An interview with Alfonso Lamadrid

We start the year on stateofcompetition.eu with a rare treat: an interview with Alfonso Lamadrid de Pablo, the mastermind behind one of the best known competition blogs (and, arguably, the best): Chillin’Competition (www.chillingcompetition.com).

Alfonso Lamadrid does not need a long introduction and it suffices to say that he is not only a practitioner of the competition law but he is also passionate about this branch of the law, often complicated and too often taken rigidly, and the blog which he supports is like an island of serious professional discussions, whilst enjoying a cocktail.

Alfonso, thank you a lot for taking a little bit of your limited time to answer these questions! You have the floor:

1.What determined you to start writing a blog in the first place, given that a blog is often seen as a kind of diary and not fit for serious professional topics, such as competition law? Weren’t you concerned that you may look superficial and that this could damage your stance in front of clients and collaborators?

Alfonso Lamadrid: I was invited to do so by Nicolas Petit, who deserves the credit for coming up with the great idea to run this blog. In fact he started Chillin’Competition a few days before I joined. At the time I was 25, had no family and had taken a year off work while completing an LL.M in the U.S. so I felt much less constrained on many fronts.

The current reach of the blog was hard to predict back then. But even now I am not concerned about an appearance of superficiality because that would be a very superficial assessment 😉 Humor and an open mind are the most effective and sensible attitudes to approach any issue, however serious, particularly when it takes such a big chunk of our time. This approach helps make our dedication to competition law more pleasurable and sustainable.

But in spite of the informal tone we use, the seriousness or depth of the analysis that features in some posts is, in spite of immediateness, much less superficial than what you find in newsletters and in many other publications. The blog certainly gives one visibility (particularly when one is a young associate at a non-anglosaxon firm) and that can be positive or negative, depending on what one does. We could surely have done many things better, but the overall assessment is quite positive. Clients and collaborators enjoy it too, or so they say…

2. You mention that ChillinCompetition is meant to bring ”relaxation”, which you claimed not to be in contradiction with this matter. Do you think you achieved this purpose – relaxing competition practitioners and other people interested in your subjects? In the same vein, do you think the undeniable success of Chiillin’Competition is due to the topics you touched or rather to the way you touched these subjects?

Alfonso Lamadrid: Again, “relaxing whilst doing competition law” was Nico’s motto for the blog. But I do think we (Nicolas, Pablo and myself) have somewhat achieved that. We feature serious and not-so-serious posts and the mix seems to work. Some readers like a certain type of posts and others enjoy a different one. I think our mix of personal approaches and writing styles also helps.

The constant evolution in competition law offers much food for thought (endives included). We also try to make the issues accessible, or known, or we try to be frank, provocative and sometimes even purportedly fun. The fact that tend to offer the first, almost immediate, commentary on important developments is also, in my view, an important factor. Most other people could do this and have a very similar or better result; our only merit is to have managed to devote time to taking care of it.

3. You recently wrote a rather a piece in which you started by saying farewell but it proved to be a test for the attention the readers give to the blog, failed by the the followers. Now, in full honesty, how many times did you hit the wall (you will understand this concept, because you are also a runner)  and wanted to discontinue or, at least, take a break, from such a consuming (with no financial rewards) activity?

Alfonso Lamadrid: That post was not really intended as a test for readers but rather as a joke about the end of a saga of cases that had to a large extent been identified with the blog. But it did reveal that those who say like us the most don’t really always read us in detail…which explains many things.

On your question: I think about taking a break or quitting almost every week! If it weren’t because of Pablo (for many reasons the ideal person to do this with), I would have already closed the shop. When I started I had more time both at home and at work, less constraints, less consciousness about readers, perhaps also more ideas that I wanted to share.  Right now I have many more responsibilities at home and at work, much less time, more self-imposed pressure to keep the blog running, so writing now sometimes feels like an obligation.

At the same time, that obligation forces me to read and think about issues that are not necessarily on my desk at a given moment (which is useful because many of them have later somehow landed there). And I learn the most when I have to write or teach. It is often the case that the things that take an effort are the most rewarding and this is no exception. The experience with the blog has proved to be very rewarding at all levels (even of not financially as you point out). I have met many people through the blog, met many good friends and have had many opportunities I would not have had in a counterfactual scenario in which the blog were absent.

In any event, the blog in itself is not that time-consuming; it takes much more time to answer a surprising amount of emails from readers – including these questions 🙂

4.  Last but not least, an open question: say whatever you wanted to say and you did not want to write on ChillinCompetition – the audience is smaller than that of ChillinCompetition and the chances your words will get unnoticed are much higher 😉 ?

Alfonso Lamadrid: That perhaps we may discontinue or transform the blog once it turns 10…  We’ll see!