Emma Danks is head of the UK corporate team at Winston Taylor, and a member both the firm’s executive committee and its EME board. She spent more than 15 years as a partner at legacy Taylor Wessing, including as head of private equity and co-head of international corporate. Here, she reflects on the value of good leadership, being a woman in transactional law, and the importance of learning to back yourself.
There was never one moment of clarity where I suddenly thought, ‘I am going to be a lawyer.’ I studied geography at university and then took a fairly scattergun approach to my career choice. If I’m honest, it was the chance to be a student for two more years that attracted me. And then when I started looking at training contracts and realised that I’d also be able to do a six-month secondment abroad, that was even better. But I always feel slightly embarrassed when upcoming law graduates or trainees ask me what my career plan was and I didn’t really have one. It’s just been happenstance. Fortunate happenstance.
