Rebecca Connelly

Title:  Paralegal
Division: Corporate
Location:  London

I studied for a BA in Criminology and then took the Graduate Diploma in Law followed by the LPC at the College of Law in Guildford.

After some time in the legal department at Barclays Bank I decided that I wanted more variety in my work, and so joined Herbert Smith in February 2007. The firm seemed the obvious choice for me because of its size, reputation and the sheer number of different deals that I could be involved in. This was important, as I wanted to increase my all-round expertise.

I am currently working on the Nortel Administration. Nortel filed for bankruptcy protection in Europe, Canada and the US to deal decisively with its cost and debt burden. The multi-jurisdictional administration is one of the most complex administration filings ever undertaken in London, requiring the firm to establish at the High Court that the UK arm of Nortel is the centre of operations and headquarters for the European operations of the Nortel group of companies.

Since joining Herbert Smith, there have been numerous high points, including working with fee-earners on various large international deals and attending the corporate conference in Marrakech in November 2008. This is the type of experiences that I was hoping for when I joined Herbert Smith – and I’ve not been disappointed.