PARTNER, RESTRUCTURING LONDON LAW SCHOOL GRADUATION YEAR 2008 YEAR JOINED WEIL 2022 YEAR PROMOTED TO PARTNER 2020 HOMETOWN LONDON What did you want to be as a child? In no particular or credible order: a doctor, an author, Steffi Graf, a comedian, a painter and one of the principal cast members of Starlight Express. I was incredibly openminded. If your younger self could see you now, what do you think her reaction would be? Where are your roller skates? I think I would be quite surprised I had ended up being a lawyer of any kind, but I was always hard working and academic as well as creative and argumentative, so perhaps I should have predicted I would be suited to restructuring. What might surprise people about your middle school and high school years? I loved heavy metal. My hearing is now terrible. What was your worst job? I spent a summer working in a café in the week, and then working in a barbers at the weekend. In the café, I had to boil chickens until all the meat fell off, then scoop it out and mash it up with mayonnaise for chicken and mayonnaise sandwiches. The smell of grey, boiled chicken and mayonnaise will stay with me forever. In the barbers, I had to clean the toilets (which I noticed practically every customer seemed to need to use), as well as clean the sinks and floor. Experiencing what it’s like to be the person doing those jobs taught me very early to be polite to people serving you in a café, or cleaning the bathrooms. They endure a lot. Knowing what you know now, what might you have done differently when you were starting out? I would have asked more questions and been a bit braver. I would have done a secondment to a client. I would have taken more holidays. What do you love most about Weil? The people I work with. I have great partners and colleagues and everybody is bright, fun and motivated. There are some incredible lawyers in the firm. What do you turn to when you need perspective or to unwind during a challenging time? My children, because they are funny and still want to be with me regardless of what is going on at work. I have made a concerted effort to raise them not to take themselves too seriously, and to be silly and affectionate and laugh a lot so that they learn to cope with their worries and challenges that way. We talk about our days and doing that helps me forget about mine, or allows me to hear how inherently pathetic some grown-up things are when you try to explain them to a child. Recently, my five-year old sent me some homework which replicated the homework he had been sent. It was cutting and sticking random numbers in ascending order. He said with a lot of glee, “See mummy, see how boring this is? This is what I have to do at school! It’s so boring, isn’t it?!” It certainly put reviewing a global deed of release into perspective. What advice would you give associates trying to make pivotal decisions in their careers? Spend a lot of time thinking strategically, analyzing it from every angle, weighing up the pros and the cons, doing your research and gathering information to help inform the decision. Seek advice from people you trust, and from people who have no skin in the game. Then sit with it for a bit. Then go with your gut instinct and do not look back. What is your greatest success? Marrying my husband and having lovely children. What is the biggest sacrifice you’ve made and was it worth it? I worked incredibly hard in my twenties and thirties: I took work very seriously and before I had children I put it first almost all the time. I think it has been worth it and I would have approached any career that way because it’s my nature. But it’s not for everybody. Who were your role models and how did they influence you? I don’t have role models as such – just lots of people I have worked with that I think are great at their jobs in various ways, and from whom I have tried to learn something or take best practice. Bad role models can have just as powerful an effect on you as good ones. There were some appalling characters early in my career, who went about things in such the wrong way and I learned from those experiences just as much. How does your personal background impact your work? I don’t assume I am entitled to be here: I still have a healthy sense of being a slight outsider. My parents have very, very strong work ethics and personal integrity. It is only now that I am older that I see how much it influences how I work and think about work. Go with your gut instinct and do not look back. “ ”
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