Partner at Fenwick Elliott, London
A sense of wanting to be at the forefront of justice and make a difference led me to read Law at Oxford. I had always had an interest in the built environment and found construction law when looking through directories when applying for a training contract.
I was extremely lucky to have a very supportive family, with great role models. I did not go to a school that encouraged academic success and, growing up in the 1980s and early 1990s as one of a handful of Asian children in my school, it was relatively tough. However, outside school, I was surrounded by people who motivated and inspired me and whose stories showed that despite adversity in many different forms you can still achieve success.
I came through the traditional route of law degree followed by training contract. Competition was fierce and in many ways your face still needed to fit. I was offered a training contract at Sharpe Pritchard, largely due to my interest in construction law, and qualified in 1999.
To be appointed senior partner of Fenwick Elliott from next year makes me feel a real mix of excitement and responsibility to remain at the forefront of what we do. I have watched the firm grow from strength to strength with an incredibly strong and supportive leadership team over the past 24 years. I’m exceptionally proud of the firm, its culture and what it has achieved, and I’m keen to continue that.
To become senior partner is a great achievement. But it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of many people – particularly my husband, who stepped back from his career when mine began to progress about 15 years ago.
As a senior partner, I’ll be both an outward-facing ambassador for the firm and responsible for management within the firm at all levels, part of which will include developing our extremely talented team.
'To become senior partner next year is a great achievement. But it wouldn’t have been possible without the support of many people – particularly my husband, who stepped back from his career when mine began to progress about 15 years ago'
My practice of construction and energy law encompasses a wide range – everything from large-scale building disputes, requiring a lot of strategic dispute avoidance advice, to construction adjudication disputes relating to time and money, complex international arbitrations, and ongoing advice on matters relating to operational offshore windfarms. I enjoy the nature of the disputes, building relationships with our clients who work in such an important sector, working with talented individuals – our team at Fenwick Elliott, barristers, clients and experts – and getting involved with the real-world engineering and architectural issues that we have to understand in order to successfully manage our cases.
I have been a member of the Technology and Construction Solicitors’ Association for many years. More recently I was co-opted onto the TECSA committee to lead their ED&I work. This has included the publishing of an ED&I policy. My current focus is on diversity in the TECSA adjudicator panel. As part of this, I chaired an afternoon panel discussion and workshop on adjudicator diversity at the annual TECSA Adjudication Conference last November, and am now working on turning the feedback from the workshop into various actions that TECSA can take forward.
Physically being in the Supreme Court for MT Højgaard v E.ON was inspiring. But in terms of career highs, I’d say this would be the satisfaction of bringing an exceptionally complicated – sometimes multi-party – dispute to a conclusion in line with the target outcome agreed with the client. This isn’t always as binary as ‘winning’ or ‘losing’ a court case or arbitration. Being able to help steer a client through those choppy waters successfully is hugely rewarding.
A more literal career high was my very first site visit to the Second Severn Crossing – the ‘new’ Severn Bridge. We were taken to the very top of one of the 100-metre-plus concrete pylons from which the bridge’s suspension cables are hung. If I wasn’t bitten by the construction bug at that point I certainly was afterwards!
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