An all-day Saturday conference at One New Change, London, many years ago.
Allen & Overy” />Name: David Krischer
Firm: Allen & Overy (A&O)
Title: Global head of international capital markets
Lives: Kingston
Education: Northwestern University, Chicago; Oxford University
Work history:
1982-85: Associate, Hoffman & Davis, Chicago
1985-92: Associate, A&O
1992: Partner, A&O
2006: Global head of international capital markets, A&O
What was your first-ever job?
Working in my father’s floor covering store on the south side of Chicago.
What was your worst experience as a trainee?
Trying to manage small collection litigation matters as a new lawyer in Chicago.
Where’s the best place to go if you want to find out what’s really going on in the office?
Toss-up between trainees or PAs.
What time do you usually leave the office?
Between 8pm and 9pm.
What do you do at weekends?
Drive the kids around and try to get out on a couple of bicycle rides.
What’s your favourite restaurant?
The restaurant at a hotel called Zi Martino on the Tuscan Coast.
If you weren’t a lawyer what would you have been?
Manager of the Chicago Cubs baseball team.
Who’s your hero and why?
Cubs legend Ernie Banks. He was the hero of every 10-year-old boy in Chicago in the mid-1960s.
What’s the best thing about your job?
The intellectual challenge and colleagues.
What’s the toughest thing about your job?
The increasing speed with which everything needs to be done.
What’s your biggest work/career mistake and what did you learn from it?
There’ve been so many – my only goal has to be never make the same mistake twice.
What car do you drive?
An eight-year-old BMW estate. I also have two titanium road bikes, one carbon-fibre bike, a couple of steel-framed road bikes and a mountain bike.
What book are you currently reading?
A Peace to End All Peace by David Fromkin.
What’s on your iPod at the moment?
Willie Nelson, Johnny Cash and The Grateful Dead.
What’s your favourite children’s book?
It’s a toss-up between Dr Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who and Bartholomew and the Oobleck.
What’s the most exciting deal/case you’ve worked on and why?
The inaugural Broadgate securitisation, because of the legal structuring involved.
If you were stranded on a desert island, what two luxury items would you take?
If I had a bicycle and unlimited internet access it could be a nice place to stay.
What’s the worst partner conference location you’ve attended and why?
An all-day Saturday conference at One New Change, London, many years ago.
What’s the longest you’ve worked without sleep?
About 40 hours.
If a movie was being made about your life, which actor would play you?
Harpo Marx – no, that’s not a typo.
Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with?
A voluble expert on the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive.
