Career spotlight: banking associate

1. What is your career background?

I started my legal career at a global law firm in London where I trained and subsequently qualified as a restructuring lawyer. Having spent two years there following qualification I relocated to the South West, seeing Bristol and the surrounding area as a fantastic place to put down roots and Burges Salmon as the ideal firm to sustain the quality and variety of work that I had done in London.

Since joining the Burges Salmon banking team in 2017 my practice has diversified and now spans good book lending in a variety of sectors, as well as corporate restructuring and insolvency work.

2. What attracted you to Burges Salmon?

First and foremost I was confident that the banking team would be a really good fit for me. From my research I had seen that a number of the partners and lawyers had taken the same decision to relocate as I was then planning, so the transition felt very natural. The fact that a sizeable proportion of the team’s work comes from London connections also meant that I could continue to develop the contacts that I had started to make.

I was also drawn to the wider firm on the strength of its reputation for having a positive, friendly and collaborative culture. In addition to this being evidenced by Burges Salmon’s various awards, it had also been vouched for by several of my friends who had completed vacation schemes with the firm. This reputation was immediately proven true when I interviewed for the role and met a number of my future colleagues.

3. What do you enjoy most about your role?

As a predominantly transactional lawyer I naturally enjoy the sense of satisfaction that comes at the end of a successful financing but I also find the complexities and nuances of distressed situations and restructuring matters particularly interesting.

For the past few years I have also acted as a trainee / apprentice supervisor which is extremely rewarding and has developed an entirely different set of skills.