Profile

I've been at Lovells since the beginning of my training contract in 1987. I qualified in 1989 into the corporate department and became a Partner in the same department in 1998.

Although I've spent a large part of my working career at Lovells, it certainly hasn't been a case of sitting at the same desk doing the same thing. For instance, I spent six months of my training contract in the Hong Kong office. After I had qualified, Lovells opened a Tokyo office and I was the first associate sent there from London. My main focus was on corporate work, but as the office was small (there was only myself and a Partner) we had to be very flexible and able to turn our hand to whatever came through the door. It was a very good experience in terms of learning how an office functions and being flexible and proactive to meet client needs.

After I came back from Tokyo (I spent nearly three years there) I had a period on secondment out of the office. We acted for ING on its acquisition of Barings Bank. You may remember that Barings collapsed suddenly and spectacularly and most of its business was acquired by ING for £1. I acted on the initial acquisition by ING and then spent six to eight months after the acquisition on secondment at Barings. It was a good learning experience for me, especially in terms of how to deliver advice in a practical and commercial manner in a much pressurised environment.

I have a team of about five lawyers working for me and I always tell them that they should view going on a client secondment as a very big bonus. It really teaches us a lot in terms of delivery of service and the client's concerns and prerogatives. There is no doubt that the lawyers working with me work hard, but I always try and ensure that they manage to get breaks in between transactions, that they fully understand what their role is on a transaction and that they are completely supported at all of its stages. In my experience - and this applies to Partners as well - no one minds working hard when they have access to all of the relevant information and are working in a supportive and co-operative environment. In fact, it's quite good fun!