What is your current role?
I am a trainee solicitor at Allen & Overy’s London office. I am currently in my third seat, International Arbitration, following seats in the Corporate and Banking departments.
What attracted you to this career?
I was drawn to commercial law as I wanted to pursue a career that was going to challenge me and enable me to work on issues at the forefront of the economic and legal landscape. Being able to work as part of a large global team also appealed to me, and is something that I find myself doing on a day-to-day basis at A&O as I am in frequent contact with colleagues across our global network of offices.
In what ways did Lancaster prepare you for this career?
My time at Lancaster was instrumental in preparing me for a career in law. From the moment that I arrived at Lancaster, we were encouraged to think about careers and how to develop the skills that employers look for. The law school regularly hosts presentation and networking events with representatives from law firms, whilst the student law society (which incidentally I was on the executive committee of in my second and third years) runs a number of interesting extra-curricular activities related to law, such as mooting and negotiation competitions.
On the academic side, the small and friendly size of the law school means you can always go and chat with the lecturers and discuss any issues you are experiencing with your studies. I also found that Lancaster really encouraged me to develop my own independent way of thinking, with there being a large focus on independent study outside of contact hours.
What are your future career plans and how do you hope to progress?
I currently have one more seat left in my training contract at A&O before qualification. In the short term, I would like to continue progressing and improving the skills I have been developing during my training contract in order to become an effective junior lawyer.
Looking ahead to the long-term, I’m very much open-minded as to where my career might lead. Whether that is to continue working my way up in private practice or to go on and do something different, time will tell. Regardless, it is the academic, interpersonal and team-work skills which I developed at Lancaster which have given me the perfect base from which to begin my legal career.