Webinar review: financial services

Reading time: five minutes

As a law student with an interest in financial services, I attended an insightful webinar hosted by LawCareers.Net: understanding legal practice – financial services.

The panellists were:

• Jake Green, financial regulation partner at Ashurst LLP;
• Hannah Meakin, corporate partner at Norton Rose Fulbright; and
• Suliat Ogunyinka, financial services and markets associate at Travers Smith LLP.

This article will provide an overview of the webinar discussion and more insight into the financial services practice area.

What is financial services?

Financial services is a fast-paced, broad practice area that is constantly evolving, and requires curiosity and the drive to keep on top of legislation changes. Many elements make up the financial services practice area but in the simplest terms it is:

• how we spend money;
• putting money in a bank; and
• investing money.

Two key client groups make up the practice area; retail and consumer services for individuals, for individual use directly and wholesale sector financial institutions interacting with each other. The clients that you work with is dependent on the firm and both come with challenges.

Jake and Hannah both advise banks on how to look after their money, the obligations required for banks, investment, and wealth managers when they are investing on our behalf and the rules direct investment platforms must adhere to as well as how they access the market.

Types of advice

The two categories of advice are:

• how legislation affects each company and their compliance in practice; and
• advising companies that are changing the service they provide and how to comply with new legislation the new service falls into.

The increase of interest in cryptocurrency and companies wanting to use their current services in the cryptocurrency area is an example of companies changing their services. Financial services lawyers work out the authorisations required to branch out and the scope of the authorisation, if there are any risks involved and how to mitigate those risks along with any client-facing changes such as portal updates or changes to client agreements to reflect the new services.

Brexit has changed the way European and global financial services firms work with changes in products due to technology and the way products are sold.

Financial services and the firm

Departments that financial services work with include the insurance, funds and derivatives departments. The corporate and employment departments also come into regular contact with the financial services team. Some of the work involved can be semi-contentious which means working with the disputes team.

Common misconceptions

When the panellists were asked what the biggest misconception of their job was, the word “geeky” was mentioned, but they also highlighted the importance of being methodical and good at problem solving. There’s a lot of reading involved and  one of the panellists likened this to being able to “play multi-dimensional chess in your head”. Financial services issues are always front centre which has a significant impact on companies and the way the world works.

Business development

Business development is knowledge-led in financial services due to issues and priorities continually changing. This requires lawyers to become people who foresee trends and identify potential problems before they arise. They are expected to not only get the law right but must also have the ability to problem solve.

Clients are usually up to date with legislation changes but require the complex issues that could affect the business explained to them so that the necessary changes can be made to ensure continued compliance.

Building a legal career

Jake and Suliat had no idea they wanted to specialise in financial services. Jake kept an open mind when through academia and his training contract which led him to where he is today. Suliat experienced financial services during her training contract, including a client secondment, and enjoyed reading complex matters.

Soon after qualifying, Hannah joined the financial services team which has grown from five to 40 people made up of individuals who are lawyers, compliance professionals, risk advisory consultants and government affairs specialists. She highlighted that it takes a long time to work your way around financial service with a lot to learn due to the broadness of the area.

Advice for aspiring solicitors

One of the panellist’s pieces of advice was; if you’re bored reading the news stories in the Financial Times then financial services is not for you. You must have an interest in following money and economics.

Hannah feels there needs to be an interest in policy and what governments and countries are trying to achieve. The media and Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) website are reliable sources of information with the FCA publishing views on policy, what it is trying to achieve and the ways it plans to carry out its objectives. Again, this will either fascinate you or bore you.

Suliat’s advice is to research firms in the market and what work they are doing in the practice area. Firms publish blog posts breaking down information into easy, bite-sized chunks with links to more detail which gives a good insight into what financial services encapsulates.

Key skills to develop

There are multiple skills involved to be successful in this practice area:

• being inquisitive;
• having a personality and drive;
• being proactive;
• taking the time to understand clients and their aims;
• problem-solving;
• the ability to draw on previous experience and relate that to your current situation; and
• being able to read and digest large volumes of text with multiple subsections.

If you’re interested in financial services:

• read this Commercial Question: ‘Double trouble: FCA and PRA take tougher stance on enforcement’;
• ‘Pressing the reset button for financial services’; and
• ‘Financial crime: the FSA gets touch’.

Sign up for the next LawCareers.Net webinar on private equity law.

Kate Stent (she/her) is a first-year law student, working as a civil servant at HMCTS.