“As an innocent young Yorkshireman, a couple of the PAs convinced me that for the summer party in London you wore a dance card on your wrist and had to dance with different people during the course of the evening.”
“Disguise at work is dead. Be yourself. If you can’t, get out of there, your firm isn’t right for you.”
“Do what you really want to do, because only then can you work as obsessively hard as is necessary to achieve success.”
“When you discover the role or aspects of the job that you enjoy, say to your boss ‘this is what I love and this is what I want to focus on’.”
“Be patient, work hard and be nice to people. Eventually opportunities will arise.”
“As first year trainees we were tasked with the ‘tradition’ of performing at the firm Christmas party. Six of us chose to perform a Mishcon-themed rap song.”
Name: Fred Banning Firm: Pinsent Masons Role: Head of corporate communications Read his Hot 100 profile What’s your most vivid memory from being a grad trainee? Well, not as a trainee but as a junior PR account executive at Kysen PR, I remember being dispatched to Wells Street to collect some back copies of The […]
“I received over 10 pupillage rejections from chambers who explained to me that they had already taken on ‘one woman’ and that my application would therefore be declined.”
“My predecessor as managing partner at Brodies said never to try to do more than three things at once. He didn’t say if running a law firm counted as one!”
“A former DLA partner, Fran Davie, shaped me as a litigator. He taught me less is more when drafting, not to sit on the fence – and to swear like a trooper!”
Name: Ciaran Boyle Organisation: First Quantum Minerals Role: Manager – Legal Trained at: Dentons Year qualified: 2011 Read his Hot 100 profile What’s your most vivid memory from being a trainee? I vividly remember being somewhat bemused (terrified) when in my first few days as a trainee a partner in the financial regulation team seemed […]
Coming from a Nigerian background there a few avenues you are pushed down, and my mum thought being a lawyer was what I was good at. Sciences didn’t work for me; law made sense at age 16. I was born in Oxford but grew up in Aylesbury. I have been in London for six years […]
I took Religious Studies, Business Studies, English and Spanish as A Levels. I liked reading, writing and analysing things that were linked to intellectual pursuits. I wanted to study something with languages and Law seemed like a good choice, so I read Law with Spanish at Sheffield. * Challenges came thick and fast and started […]
I spent my formative years in Ghana until the age of 12 when I moved to the UK. I went to school in Nottingham. It was at sixth form college where I found myself and where I met more diverse people – my school was mainly white. It was strange being surrounded by a sea […]
I was born in Nigeria and came to England when I was 15 to go to boarding school to do my A-Levels. I did a couple of degrees – economics in London and a law degree in Oxford. I did my articles at and joined Wilde Sapte as a litigator and that is what I […]
I moved to the UK (Romford in Essex) from Nigeria when I was 15 – that was a culture shock. Prior to that point I had never travelled outside of Nigeria. It was an interesting couple of years adjusting to the culture. Unusually, I studied law at A-Level. I enjoyed it so decided to study […]
My mother is a single parent of Nigerian and Kenyan descent, I grew up in Tottenham. There is something where parents from those backgrounds expect you to go into medicine, law, accountancy or an engineer. Every other job isn’t a job. I considered careers at an early age. I wanted to be a doctor initially […]
If I am honest it wasn’t that I put tonnes of thought into the decision to become a lawyer when I was 18. I was strong across a range of different subjects at school. I did Biology, Chemistry, History and German at A Level and could have gone in several different directions. I felt the […]
I initially wanted to be an athlete and had aspirations to be an Olympian. When I was 16 – with some prodding from my parents I focussed on academics. I was a good sprinter but there are a lot of transferable skills – one of them being self-motivated – something that is very important at […]
There may not have been any doctors or lawyers among the people I grew up with, but everyone I admired shared a sense of public duty and its rewards. Many first-generation Britons will share my experience of helping older family members navigate the unfamiliar systems that surround them. I may have been a quiet child, […]
I went to a state school in North London. One of the biggest challenges was getting people to accept that you had the ability to pursue goals. I watched a documentary when I was 16 called 14 days in May. It was about Edward Earl Johnson who was innocent and was on death row in […]
I am mixed race; my father is from Ghana and my mother is from the UK. I was born in the UK but grew up in Tanzania. I spent my formative years there and came to the UK aged 12 for secondary school and university, but regularly travelled to Tanzania over that period. I have […]
I knew I wanted to become a lawyer early on in my life – but went to study English literature as I loved it. At the time, I knew law firms recruited non-law grads and I anticipated that the transferable skills from English would feed into my legal work, which they have. I come from […]
Name: Emilie Cole Firm: Irwin Mitchell Role: Partner Trained at: Duncan Lewis & Co Year qualified: 2006 Read her Hot 100 profile What’s your most vivid memory from being a trainee? Very early on as trainee, I was asked to travel from London up to Liverpool to visit a new client on my own: a […]
My mother is American, my father is Kenyan and I was born in Canada. I emigrated to this country when I was eight years old. After arriving in this country we moved around and I went to a variety of different schools. I studied law at Warwick University and then completed an LLM at King’s […]
The award for GC of the Year, sponsored in 2020 by FTI Consulting, always throws up a fascinating list of in-house talent and 2020 is no exception. The nominees this year span the worlds of finance, travel, education, health, energy and more. Natasha Lewis was University College London‘s first in-house lawyer. Now its director of legal […]
Name: Emily Reid Organisation: Hogan Lovells Role: Partner Year qualified: 1984 Read her Hot 100 profile What’s your most vivid memory from being a trainee? Probably the completion meeting I attended to close a bond issue when one of the bankers asked me if I’d like to perform a ‘floor show’. The documents had been […]
Name: Naomi Horton Firm: Ashurst Role: Partner Trained at: Clifford Chance Year qualified: 1992 Read her Hot 100 profile What’s your most vivid memory from being a trainee? A real highlight was spending my third seat in Tokyo, which also included spending my time single sculling on the Tokyo 1964 Olympic rowing course from Nihon […]
Name: Rebecca Williams Firm: Watson Farley & Williams Role: Partner Year qualified: 1997 Read her Hot 100 profile What’s your most vivid memory from being a trainee? I qualified in Australia in 1997 and practised in New South Wales for four and a half years before moving to the UK in 2001. I have many […]
Liverpool headquartered Weightmans has enjoyed a comfortable few years, which has seen it keep hold of its position of as one of the UK’s top 50 firms by revenue.
Paul Jenkins was a bold choice for managing partner, and now he’s running the firm during one of the most turbulent periods in its history. 15 July: Ashurst partners: ‘We can turn things around’ 26 July: Ashurst CFO quits
The story of the re-entry of the Big Four accountancy firms into legal services has occupied many minds in the last year or so. But in the UK, there is one notable absence – Deloitte. While its rivals EY, KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers have all been busy hiring senior lawyers from top private practice firms Deloitte has stayed away from the UK market.
Last November Irwin Mitchell announced that it was acquiring southeast firm Thomas Eggar. The deal gave the northern-focused Irwin Mitchell an additional six offices in the south of England and has boosted the firm’s turnover to £250m.
Allen & Overy’s (A&O) new management outlined their strategy to partners last month in the 45-degree Dubai heat. But what were the hot topics on the agenda?
Private prosecution boutique Edmonds Marshall McMahon caused a stir earlier this year after it made the biggest lateral hires in its short history.
Orrick’s global boss and London head talk about bringing the firm’s base in the capital up to scratch to meet the needs of global clients, Microsoft and Instagram.
Linklaters’ new managing partner Gideon Moore speaks out about his plans to review everything at the firm to “check that what we’re doing still makes sense”.
Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) launched a new plan of action on Thursday (28 April) that gave an enticing hint at its plans for expansion in the US.
Manchester has become a competitive breeding ground for back office-style legal processing centres and Berwin Leighton Paisner (BLP) wants to be one of the city’s biggest players.
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman is among a minority of international firms to have by-passed Hong Kong and entered into Greater China via an office in Shanghai. Six years after its 2006 launch in Shanghai, the firm expanded its mainland China footprint to Beijing and most recently it announced a plan to set up a base in Hong Kong.
King & Wood Mallesons (KWM) has had a turbulent few years. Since the merger with SJ Berwin in 2013 created a global firm made up of three separate partnerships, bosses have struggled to keep a hold on ‘big-hitter’ partners in the UK, keep finances in check and integrate 2,800 lawyers including 600 partners worldwide.
Laura Uberoi is a Council Member at the Law Society and, alongside Kayleigh Leonie, represents junior lawyers of 0-5 years PQE. In October Laura was elected as president of her local law society and in doing so became one of the youngest and most junior solicitor to ever hold such a role across the country. […]
I feel like a tranquillised hippo. My limbs weigh two tonnes and my brain’s too heavy for my head. It’s November and I have 3,000lb-ungulate jet lag, so I must be at MIPIM Asia. For readers who only know MIPIM Cannes, MIPIM Asia is Cannes’ more refined Hong Kongese cousin. Each year about 900 property […]
Julia Salasky, CEO of CrowdJustice, the online crowdfunding platform for legal action, spoke at the Law Society’s Future of Law lecture. In this adapted version she shares her experience using innovative technologies to connect lawyers and clients with funds to take legal action
While firms are beginning to embrace the opportunities that tech can provide, the advice sector remains underfunded when it comes to digitisation.
A few weeks ago, I was asked by a paralegal at my firm whether or not they should apply be applying for vacation schemes or if they should go straight to the training contract applications. To be frank, it stumped me, as it’s something I’d not given much thought to since qualifying. It brought to […]
By Richard Oliphant The market for legal services is highly competitive. The recent report by The Lawyer and Intapp (‘Navigating a new reality in the client-empowered’) revealed how law firms are investing heavily in ‘intelligent automation’ technologies and using data analytics to improve client service and stay ahead of the pack. Artificial intelligence (AI) and machine-learning […]
In the wake of the Brexit vote, there is a need for some clarity on the general subject of globalisation and a law firm’s strategic positioning. First, globalisation is not a decision. It is a force and, for all intents and purposes, a force of nature. It is the movement of people, ideas, products, services, […]
After last week’s historic decision by the British people to leave the EU many will want know immediately what the implications are.
Victoria Matthews is busy bringing a sense of unity to the two different sides of Zopa’s offering
Dana Grey wants the PPF’s panel to focus on diversity and inclusion to create meaningful change
The Victoria and Albert Museum opened its doors again on 27 August; for five months of lockdown, 5,000 years of art and design history within the sprawling cabinet of curiosities, full of almost limitless surprises championing the craft and skill of civilisation, was locked away. The culture sector took one of the most devastating hits […]
MUFG co-heads of legal Prabhat Kumar and James Morgan have wasted no time in transforming the operation, establishing a panel to drive efficiency
Hyve GC Helen Milburn has, not for the first time in her career, found herself dealing with momentous change
Industry knowledge feeds into LIG GC’s panel review
Matt Newman has adopted a ‘total football’ approach to running the legal department at the innovative branchless bank
SOAS’ director of legal is educating staff to work differently
At the start of 2016 restructuring partner Ashley Katz became the latest big-hitter to move over to Fried Frank Shriver Harris & Jacobson’s growing London base.
Shami Chakrabarti says she was surprised that the 13 January announcement of her imminent departure from civil rights charity Liberty attracted so much attention. Sandwiched between the deaths of celebrities David Bowie and Alan Rickman, the news still made the front page of several national newspapers, notably left-leaning The Guardian and The Independent
Since appearing in The Lawyer Hot 100 two years ago Reed Smith’s Tamara Box has taken on a new role at the US firm
John McDonnell QC was named in the Hot 100 in 2005 for his diverse practice, celebrity client roster and the launch of his new chambers, Thirteen Old Square.
Now in her 16th year at Travers Smith, Helen Croke has been key to the success of the firm’s private equity group. One of eight partners in the firm’s dedicated private equity and M&A team, Croke qualified at Travers in 2001 and moved up into partnership seven years later. The team has remained largely unchanged […]
Cathy Pitt is building CMS’ strength in the ever-changing world of funds
Jonathan Berger has found the ideal place to pursue his media work
Dan Oates is helping to build Fried Frank’s London private equity team
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 […]
Hays general counsel for UK and Ireland Evelyn Styles tells The Lawyer why she chose a role in-house over private practice. Did you start your career in-house? I trained at a small high street practice and it gave me first hand experience of dealing with all aspects of legal maters, such as contract and commercial […]
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 […]
Natalie Sherborn left the criminal bar and is now a senior associate at defamation and reputation management firm Schillings. She tells us about how and why she made the move. What’s your background? I went to a state comprehensive school in Essex. I don’t know if anyone in our family even knew what a barrister was, […]
Maclay Murray & Spens partner Jill Reid entered private practice after 25 years in-house with Chevron UK, Shell and Dana Petroleum. Why did you make the move into private practice? I feel that my role [at Dana] as General Counsel and Company Secretary in an oil and gas operating company having assets in multiple jurisdictions with […]
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 […]