After studying law at Oxford, where I was also a choral scholar, I joined Linklaters. As a trainee, I did a seat in Hong Kong, then six months in Moscow and two years in Singapore as an associate. When I made partner, National Grid was one of my most significant clients, stemming from my time in Singapore; I handled most of their significant deals. I built a practice acting for FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 corporates, a number of German corporates and various media companies. Overall, I had a brilliant, fulfilling career over my 27 years at Linklaters and the next 4 years as Global Vice Chair M&A at Paul Hastings.
After leaving full-time law, I planned to pursue a mix of paid senior advisory roles and voluntary work. When the news of my leaving Paul Hastings was out, Eversheds Sutherland asked if I’d be interested in working with them on a two-year contract. As a senior strategic advisor, my role was to help the firm with its M&A practice and am now thinking about offering similar support to other firms. It was interesting and good fun and they’re doing brilliantly. I’m also a senior advisor to legal recruitment firm Montresor Legal, helping firms and candidates with their strategies and careers, and I’ve been doing ad hoc consulting for former clients.
