Profile:

I am a partner at Bristows in our Commercial IT / Technology department. I’m usually found “doing deals” (that is, negotiating) for clients who are trying to implement new IT systems which might enable their business to meet their goals. Sometimes this means helping a Premier League Football Club set up an online store to sell their merchandise and other times it involves helping an organisation procure the technology to sequence a 100,000 genomes of patients with rare diseases to try to find a cure for cancer.

I graduated from Melbourne University in Australia with a degree in law and also psychology and worked at a large Australian law firm, having qualified in 2002.  I had a roundabout path to working at Bristows in London. After qualifying, I decided that law wasn’t for me, so spent three years doing anything but the law, from speech writing, to teaching English in Shanghai and running competitions for a sporting peak body in South Australia.  It was only after four years out, I thought I should give the law one last chance and I returned to my old firm and had a fantastic experience working in their technology, media and telecoms team.  What had changed? It was partly though gaining a fascination for learning about new technologies (and hearing about them before they hit the market!) and also working with some brilliant lawyers, but I think I just came back to it at the right time.

Having gone from never thinking I’d ever want to be a lawyer again, to being very happy as an associate and now a partner, I would be very happy to talk to anyone who is thinking about a career in the law, especially if those who are not sure it will be for them long term (like I used to).

Back To Mentor Profiles