What’s your job about?
I’m currently a first-year lawyer in Hall & Wilcox’s Banking & Financial services team, after completing a grad year where I had the opportunity to rotate through three of our commercial practice teams: Corporate & Commercial, Property & Projects and Banking & Financial Services.
As a banking and financial services lawyer, I work on matters involving setting up investment funds, drafting advice to fund trustees, managers and superannuation companies, work involving regulatory, licensing and compliance bodies such as ASIC, as well as loan transactions involving major lenders and borrowers.
What’s your background?
As someone with a background in the creative arts field, if you had told me five years ago that I would be working as a lawyer at a commercial law firm, I might not have believed you!
I grew up in a city called Nanchang in China before migrating to Australia in grade three, and finished high school at University High School in Parkville, Melbourne. Coming out of high school, my favourite subjects were English, media and legal studies. So, I decided to do a Bachelor of Arts majoring in creative writing and media and communications at the University of Melbourne, which included spending a year writing an honours thesis on one of my favourite authors David Foster Wallace! During uni, I also worked at a boutique web design company called Jin & Co, which specialised in making websites for authors.
After my undergrad I thought I’d give the law a go and completed the JD at UniMelb in 2021. Nearing the end of the JD, I didn’t go through the clerkship process and wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to work at a commercial law firm. I was volunteering at a community legal startup at the time, Anika Legal, which provides legal services to vulnerable renters in Victoria. It was there that one of Anika’s co-founders, Dan Poole, who is also a lawyer in Hall & Wilcox’s Pro Bono & Community team, told me about an opportunity to apply for a grad role at Hall & Wilcox. From there, I never looked back.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Absolutely. I felt like I took a pretty unconventional path into commercial law, and at the start of my grad year I was quite self-conscious of the fact that I didn’t have a commerce degree nor any prior experience working at a law firm. However, I quickly found that Hall & Wilcox embraces people with different backgrounds and has cultivated a culture which encourages me to stay true to myself, to have confidence in my existing skills, and to stay open-minded to new experiences. You won’t be expected to know everything, and you will also be surprised at how many seemingly unrelated skills can come in handy. For example, even though I have an arts background, I find that many of the critical thinking and language interpretation and writing skills I gained in my creative writing major helps greatly with everyday things lawyers do like drafting advice and interpreting contractual clauses.
The only thing you will need to bring is curiosity and an open mind for learning.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
The best thing about my grad year was the variety of work I was exposed to. Even though I rotated through what most may think are ‘transactional’ or ‘front-end’ teams, I was lucky in that Hall & Wilcox’s practices are so varied even within teams, that I was exposed to all kinds of work beyond just what a transactional lawyer might do, including litigious and advisory work. During my grad year I also became involved in Hall & Wilcox’s China Practice, which is a cross-practice team within the firm servicing Chinese clients with a range of legal matters including financial services, banking, corporate, property and dispute resolution. It’s very rewarding to work in a team where I’m able to put some of my cultural background into my work.
The variety of work during my grad year put me in a great position to decide where I wanted to go – going forward – and where I fit in. I chose to stay in our Banking & Financial Services team because I enjoyed working through advice about complex and ever-changing financial services law, and dealing with the many moving parts of a loan transaction or setting up an investment fund. The complexity of the work created many opportunities to scratch a ‘creative’ itch within me through drafting advice or interpreting clauses in legal documents. The best part of my job is that I now get to do that kind of work every day.
What are the limitations of your job?
The law is difficult, complex (and often poorly drafted!), especially in a constantly evolving area like banking and financial services, and you will make mistakes. These things can stress you out, especially in a commercial team where you often face tight deadlines. Someone told me during my rotation that ‘you get better, but the work gets harder’. That’s why it’s important to be surrounded by a team where you feel supported and guided by your seniors. I count myself lucky to have found myself in one.
Three tips you would give your younger self when you were a student...