David Bothwell
Senior Legal Specialist
I’ve had more than my fair share of secondment opportunities since I joined – in my eight years here, I’ve spent roughly two years in London. I’ve been seconded to the banking practice, done two corporate secondments and spent some time with our LegalTech team… those were a perfect fit for me.
I’m part of the corporate team now, where I supervise more junior legal professionals and act as a conduit between them, our team in Belfast and the transactional teams throughout the network. My main area of interest is private M&A but we see a huge variety of corporate work – I’ve been working on an IPO recently. Our proposition is growing so we are getting to see a more diverse and more complex range of transactions.
I’ve worked on quite a few multijurisdictional deals, primarily run out of London but I’ve been involved with many other offices in the network. I’ve done quite a bit with the Middle East recently, which is a growing part of our offering. In the early days, we were very much a support team for London, but we’re seeing so much more from across the global firm now.
The people in the team are really special. There’s a collegiate atmosphere – if you ever have to work a late night it is so much easier doing that with people you enjoy being around.
I really enjoyed spending time with the LegalTech team last year. Advanced Delivery is at the vanguard of what we are doing as a firm in terms of technology; our teams act almost as a sandbox, with a role to play in testing new tools and pushing things forward. Things have already changed a lot since I started in terms of how we do things and the tech tools and solutions we have at our disposal.
I studied law but was working in a small charity when the opportunity with A&O came up. To be able to work with a global firm was pretty exciting. It’s an opportunity I’m so glad I took.
