Dispute resolution
Commercial litigation involves the resolution of disputes in the corporate and commercial sphere, including those arising out of joint venture projects, civil fraud, commercial and banking transactions, corporate governance, financial services regulation and professional negligence. The Jackson Reforms, which came into force in April 2013, have significantly changed the court process, including the way litigation is managed, especially in relation to directions and costs. Susan Garrett’s introduction to the legal world could not have been more dramatic; whilst at school she was hit by a car driven by one of her teachers, who then failed to offer an adequate apology. As a result, Susan encouraged her parents to instruct a solicitor and to take him to court. Despite the case being somewhat boring and pretty uneventful, it sparked Susan’s interest in law and inspired her to embark on a career as a lawyer. From this young age Susan began to explore where her legal interests lay and went on to study law at Durham University. She took up a number of vacation placements to better understand the difference between the work of a barrister and a solicitor. She decided that a career as a solicitor was most appealing for two reasons: “Firstly, I liked the team spirit and that you get involved in bigger teams and being a barrister seemed to be a bit more of a lonely profession. Secondly, in a law firm as a solicitor you are closer to the clients, especially commercial clients. I like to really get under the skin of clients in a commercial context and as a barrister you are one step further removed.” Susan completed her training contract at what was Herbert Smith (now Herbert Smith Freehills) and describes it fondly as “a fantastic two years. I was one of many
trainees and made some great friends, I was part of a great cohort of trainees and I was lucky enough to do 12 months of litigation; six months of shipping litigation and six months of commercial litigation. I had the opportunity to do some great work and had a great time working in the City.” The opportunity to get stuck into big litigation cases during her training contract meant that Susan knew that this was the field that she wanted to work in. She is now a commercial litigation partner at Addleshaw Goddard and her work mainly involves running large commercial conflicts and disputes of an incredibly varied nature, including “shareholder disputes, warranty claims, judicial reviews and a lot of tax litigation and pension litigation in particular.” Variety is key The variety of matters that Susan takes on means that her workload is spread across multiple cases simultaneously: “I have quite a few big disputes that take years to resolve, they may be going to trial in the next year or in 2019 and some of which may be on trial for a month or more. I also have many matters that are not based in the courts, there are many disputes that clients need to sort out before the commencement of proceedings, through mediation or commercial negotiation, so I have a real mixture of cases and can be involved in up to 30 or more at any one time.” Susan has always been keen to work on a diverse selection of matters, but as a partner she now bears ultimate responsibility for the outcome of the cases she takes on: “The main difference of being a partner to when I was a junior solicitor is that, essentially, the buck stops with me and I have overall strategic responsibility for the cases while leading my team. Whereas, when you are newly qualified or a trainee, you are part of a team and you usually work on one small
For more firms that work in this practice area, please use the “Training contract regional indexes” starting on p205.
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