Profiles

The Hot 100 career quiz: Simpson Thacher’s Geoffrey Bailhache

Name: Geoffrey Bailhache Organisation: Simpson Thacher Role: Partner  Location: London Trained at: SJ Berwin Year qualified: 2005 Read his Hot 100 profile What’s your most vivid memory from being a trainee? I remember being a bundle of nerves! Very excited about starting, but with no idea what I was letting myself in for. Thankfully I […]

Obituary: Fred Banning

Fred Banning, one of the legal sector’s most popular communications professionals, has died after a lengthy battle with illness. He passed away on the evening of Friday 19 May, leaving behind his wife Lesley and his sons Ollie and Charlie, to whom he was a loving husband and father. Diagnosed with stage four bowel cancer […]

How Ally McBeal drove one Swedish lawyer to the fintech frontier

It would be fascinating to see exactly how many young lawyers were influenced by Calista Flockhart’s 90s portrayal of Boston lawyer Ally McBeal. The show was a critical and commercial success, winning multiple Emmys and Golden Globes over the course of its five-season run. One lawyer who can vouch for Flockhart’s influence, and also to […]

My career story

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My career story: “I left law to become a poet”

Mona Arshi is a prize-winning poet and former human rights lawyer. She recently won the Forward prize for best first collection.  You began your training contract at JR Jones in the same week that Doreen and Neville Lawrence instructed the firm on the murder of their son Stephen. How did that time influence the rest […]

Deborah Grimason

My career story: Travis Perkins general counsel Deborah Grimason

Travis Perkins general counsel Deborah Grimason grew up around business – though she’d be the first to admit that her father’s bakery delivery business in rural Northern Ireland was a far cry from the FTSE 100 company she now guides through legal minefields. Grimason knew two things growing up: that she wanted to enter a profession […]

David Patient

My career story: “I moved into management”

Travers Smith’s David Patient gives his advice for those moving into a management role. Was moving into a management position always a career objective for you? It has certainly not always been a career objective for me, but something that evolved over time. I had the good fortune to have the opportunity to open our […]