Ashurst's trainee talks 6 – transcript

Transcript

Host:

Hello, and welcome to Ashurst Legal Outlook and our ongoing series where we speak to recent Ashurst trainees who share their stories to the legal profession and insights for future trainees. In this episode, I speak to Robert Paratore about his very unique journey to corporate law after a stint playing for Leicester City and his foray into human rights and sports law with organizations including FIFA. Join me as we get the inside scoop on what it's like to work as a trainee solicitor at Ashurst. you're listening to Ashurst Legal Outlook.

Well, Robert, thank you very much for joining the podcast. Throughout the series, I've asked all our trainees what their origin story is, and I'm going to guess, just by your accent, that's going to be a little bit different to everyone else's. Could you tell me, first of all, what's your story? Why did you decide to pursue a career in law?

Robert Paratore:

Yeah, so the reason for my ambitions to go into law was at the time I was going to go to university and I needed something very challenging, something which I didn't have much background knowledge in, because I missed a lot of schooling. So I felt like law was a good start at university and something that I could really dig my teeth into. I felt like it was very transferable and the skills that a little lawyer has can go into many different industries and be used in many different roles and professions. So that was the reason why I chose to study law and then continue on pursuing a career in law. Again, you get fantastic training and it was something I really thought was going to challenge me and I could pick up some really great skills.

Commercial law was particularly appealing to me, mainly because I really enjoy business and economic, political, international-relation affairs. All those I really enjoyed learning about, and I felt like commercial law could be something that provides both the legal training, something that grapples with the law, and also commercial and business affairs. So it's been a really good fit for me. I've really enjoyed it so far.

I'm only a year into my training contract. I had a little bit of experience before coming to Ashurst and doing commercial law in a few other areas of law, in sports law and human rights, which I really enjoyed and gave me a lot of perspective in what type of career I want to pursue in the law. So all really valuable experiences, and so far, so good. Really enjoying it, going into my third seat in competition law. I've previously done my first seat in global loans, and my second seat was in corporate projects, and now going into competition, it's going to be quite different, and it's going to be, again, grappling with political, economic factors, and then also it's a very black-letter area of law. So really going to enjoy that and look forward to it.

Host:

Now, am I right in saying that you didn't leave university and go straight into the trainee program, that you had a bit of life experience before you did that?

Robert Paratore:

Yeah, well, I'll start back from my journey to the UK. So I actually moved to the UK at 14. I was pursuing a career in professional soccer. So I came over here by myself and played for a professional club. I was doing that till I was 20. At 20, I got injured and had to stop playing and then went to university, and that's where I got a variety of experiences before going into university and different skills that many of my colleagues may not have experienced or may not have, and it's definitely aided me on my path into commercial law and definitely in the role. So yeah, I played in a few different countries and really understood and experienced different cultures and the way other countries do things. So I think going into commercial law, which is very international, and working with people all over all over the globe, really, it's definitely came in hand and understanding these different business cultures and the way people work. I think it's definitely had an impact.

Host:

Absolutely. So you went from Australia and you played in a number of different countries before you arrived in the UK? Is that how the journey went?

Robert Paratore:

No. So I played for Leicester City, so I was at Leicester from 14 to 20, and then, at 20, I got injured, had a break from football, then went over to Italy to play. I tried to get myself back fit and playing again. I did that for a few months, and then eventually the same issues reoccurred. During that period, I set myself up to go to university and it was a last-minute decision whether to stay in Italy and play football or to go to university and pursue a career in law. In the end, I had a final injury and I thought, "I can't continue with this." So I was on the next plane out and quickly went into Freshers' Week and started university that week. So it was all a bit of a whirlwind. I was on the verge of deferring another year and trying to pursue the football, but my body and my health just couldn't keep up with the pace of professional football.

So yeah, went to Italy, went to Australia to play as well a bit before, went to Italy and again, same issues were occurring, and then just decided to try and pursue a career in law and then see if I could play semi-professional and try and do both, and then I wasn't limited to just doing one. So I did that for a few months, played semi-professionally in the Vanarama Conference League, which is fourth, fifth division in England, and then ended up not able to do both, so stopped football for a while and concentrated on my career.

Host:

That's amazing. It's an amazing and very unique origin story, I have to say, Robert. Now, was it always law? When you knew that you couldn't pursue your career playing top football, did you think about any other career, or was it always law?

Robert Paratore:

Yeah, I did. I mean, naturally, ex-professional footballers or people that come out of the game quite early in their career, they go into roles like coaching roles or physiotherapy or sports-science roles or nutritionists, or even stuff like agents, and I definitely thought about all those different routes. At the time, I was a bit sick of the industry and I wanted something a bit different. I also didn't think that was going to challenge me in a way that maybe other professions would. So I actually went completely the other way, and I looked at law, I looked at engineering, looked at things like accounting as well, and I just felt that law was the best fit. Engineering would have been really interesting, but as I said, I missed a lot of school due to football and trying to get myself up to that requisite level of science and maths would have been quite difficult, and I just felt I could start quite easily into law.

And I don't know, it was quite interesting as a footballer in the sense that there was a time when there was maybe a conflict of interest between what I thought was best for me and what the club thought was best for me, and I think law is the intersect between those two and it's the regulator of those two. So that was something I was thinking about as well, and how the law interacts with those two forces. So that was why I thought maybe I should give law a try and pursue that.

Host:

Absolutely. Now, tell me about your experience within the legal profession prior to your Ashurst traineeship. Did you work in different areas beforehand?

Robert Paratore:

Yeah. So when I was in Geneva, Switzerland working with the World Players Association, I worked with some fantastic international human rights lawyers there and sports lawyers there, and got an interesting experience with working with different types of law, like labor law, sports law and human rights law. So my role there was a junior legal trainee and some of the work that we did was developing policy around labor and human rights law for the players. So we were working with the players as a collective unit and trying to reform some of their working conditions.

So what would do is we'd use international human rights law and we would impose some of these legal principles onto the sports governing bodies. So some of these sports governing bodies were FIFA, UEFA, the IOC, which is the Olympic Committee, the NBA, the NFL, some of these organizations, and using our collective bargaining position to try and improve their rights. And that could be pay. That could be conditions. That could be healthcare post-career. That could be education post-career. It could be a number of things.

I remember one of the key things that we worked on with UEFA and FIFA was actually the fourth-substitute rule in relation to concussion. So at the time I think an example for the football fans was the Man City goalkeeper had hit his head playing and had concussion, but because the team had already used all their substitutes, they couldn't substitute the goalkeeper off. And there's this protocol that they should come off if you suffer from concussion, but due to the stage that we're at in the match and the conditions of the match, they couldn't play with 10 men because they were trying to win the match. So, so it's actually a disadvantage for the team to make that substitute, even though it's in the player's best interest.

So one of the ways that you mitigate against that is, if someone has to come off from concussion, is that you can have that fourth substitute. So everyone's a winner, really, so the team can make that substitute and the player's health is put at the forefront, and getting him off and getting him an adequate concussion check. So that's some of the stuff that we did. It was very topical and very interesting, and working with those governing bodies of all different aspects was super interesting and meeting a lot of ex-professionals in different areas was an amazing experience, learned a lot and really understood a different area of law that I didn't really know much about.

Host:

That's fascinating. The NRL has only just brought that rule in this season. They call it the 18th man rule, where they do allow an extra substitution because of concussion or head highs or whatever.

Robert Paratore:

Makes sense.

Host:

Yeah, totally. Totally makes sense.

Robert Paratore:

Because that the goalkeeper was Willy Caballero, I think his name is, and they do the concussion check and he's like, "I'm fine. I'm fine. I can play," and then he comes off like at the end of the game and he's like, "I don't remember what happened the last 45 minutes." And of course, the physio who's analyzing is like, "Yeah, he said he's fine. From my like duty of care perspective, he can play on." But that's not what should happen. It shouldn't be the players just saying he's fine and the physio has two minutes on the sideline to be like, "Yeah, he's fine." So yeah, reforming the game for the better. And I mean, concussions are genuinely a very serious injury. It's not like a torn hamstring. Someone can suffer severe effects from having concussion. Yeah. So this kind of reform is...

Host:

It's needed, isn't it? The amount of early-onset dementia happening within NFL players and even Rugby League players in [crosstalk].

Robert Paratore:

Football players now as well, from heading. Yeah, it was an amazing experience, to be honest. I fell into it. I didn't really know too much about it, and the people over there saw my background, and I wrote a dissertation at university, and people saw that and thought I might be interested in it, and went over and had a good time, and it was a pretty awesome experience, to be honest.

Host:

Amazing, amazing experience. So tell me, how did commercial or corporate law then come into the fold? What was it about that side of law that really interests you?

Robert Paratore:

Yeah, so what I really like about commercial law, what really drew me in from day one at university, was that interaction with commercial and business affairs. I have a big interest in politics, and I only realized that interest coming to university. I found myself really wanting to understand the political system and understanding how stock markets work, and how economic factors affect stock markets. And I just felt it was a natural fit for me, if I wanted to work in law, was to go into commercial law. I'm still really, really enjoying that aspect now.

Host:

Yeah, absolutely. Now tell me, why Ashurst? Why did you choose to pursue the training contract with Ashurst?

Robert Paratore:

Yeah, so a number of reasons. Firstly, the international aspect of Ashurst is very appealing. As I alluded to before, having experienced different cultures and different countries through my football, it's something that I quite enjoyed learning about different cultures and how they interact with each other. Also, I feel that the best work is all international work. That's due to the complexities of having multi-jurisdictional aspects to the work that we do, grappling with counsels from different jurisdictions and also realizing that certain legal concepts aren't applicable there, and just again, how business works over there. That's very appealing.

Secondly, it's reputation and working with some of the best clients. I think it was very important for me to go somewhere which had reputable clients, got the best work competed for the best work. That was very important for me. I wanted to really learn working with the best lawyers and doing the best work. I think that was really important. I think the training contract's very unique in the fact that you get two years of training to experience all different departments and you get the chance to pick departments you want to go, and I think it was really important to go to a firm that was so well-rounded and could offer such great experience and work and all these different departments. I feel like it's really important to be a very well-rounded lawyer, and Ashurst definitely provided that. I mean, their reputation in the legal market here is very good, and I think that's demonstrated in some of the work that we've won recently. So that's a crucial factor. And then thirdly, I just thought the culture was really welcoming and friendly and approachable.

Host:

Yeah. And that culture piece is something that has been reflected in every single one of these conversations I've had with trainees, is that collaboration, that seems to be just throughout all areas of the organization. So that sounds really special. So tell me, what's been one of your highlights? So if you can pick maybe a project or particular piece of work that you've done over the last couple of months.

Robert Paratore:

Yeah, definitely. One that comes to mind straightaway is what I'm working on right now, is we're doing work for the British government on carbon capture. So in the Projects Department, we do a mix of advisory transactional and litigious work. This is my first feel for advisory work. So we're advising the British government on how to facilitate a carbon-capture program for carbon emitters to try and get to net-zero emissions by 2050. I find this work very interesting because I take a strong interest in the planet, and obviously I want the world to not be burdened with climate change and all the effects that come from that. So it's something that I really cared about. So I've been working with the associate and the partner very closely and trying to get that out.

But yeah, that's something that that drafting work really challenges you. It's something I haven't done before. So rather than just doing procedural work, which you might do in other seats or with many other deals, this is about really sitting down, reading the work, taking it in, and then trying to build something from that. It's something that I haven't really been challenged in that aspect yet. So I've really enjoyed that. I think as a lawyer, I'm going to learn a lot from that. I'm going to develop some skills that I haven't really refined yet. And the topic is just so topical, and honestly, I was so happy that I got on the project and it's a shame it's the last week on my Projects Department. I have to move on. I've only been on it about three to four weeks, but it's been pretty awesome, and I've really enjoyed that.

Host:

Now, getting your crystal ball out and looking beyond your fourth seat, what are your hopes and dreams for the future? Where do you see yourself, say, in 10 years' time?

Robert Paratore:

Good question. I mean, hopefully I'll be at Ashurst, hopefully in a senior position, hopefully a lawyer with lots of different skills, a good technical lawyer, but also a lawyer that's very good with the clients and very good at building relationships and rapport with clients. Which department, I don't really know yet. I've really enjoyed all my seats so far, and I'm sure I'll enjoy my last two. So it's going to be a tough decision, but yeah, hopefully somewhere senior in Ashurst, and hopefully a very well-rounded lawyer that's had a lot of experience and really got the most out of my time here, both training contract and maybe as a junior associate.

Host:

Thinking about some advice that you would give someone making a trainee application to a training contract with Ashurst, particularly someone that has maybe not gone straight from university, that has had some life experience like you have, what would that advice be to them?

Robert Paratore:

Yeah. So my advice would be just really draw out your experiences that you've had either prior to university or in between or even after university, and before signing a training contract. I think people don't realize that a lot of the activities that you engage in, your extracurricular stuff, a lot of the skills that you gain from that are very transferable into commercial law. In my example, as a former professional athlete, I used to work under pressure, I used to work with a team, and this is what we're doing at Ashurst. We're working in a team, we're working under pressure, we have deadlines we have to make. Being composed under pressure and being able to deliver a good product is very important. And it's something that you don't realize, but you hone that skill when you're doing your other activities outside of university or law. So I'd say in terms of applying that, really draw on those experiences, draw out the skills from those experiences. You match them to commercial law. I think that's the key to it.

Host:

Now outside of work, is your passion still soccer, or what do you like to do on the weekends?

Robert Paratore:

I still play football, but I don't really watch much football any more. I limit that to-

Host:

Who's your team? Do you follow Leicester City at all?

Robert Paratore:

I do. I do follow them. They're not my team, though. My team's Chelsea Football Club, but I do keep an eye out for Leicester and I still have a good relationship with the people back there.

Host:

Were you at the club when Jamie Vardy was at the club?

Robert Paratore:

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Fortunately, I was there when all those fellows were there who went on to win the Premier League a few years later. So very fortunate to know them and play with them and see how they've progressed. I mean, no one would have ever imagined that. Look at people like Jamie Vardy. He was playing in the reserve team with me at one point and his career was going to pot, and then now he's highest Premier League gold scorer or broken some records in that respect. So I suppose it shows that you can do anything, but yeah, I don't really watch that much football. I have a keen interest in coaching in football, doing my coaching badges now, but I play a number of other sports. Recently started playing polo and really like tennis and I like my snow-sports and really enjoy that kind of stuff.

So I think after playing football, I really wanted to experience different things. I was quite limited in what I could do. I couldn't ski or couldn't ride bikes. I couldn't do anything like that. Ride motorbikes, couldn't do that. And now I really want to go and try that, because I can, and again, it makes you interesting if you do different things, and again, going back on what future applicants should have and what they should bring out is, clients and your colleagues will find you interesting with all the different extracurricular activities that you do. So I really encourage doing that stuff and having these different types of experiences.

Host:

What a perfect note to wrap up the interview. Robbie, thank you very much for joining me, mate. It was great to talk.

Robert Paratore:

Thanks. Thanks very much.

Host:

If you enjoy Ashurst Legal Outlook, why not check out other two podcast series as well? Ashurst Business Agenda tackles the big strategic issues that business leaders face, and ESG Matters at Ashurst reveals how business leaders are rising to mounting environmental, social and governance challenges. You can listen and subscribe to Business Agenda and ESG Matters wherever you get your podcasts.