with satellite operations in Bangkok with more than 15 employees comprising Thai lawyers and support staff. Over 21 years I have managed over 100 lawyers across multiple jurisdictions whilst servicing client engagements. I have also served as a board director to represent a class of shareholders’ interests over an 8 year period relating to real estate asset management with capital values exceeding 100m USD. I have worked as engagement partner on over 60 arbitration cases in Thailand. I am the former Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce (“ICC”) Thailand Commission on Arbitration and ADR  (3 year term), 2020-2023 of the ICC which was preceded as Vice-Chair for 2 years. I am also the former Vice-Chair of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, Thailand Branch (“CIArb”). I am on the Panel of Arbitrators for the Thailand Arbitration Institute and on the List of Arbitrators of the Hong Kong International Arbitration Centre.

I was admitted as a solicitor of England and Wales in 2002. My admission is governed by the Solicitors Regulatory Authority. I am currently non-practicing but remain eligible to practice.

There are various pathways to achieving Fellowship in CIArb. My chosen route was to undertake the Asia-Pacific Diploma course in 2016, pass the Practice and Procedure examination and then attend the mandatory physical tutorials for award writing in Melbourne and Sydney, Australia, respectively. I took my final Award Writing examination in Bangkok 2017, was issued my pass and subsequent Fellowship in 2017.

Subsequent to this, I continued my connection to CIArb by becoming the Vice-Chair of the Thailand Branch as of 2019-2021.

I studied law for 3 years whilst living in halls of residence at Lambeth North for the first year, living with my father in Wandsworth for part of the second year and then commuted from my own flat in Erith, Kent for the final year of my LLB and for the postgraduate legal diploma before subsequently moving to my last U.K. home in Blackheath, London. During my years of study I also juggled several part time jobs ranging from delivery van driver, waiter in a Spanish restaurant, shelf stacker, DJ, and part time council worker cutting grass at Government housing projects. I graduated with a 2:1 Hons and managed with family support and my part time jobs to pay for the post graduate diploma course whilst beginning the journey of looking for work and a training contract.

I developed the firm from a small 1 Bangkok office less than 5 headcount to additional offices in Phuket, Koh Samui, Bali and Ho Chi Minh City with a headcount exceeding 70 and a group turnover of more than 7 times that of the first year when I invested as a partner.

I created operational and organisational structures to accommodate growth, generated new business globally for all offices and serviced clients – for both disputes and transactional matters. During this time I cut my teeth as a manager, as a foreigner in Thailand, a businessman in Asia and learnt first-hand how to plan a start-up and operating budget, and then how to manage and measure performance against it. I also learnt how not to run a business through my own trial and error and observations of others on different career paths with different priorities, values and principles. Overall this was an invaluable experience in teaching me empathy for businesspeople growing and managing a business across multiple borders and trying to develop a structure within that.

Trisara is a high-end luxury private resort and residences project nestled in the hills of the western headlands in Layan, Phuket and fronting the beach. The values for a long leasehold interest in a villa and its land plot range between a few million USD up to 40 million USD plus. The owners at Trisara and the guests at the hotel generally seek tranquility, privacy, and the availability of high quality amenities and services.

Based on legal works conducted for one Singaporean owner, I was socially introduced to other owners and carried out legal works for them. In due course I was asked to be a representative of a collective of owners on the board of the management company which employed the management staff and held the assets relating to the private residences. This entity’s board was structured so that there were 2 directors including myself representing villa owners, and 2 directors representing the hotel asset owner and operator, to allow balanced governance and interaction.

I took up this role for 6 years. For the last year of my office, my objective was to merge the functions of TEC Services Co. Ltd (“TEC”) with a management structure for the phase of residences known as Trivana, and to effectively decommission and cut costs by removing the need for active management of TEC. One of the owners at Trisara was instrumental in guiding and overseeing this process, and the outcome was a merged structure under an umbrella arrangements, stabilizing historical corporate and contractual functions but overlaying a new and more efficient contractual structure to empower owners to manage the function with significantly less external costs.

To date, I remain in close contact with villa owners at Trisara, and my law firm still provides legal services on sales and acquisitions, and other matters.

During my Legal Practice Course which was a prerequisite for becoming a solicitor, I approached fairly late on in my competitive peer set, some recruitment consultants to assist with the search for a training contract or work prior to commencing a training contract. One recruitment consultant made a lasting impression on me with the challenging statement “You’ll never get a job or a training contract in a top tier firm, you went to the wrong University and you are too late”. This was more than enough to catalyse the already existing ambition inside me to work in a top tier firm. I applied to many top tier law firms, attended final stage interviews and turned down one position at a U.S. law firm with satellite offices in London based on the approach to work-life balance. I was offered a paralegal role at Freshfields, a top tier ‘Magic Circle’ law firm, in the bustling mergers and acquisition department.

It was back in 2020 that I recommenced cycling, as a method of losing weight and increasing fitness during the first COVID19 pandemic issues. My first stint of cycling was from home to school from the age of 11 through to around 16 and then driving a car took over. When I moved into London for University, I took up cycling again and cycled from the halls of residence to my lectures, through Covent Garden and Soho, often stopping off for record shopping or for some food in Chinatown along the way.

I also participated in some long bicycle trips with my father, London to Brighton and London to Eastbourne on more than a few occasions. This is how I learnt to change an inner tube and repair punctures fairly rapidly. This stood me in good stead for my ‘latest cycling era’ in June/July 2020 through to now including on my family holiday road trip across Thailand. During some of my holidays I cycle almost every day, ranging from 25 to 45 kilometers per trip. I also managed to enlist my family into some group leisurely cycling in Chumphon, Hua Hin, Kanchanaburi and Phichit Provinces which is thoroughly enjoyable with stunning scenery.

Cycling has also been a way to rediscover Phuket as a Province with beauty, one of my favourite rides is the Bang Wad Dam circuit.

I was first introduced to sailing by invitation by my close friend Grenville Fordham by attending as a winch operator and general deck hand on sailing regattas in Phang Nga and Koh Samui. Living in Phuket as a principal place of residence has many advantages, and the abundance of sailing opportunities and fairly easy weather even in monsoon seasons most of the time lends itself to enjoyable days and nights out on the water. Over time, I was introduced to the Ao Chalong Yacht Club which subsequently became the Phuket Yacht Club, a very relaxed waterfront premises with a nice restaurant and bar, starting and finishing point for races and excursions. I was professionally involved in some of the legal structuring for the Club, hence the corporate lifetime membership. It would only be wise to invite me as an assistant on a boat, and never as a captain. In addition to the sailing trips, I have also benefitted as a guest on many motor yacht cruises, some ultra-luxurious with some nice overnight stays on islands nearby to Phuket. Overall, it would be remiss not to mention this as part of my “activities”, although considerably less frequent than my earlier years in Thailand.

I have been a full and part time resident of Bangkok for most of my time in Thailand and my wife and I chose the vibrant and lively Thonglor area for our first condominium investment at the 8 Thonglor. This provided a nice city life trendy hotspot experience, before our children arrived. I often still commute to Bangkok regularly and service clients and attend professional commitments there. With our properties in Bangkok rented out I will generally stay in hotel and serviced apartments near to wherever my commitments are. One aspect of Bangkok I very much enjoy is the diverse cuisine and dining scene. Favourite places include Cocotte Farm Roast and Winery Sukhumvit Soi 39, La Casa Nostra Sathorn, The Commons Thonglor for any one of its many restaurants including Peppina, Masala Art at the 8 Thonglor, Bully’s Pub or the Robin Hood for an alcohol free beer or soda water and lime, and for Thai food at any one of hundreds of street food and shop houses for simple Thai food mostly in the Ekkamai and Thonglor areas.

I regularly visit Phichit Province having first visited there to meet my wife’s family several times in advance of proposing marriage followed by marriage in April 2012. Phichit is famous for its advanced agriculture and suitable flat lands and drainage for rice, Pomelo, tamarind, mandarin plums and watermelons. It is also famous for its legends including the legend of the ‘Chalawan’ inspired by the fact that Phichit used to be home to many crocodiles in its waterways, which is no longer, fortunately, the case.

Phichit also has an interesting Chinese-Thai influence that is also strong in neighbouring Nakhon Sawan, with ‘Dragon Boat’ racing a regular and annual festival pursuit. My experiences in Phichit have always been family oriented, and as a non-Thai I have been welcomed into the community and feel at home each time I visit by in-laws and also wider relatives and friends. We have visited many times at Thai New Year ‘Songkraan’, at calendar New Year and also in the middle of the year. The opportunity to enjoy local produce, fresh from the fields surpasses the trendy ‘from farm to table’ promotions found in modern restaurants. When a family member pops out with a pair of scissors and torch and brings back a plateful of herbs and vegetables to mix with rice and other dishes, this to my mind is the closest to non-processed food you can get.

Phichit also makes great cycling territory, with many paths between beautiful rice fields cemented and accessible and a fairly logical layout to boot.

In recent years I have taken to commuting to Nakhon Sawan for exercise at a gym and indulging with or without family in tow at the very nice boutique coffee shops and patisseries around that area. Nakhon Sawan also has a beautiful mountain top temple Wat Woranut Banphot.

In the last 10 years I have visited Australia regularly for a variety of reasons, and the country has also become part of the fabric of my life, as have some of my close Australian friends based in Asia and Australia. Tasmania is the first part of Australia I visited, an island state where one of my closest friends lives. I took my arbitration award writing tutorials in Australia by choice, Melbourne and Sydney, and for more than 4 family holidays we have visited friends in and explored Melbourne, Sydney, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast. There is of course a lot more to see and do in such a vast country. Non-Australians can make the mistake of conflating Australian values and culture with Anglo-Saxon or European values, which is a fatal cultural misunderstanding. Australia has a unique history, indigenous society and has been shaped by its own policies, geography, politics and culture. I look forward to many more years of returning to Australia either for business or recreation.

My first exposure to art was studying it as a teenager in a fairly limited manner, although my art teacher at that time was very encouraging to his pupils. Beyond that, I decided to adopt as an enjoyable habit, regular visits to the Tate Modern on the Southbank in London to admire more able people express themselves in a breathtaking variety of ways. This expanded into trying to visit galleries on my various trips abroad of my preferred but non-exclusive style of art, contemporary and modern. I visited galleries in Stockholm, Gothenburg, Oslo and then further afield including in the U.S. on my Honeymoon, our regular family trip to Australia which we generally make in Aussie Winter, and wherever I get a good chance such as during my trips to Paris for the ADR and Arbitration events. This by no means makes me a competent or educated purveyor of ‘art’. I simply admire art and take time to see it and appreciate it. Art influenced the design of my law firm’s website, which includes a ‘Credit to Creators’ section as does this site, and it also influences my thinking and approach to life. Innovative thought and looking at life through different perspectives and lenses can surely be enhanced by absorbing and considering art. Here are some photos from my art travels.

In the age of social media, we are all exposed to a wider spectrum of the tastes and experiences of others in relation to food and gastronomie. This has enabled more discerning choices to those visiting new places with limited opportunities to make eaterie ‘mistakes’. Personally, food has been a source of much enjoyment for me during my time in the U.K. and in the second half of my life in Asia. I was previously a member of the Chaine de Rotisseures for several years. I also sometimes attend local ‘society’ based long luncheons in Phuket, which are held in different venues each month.

Further, with able assistance from my Thai family, I have immersed myself in local Thai cuisine, and having already possessed a palate that appreciates spice and chillies, my Thai culinary tastes expand as far as hot shrimp pastes, ant egg and herb soups, pungent bamboo and fish egg orange curries, and untranslatable ‘brown’ coconut-milkless curries that must score fairly high on the Scoville scale. I am not alone in my pursuit of food experiences, and it is being in good company that can make it all the more enjoyable.

I became alcohol free in 2022 and this has not changed by interest in fine and local dining.