Position: Associate, Capital Markets
Education: LLB (Law and French) Queen's University, Belfast; LLM (European Law) University of Nottingham
Joined Clifford Chance: 2007
Qualified: 2009

I came to Clifford Chance a bit later than most and from a slightly different angle. After university, I did internships in the US Congress in Washington, DC and the European Parliament in Brussels, before going on to work as a case-worker at the AIRE Centre, a London-based charity providing individuals with advice on European human rights law. This led to a traineeship at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, where I drafted decisions on the admissibility of cases from the UK. On top of my interests in politics and human rights law, I was very keen to build professional experiences in a international business context and so was attracted by the training and opportunities offered by Clifford Chance.

I started my training contract in the Capital Markets group in London, but went on to do two overseas secondments and one external secondment. This turned out to be quite an unusual route to qualification. After six months in London, I boarded the Eurostar en route to my second seat in the Finance and Capital Markets group in Paris. It helped that I am fluent in French and had previously lived in France, so the transition between offices was very smooth. In the Paris office, I worked on transactions involving the supermarket giant, Carrefour, EDF Electricity and Europcar.

After Paris, I came back to London to do a seat in the Litigation and Dispute Resolution group. It was an interesting time to be there as we were advising clients in the wake of the Icelandic financial crisis and the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy. I also got involved with some of the pro bono cases the firm is litigating before the European Court of Human Rights, including the high-profile case of the exiled Chagos islanders. As I chose to do a split seat, I spent three months in the London office, and three months on secondment to a social welfare law firm called Law for All, where my work focused on housing and benefits law. I regularly represented clients in disability living allowance appeals at the social security tribunals and helped staff a busy legal advice clinic open to members of the public.

I went abroad again for my final seat, this time to the Finance group in the Tokyo office. Living in Japan was a very exciting and rewarding experience. Clifford Chance arranged an intensive language course before I left London and, once in Japan, the office provided two hours of personal language tuition every week. The 'survival' Japanese that I learnt really was invaluable! On the work front, I was involved in financing deals for some of the biggest Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi, Nissan and Sony.

In August 2009, I qualified into the London Capital Markets group where I worked on transactions involving the issue of bonds on the debt capital markets, and the (aborted) IPO of a Dubai-based oil services company on the London Stock Exchange. My work spanned many industry sectors, from banking and construction to energy and agriculture, and was very international in focus. Clients included the Bank of New York Mellon, Barclays, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank, HSBC, and J.P. Morgan.

In April 2011 I was seconded to Paris to work for six months on the in-house legal team at Natixis. Natixis is one of the biggest French investment banks and a major client of Clifford Chance Paris. At Natixis, I broadened the scope of my work by gaining experience of swaps and derivatives, mainly linked to securitisations and project finance transactions within Europe and the Middle East. In October 2011 I will rejoin the Capital Markets team in Clifford Chance Paris.

The international focus of my training contract definitely helped develop skills that assist in the cross-border and multi-jurisdictional work I now perform as an Associate. I enjoy the transactional nature of the work and the co-ordinating role that we often play in pulling the deal together. As a trainee, I managed to work in three different countries and in four different practice areas, as well as being sent on an exciting pro bono secondment. If you are looking for a training contract that stands out from the rest, then I would strongly encourage you to consider starting your legal career with Clifford Chance.