Freya

Assistant Vice President, Legal
Year of Hire: 2009

I work in the Legal Department, covering two areas in the Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) legal team (i) Prime Services and (ii) Fixed Income and Foreign Exchange. As a result of supporting these two groups, my work is varied, providing legal support and advice in relation to a significant number of products across the bank. I work closely with both the senior business heads of these areas of the bank, as well as more junior business members, and people from Sales and Client Integration. I also work directly with our clients on active negotiations, establishing new business arrangements, as well as occasionally pitching to clients with the business. I also work on internal projects and bank initiatives. I work in both an advisory and transactional legal capacity.

I studied History at Manchester University, knowing that there would always be the option to convert to law at a later stage. Having attended various ‘milkrounds’ at university I decided I wanted to become a city Lawyer. I started my legal career as a trainee at a top law firm in London, qualifying into the Derivatives and Structured Products department in March 2007. After four years, I was seconded to New York and Sao Paulo each for 6 months and to Hong Kong for a year. I worked hard and long hours but loved the people I worked with and the opportunities, and was fortunate enough to benefit from a rigorous training program and culture.

In mid-2009, I decided I was ready for a change and wanted to see what working on the client side, as an in-house lawyer was like. I thought that my skill-set may be better suited to being more interactive and client facing and I had just enough experience behind me to make a move, which lead me to applying to Barclays Capital for an in-house position. At the time that I was looking, the legal market was very quiet, post the financial crisis and as a specialised derivatives lawyer, I had to be patient to find a good opportunity, which was the right fit. Barclays has a very good reputation in terms of the quality of their in-house counsel and the quality of work which remains in-house, and those were some of the most important factors for me at the time. My interview process at Barclays was very efficient and I moved into my new role quite quickly.

I work in a team that has grown and developed significantly over the past two years, as the Prime Services business has grown in to a major market player, which has been a great opportunity. We work in a very interactive environment, sitting in open plan and working closely together. It is a supportive environment and my colleagues are both impressive and enjoyable people to work with. The pace of work is fast, much more so than private practice, and we work concurrently on a large and very varied number of matters at a time, but the work life balance is good and you have a significant degree of control over the way in which you work, which is really important to me.

With a good work-life balance, I’m able to live a pretty full life outside of work, socialising with friends most evenings and running and going to yoga or spinning, either after work or at lunch time, sometimes with friends from work. And, very importantly, the weekends and holidays are my own!