Lewis McDonald
Title: Senior associate
Division: Corporate
Location: Singapore
Before joining Herbert Smith in January 2005 I worked for Mallesons Stephen Jaques in Perth, Australia. I was interested in joining an international firm in London that had a high quality energy practice. It was the quality of the people interviewing me from Herbert Smith that sealed it for me – they were very switched on and spoke the language of the energy industry.
Something that Herbert Smith is particularly good at is allowing individuals to develop their areas of interest and their business development ideas – particularly if you can identify an area that may have the potential to be profitable to the firm in the future. A good example of this has been the firm's work in the fields of emissions trading, renewable energy and carbon capture and storage.
The firm made early investments in developing the skills of associates who showed interest in these areas, even before companies were getting serious about them. We won some of the early work that was going around and we now have some of the best credentials in the market and are in a great position to grow this new practice. Pro-bono work is also encouraged and the firm is rightly proud of its work in the community. The biggest initiative I have taken part in was to edit the firm's contribution to "the London Accord", a multi-million dollar climate change research initiative sponsored by the City of London and BP.
The firm gave hundreds of hours of associate time to this exercise, which involved contributing a chapter reviewing laws promoting low carbon technologies in the UK and Europe.
My time at Herbert Smith has given me the opportunities to grow not just as a lawyer but also as an "energy professional". It has allowed me to develop contacts with lawyers, geologists, accountants, business people (even LNG ship captains) from all over the world, to travel to fascinating destinations and provided me with opportunities to work on the cutting-edge of projects within my chosen sector.