Have your parents ever described you as a Bush Lawyer? If not, it’s likely you didn’t grow up in Australia doing your own advocacy against your parents’ every decision, as Linklaters competition partner Nicole Kar did.
Kar’s passion for international relations and trade saw her study and visit Japan, at the time a key Australian trading partner. As a result, she speaks Japanese but she eschewed a career in Tokyo as it was Europe that captured her imagination and a career in the City beckoned. She had worked at Allens, Linklaters’ Australian alliance firm, before first making her way over to London and now splits her time between Silk Street, Dublin and Brussels.
The nature of her work straddling both contentious and advisory keeps it fresh, Kar says, with her current role seeing her advise Viasat on a merger with Inmarsat that is likely to create the largest satellite business in the world. A rising sense of economic nationalism means that Kar’s work will be increasingly relevant, as will her need to lead a multi-jurisdictional team of experts within the magic circle firm.