Becoming a banking lawyer
Ever wanted to know what it takes to become the kind of lawyer behind the big-ticket headlines? Interviewees at Latham & Watkins lift the lid on the money move.
"“Generally, it’s a matter of advising various clients on loaning money. Financial institutions and funds loan money to companies, so we advise on the contracts and the risks involved, as well as how to manage those risks.”"
"“At Latham, our banking and finance team focuses on both the lender- and sponsor-side of syndicated leveraged finance deals and private credit transactions. There’s also a certain amount of corporate borrower work encapsulated into our sponsor-side work. Additionally, the firm includes a lot of other finance practices here, such as infrastructure finance, project finance, structured finance, and real estate finance.”"
Chambers Student: Can you give us an idea of the types of clients you work with?
HS: In terms of our ability to represent both borrowers and lenders, we’re uniquely positioned. On the sponsor side, we have a team that represents various kinds of private equity clients, often working closely with our corporate colleagues. On the lender side, we advise a variety of lenders, from your big investment banks like Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan, Deutsche Bank, Morgan Stanley, and Barclays, to commercial banks like Lloyds and NatWest. We also advise many of the largest direct lenders including KKR Private Credit.
Chambers Student: What are the differences between an associate’s role and a trainee’s role on a transaction?
HS: As one of their main roles, the trainee manages a lot of the process. Our transactions often move fast and involve a lot of different counterparties, so it’s not unusual to have between five and ten banks on the lender side, and every single document needs to be shared with them. Trainees and first-year associates can step up with keeping track of all that, seeing who has responded and who has questions, and coordinating signature pages and signings for a very large group of people. It can also vary substantially depending on the transaction.
On the sponsor side, trainees are typically more involved in drafting documents, such as taking the first drafts of board resolutions and certificates that need to be delivered. On the lender side, trainees typically do the inverse, taking responsibility for the first review of the sponsor-side drafts of each of those and putting together a first draft of opinion, which as the lender’s counsel we provide.
CG: In a sense, a large part of the trainee role is making yourself available and willing to help. As a trainee, you have the opportunity to get involved in drafting ancillary documents and opinions, and helping out with the signing process. As a junior associate, I’m involved in the project management of the transaction, as well as drafting and sending comments across a variety of ancillary documents, which can include the corporate documents (such as obtaining corporate approvals to complete the transaction or enter into certain documents) or security documents. You have a lot more responsibility, getting involved in drafting commitment papers (the process prior to entering the long-form documents). As you get more senior, you become more involved in the core finance documents. You also liaise with other teams at the firm to ensure they’re providing input, as well as with counsel in other jurisdictions. That’s alongside supervising trainees and communicating with your supervisor to ensure the deal is flowing to plan.
Chambers Student: And what about the role of a partner?
HS: By the time you get to being a partner, a portion of your time is dedicated to meeting with clients and business development, but it is not unusual to be across four or five active transactions. You get quite good at working with a compressed timetable; deals kick off with the initial review and it’s a matter of getting up to speed with documents and joining the calls with your clients to ensure they understand the contents of the documents.
It’s hard to describe a typical day. Normally, I’m reviewing other people’s work. An associate will do a review or initial draft of a credit or intercreditor agreement, and I’ll review their initial markups or list of issues. I spend a lot of time on calls, as by the time things get escalated to me, that usually indicates some type of material commercial issue that needs to be resolved. I’ll be on calls with clients helping them digest a very long complex document for their purposes, breaking it down into shorter and more commercially clear points that they need to understand and may want to have an input on.
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