Frances Murphy is the kind of lawyer you’d like to have on your side in a difficult negotiation. The new head of corporate at Slaughter and May combines a smile with a huge dose of reserve and feels no compulsion to fill silences when faced with a journalist prying for insights.

She will need every bit of that tough persona. Murphy is taking control of the firm’s flagship practice as the economy enters a downturn that has seriously shaken its clients’ willingness to do deals.

Murphy, 50, is the first female to run the practice, following in the footsteps of Chris Saul, the new senior partner, and Nigel Boardman, one of the City’s best-known dealmakers. A Slaughters lifer, she was elected to the position in April.

Murphy’s mother died when she was a child, leaving her to grow up in a family full of boys, so she is comfortable in a male-dominated environment. But she dismisses gender as an issue. “I can see that it’s interesting,” she says, “but to be honest it doesn’t really make a difference here. We have never been interested in anything apart from whether people are good enough lawyers, regardless of colour, creed or anything else.”

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A devoted Arsenal fan who spends much of her spare time taking her 11-year-old son to football matches, Murphy grew up in west London, where she attended a state school. She fell into law after realising in the middle of an A-level in mathematics that she wasn’t keen on numbers. After finishing university, she interviewed with four top London firms. Slaughters was the first to offer her a job and she accepted, joining the firm in 1981. She became a partner in 1990.

Management was never top of her agenda, she says. “I wouldn’t say I have always wanted to do it, but I thought it would be interesting. I don’t intend to stop any of the deals I have been doing or give up any of my clients.”

Instead, Murphy sees the role as one of rallying the troops. “It’s a role that involves encouraging talent, and I will essentially be doing whatever my partners want me to do,” she says. “So if I can help people, that’s what I’ll be doing.

“We have never been believers in heavy management here, so to do these roles you need to have people skills, and you need to know when you are wanted and when you’re not.”

Murphy made her name working on the demutualisation of Abbey in 1989, immediately after returning from a stint in the firm’s Hong Kong office. The bank has remained a client since; she advised on the £9.5 billion takeover by Banco Santander in 2004. She has worked on other major deals such as Euronext’s bid for the London Stock Exchange.

“I wanted to be a tax lawyer when I arrived,” Murphy says. “I had done tax as a specialist subject at university and I thought it was great. But the firm didn’t have a space in the tax department.”

Instead, she was articled to Nick Wilson, one of the firm’s star corporate partners at the time. “He was a huge influence on me,” she says, “and when I was invited to join that group I didn’t hesitate.”

Fast-forward to today. The next few years will not be easy for corporate lawyers, Murphy concedes. “Clearly there are interesting times ahead, and the challenge for us is maintaining what is already a formidably good corporate practice.

“I have no plans for major changes or developments, but that’s not to say that I or we are complacent. We strive to be better every day.”

For now, work levels are holding up: the practice has been busy for the first quarter of 2008 advising BHP Billiton on its £64 billion offer for Rio Tinto, and Reuters on its £8.8 billion merger with Thomson. Then there is the Northern Rock saga; Slaughters is acting for the Treasury.

“I think we’ll see clients being more cautious about deals, and perhaps taking stakes rather than full control,” Murphy says. “But in a sense these markets play to our strengths, because we don’t have lots of lawyers sitting around doing only one thing. We pride ourselves on having adaptable, flexible people, so whatever comes through the door we will do.”

Murphy has done her fair share of restructuring work in the past and will do so again. “This is not the first time that markets have been hard. There are always ups and downs, so the question is whether the business is fit to adapt to them, and I think we have been, and are, fortunate in that respect.”

Outside the law, Murphy is a trustee of the National Foundation for Education Research and when we meet she is preparing to leave for Washington to speak at a Securities and Exchange conference on global takeover regulation.

Is she a frustrated teacher? “If I was looking back at my career choices, teaching may well have been one of them,” she says. “But I think to be a fantastic teacher you need a fantastic amount of patience, and I’m not sure I’ve got that.

“I enjoy law and I like dealing with clients,” she adds. “That’s what I think I’m good at.”

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