I joined Fox Williams as a trainee in September 1995 and left in 2004. I left to join Eversheds Sutherland, and I am still there, but now a partner in the Financial Services Disputes and Investigations team.
I remember laughing a lot, mostly at things which wouldn’t seem at all funny to anyone else! Whenever the 1990s litigation team gets back together, all the old stories get told over and over again, and we still laugh. One of my biggest belly laughs followed an email sent by Simon Taylor and Gavin Foggo at 3.00am asking everyone to log out of Pilgrim (IYKYK!).
All of the litigation team when I started had a massive influence on me and made me the lawyer I am today, particularly Simon Taylor, Adam Epstein and, of course, Gavin Foggo. But the biggest influence would be Lindsay Hill, our leader and greatest supporter. I knew I had to be totally on top of my game when I had my supervision meetings with him, as he would find me out within about 30 seconds if I wasn’t! I was also incredibly lucky with my trainee group; I became good friends with Lakhraj Minhas and Laura Staight very quickly.
Team spirit is everything; we worked hard and played hard, and didn’t take ourselves too seriously. Importantly though, we did take the work really seriously and produced the best that we could for clients. It was really inspiring at such an early stage of my career to be surrounded by people who were incredibly bright, but also completely down to earth and unstuffy. That made my transition from a small market town in the North East with no family history in law to working in a City law firm very easy.
You earn trust in thimblefuls and lose it in buckets. Integrity is everything, whether it is with colleagues, clients or opponents.
