Key clients: ARM Holdings, Hikma Pharmaceuticals, Shire, Aggreko, WS Atkins
Partner since 2015
As a grammar school boy from Northern Ireland, I had two choices: lawyer or doctor, or I would get thrown out of the house. I did work experience at 15 at the local hospital. When I saw what the junior doctors had to do, I decided being a lawyer was for me.
When I joined Slaughter and May I was less sure about corporate. I trained in two good corporate departments and took my interest from there.
I remember thinking it was the hardest thing I had ever done and that I could never be competent at it. It’s like driving a car, you become consciously competent, but you’re still thinking about everything you’re doing all the time. And then you become more confident.
I felt a big change when I did the Cadbury [takeover by Kraft] back in 2009. I was given a lot of responsibility and felt confident about what I was doing. It took off from there.
Here you’re given such big responsibility very early on. Being allowed to lead as the associate on Cadbury, the most highly political M&A deal that year, as a two-year associate – you won’t get that anywhere else.
‘This was the hardest thing I’d ever done.’
Chris McGaffin, Slaughter and May
Partnership is steady here. The partners I’ve had as I’ve moved up the firm are still my partners today.
The worst day for me came on my first big job as an associate. I qualified in September 2007 just as the [banking crisis] hit. We’d worked for months on a refit for a client who relied heavily on credit markets. On the last day to agree the rollover of funding, the financing banks walked away. We launched a rescue rights issue the next day. I thought: ‘This could be a tough few years.’ Looking back, I didn’t see half of what came next.
Good lawyers? I worked opposite [Freshfields’] Sam Newhouse on a complex infrastructure JV in 2014 as a senior associate cutting my teeth. A class act throughout. Funny and easy to get along with. Opposite Links, I’ve worked with Aedamar Comiskey, Iain Wagstaff, Nicola Mayo and Simon Branigan.
I’d ban emails for communicating within a set radius. Always pick up the phone or meet in person if possible. You make much better connections. One of the things I like most about the job is the close relationships you build over time. Those aren’t forged by emails.
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