Allen & Overy

Louise Wolfson

Introducing....Louise Wolfson

All good things must come to an end and so Colleen has passed me the baton (or should I say the poisoned chalice?) of the role of partner blogger. I shall start by introducing myself and some of the characters who are likely to feature in my blog - my name is Louise Wolfson and I am a partner in the corporate department in London. I am an A&O "lifer" having started here as a trainee in 1996. I studied social and political sciences at Cambridge University but I always intended to do law so I did the CPE and LPC at the College of Law and then joined A&O. During my training I sat in litigation, projects, ICM, corporate and then spent my final seat in New York. I qualified into Richard Cranfield's group and in some respects I haven't made much progress as I still work with (and for!) him now.

“Living and working in New York was a fantastic experience ”

I started my career doing a broad mix of corporate work which at that time also included doing some debt transactions (mainly working on MTN bond issues and programmes). When I was two years qualified, I went back to work in our New York office which was then in a rather embryonic state but was radically transformed during my time there by the recruitment of a team of high profile partners from Cravath, Swaine and Moore which put us on the map in terms of our US corporate offering. My broad experience and willingness to give anything a go served me well and while I was in New York I did a lot of structured finance and derivatives work, as well as the odd M&A transaction. Living and working in New York was a fantastic experience and I particularly enjoyed being able to walk to work and the fact that, even if you finished work late at night, there were still plenty of bars and restaurants open to enjoy on your way home. It is definitely a city of work hard and play hard.

My time in New York came to an end when my son was born - and after two years of flying to and fro, my husband had had enough of the commute as well. So the newly expanded Wolfson family returned to London and, after my maternity leave, I returned to the corporate department in London. After a few months back at work, the opportunity arose to apply for a secondment to Virgin to cover the group legal director's maternity leave. I applied and soon found myself working in Notting Hill, surrounded by people much trendier than me and fielding legal queries in relation to the myriad of Virgin businesses. It was a fascinating few months and, although I didn't get a trip to Necker Island, I did return to A&O with a much greater insight into what it is like to be a client. In what was to become a bit of a pattern (and somewhat ironically given that I had been on secondment to Virgin!), I also returned expecting our second child.

By the time I returned after my maternity leave, I was a senior associate and increasingly focusing on equity capital markets (ECM) transactions. When the opportunity arose to send a senior associate to the Merrill Lynch ECM legal department I was an obvious candidate and, although I was concerned about being away from the office during a critical time in the run up to partnership, I was persuaded to go. My time at Merrill Lynch was enormously beneficial in terms of understanding how lawyers are perceived by investment bankers ("they don't understand the deal and always say no") and how bankers are perceived by lawyers ("they are a bunch of cowboys"), all of which was particularly acute at bonus time. When I came back to A&O following my Merrill Lynch secondment I was expecting our third child and was also in the throws of the partnership selection process. Everything went well and in May 2007 I became a partner at A&O which was a goal to which I had been working for so long. After my maternity leave, I returned to the corporate department as a partner in C8 and started the really hard work of trying to build a client base and my own practice. It is still a work in progress so I hope to be able to share with you the ups and the (hopefully infrequent!) downs along the way.

Outside of work, my life is almost entirely consumed by my three children and trying to spend as much time as possible with them. I love travelling and was determined that having kids would not be an impediment to seeing the world (having been born and brought up in New Zealand was surely an influence on that!). So my children are extremely well travelled and the last year alone has taken us to Israel, Morocco, Holland, New York, Paris, Spain, and, with an eye on the economy and the environment, Bournemouth and Center Parcs. I look forward to sharing my travels and my Allen & Overy journey with you. I hope you will join me on the way.

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Comments

Thanks for the blog, and welcome to blogging for the website. Your life thus far seems quite exciting and unique, as well as your travels to New York and workings with clients. Though, I distinctly enjoyed the analysis that lawyer have towards bankers, and vice versa. I look forward to your next blogs! Perhaps do one about your daily life at A&O?

Brandon Large
28 Sep 2009