Steven W

Profile:

I’m a private investment funds partner in the London office of Squire Patton Boggs. I trained at Macfarlanes and have worked at a number of “US heritage” firms before joining Squires.

I come from a very proud Northern working class background. My dad was a policeman and my mum worked in Sainsburys. I attended the local comprehensive in Watford where the average academic grades were quite poor but which was a fantastic school in terms of pastoral care. Both my parents left school young and went into work, my father having been told that at eighteen he had to get a job, support himself and leave home.

Like many of us on this site, I was the first in my family to go to university and go into “a profession”. I attended University of York, which has always had a proud tradition of excellent state school representation amongst its student base, where I studied English and French literature. After flirting with a career in publishing, I decided that law would be a good career in terms of offering me interesting, demanding work (which it has) that would also give me the opportunity to travel (which it has to a greater or less. With that I applied for a training contract at Macfarlanes and joined as a trainee in 2011. The next few years I spent at a number of US firms, gaining experience in investment funds and financial services regulation until I joined Squires to launch the funds practice in 2021.

As an openly gay man from a background where not many people advanced to professional careers, social mobility, diversity and inclusion are incredibly important to me. In fact, when I was considering firms to join as partner, commitment to these pillars was something against which I considered the relevant firms.

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