Michael Edward Hatchard was born on 21 November 1955 in Wiltshire, England, the son of Kenneth Edward William Hatchard and Diana Margaret Hatchard. Wiltshire is a county in south-west England, a largely rural region that stands in contrast to London, where Hatchard later spent most of his professional life.
Hatchard studied law at the University of Reading, where he took a Bachelor of Laws degree between 1974 and 1977. The university traces its origins to 1892, when the University Extension College, Reading, was founded as an extension college of Christ Church, Oxford; it became University College, Reading in 1902. It received its royal charter and the power to award its own degrees in 1926, and it was the only university to receive such a charter between the two world wars.
He was admitted to the profession in England in 1980 as a solicitor of the Supreme Court of England and Wales. The Law Society of England and Wales is the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales, and admission placed him in the solicitors' branch of the legal profession, which was distinct from the barristers' branch.
Hatchard joined Theodore Goddard in London as an assistant solicitor in 1980 and remained there until 1985. The firm had been founded in 1902 by John Theodore Goddard, a London solicitor who first practised on his own account before the practice grew into a partnership. By the late 1980s its London office had expanded to more than 300 staff and over 40 partners, and it maintained a media and entertainment law practice with music industry clients. In 1990 the firm moved to 150 Aldersgate Street.
Hatchard became a partner at Theodore Goddard in 1985 and remained a partner until 1994. In that year he left the firm for Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, a New York firm founded in 1948 by Marshall Skadden, Les Arps and John Slate and known for mergers and acquisitions work. He joined as the firm's first English-law partner, recruited by a US-qualified London M&A partner, and led Skadden's English law practice. Legal Business described his move as one of the earliest and most successful transfers from a City practice to a leading US firm, at a time when Wall Street firms in London were expanding beyond US law.
In 2003 Hatchard topped the mergermarket individual M&A tables by value, with twelve deals, and in the same year he founded the 51 Committee, a forum for English lawyers working in US firms. He retired from the Skadden partnership at the end of 2017, after more than twenty years with the firm. He then continued as a strategic adviser to Skadden, helping to promote the firm to FTSE companies.
Established Skadden's English law practice after joining in 1994 as the firm's first English-law partner, and headed that practice for more than twenty years.
Topped the mergermarket individual M&A tables by value in 2003, with twelve deals.
Founded the 51 Committee in 2003, the first forum for English lawyers working in US firms.
Hatchard was a member of the Law Society of England and Wales, the professional body for solicitors in England and Wales. He was elected to the City of London Law Society in 2003. That association represents solicitors practising in the City of London, the historic financial district of the capital. In 2017 he became a liveryman of the City of London Solicitors' Company, one of the livery companies of the City of London, which are historic guilds with continuing links to the City's trades and professions.
Quotes from others about the person
A colleague who worked with Hatchard described him as "technically very able" and "very commercial," with extensive deal experience.
