My career journey to the firm

I started as an associate in the Competition group at Slaughter and May in March 2022. Before then, I was working at Gilbert + Tobin, one of Slaughter and May’s relationship firms in Melbourne, but knew that I wanted to move to London to work in one of leading international law firms here - a well-trodden path by many Australian lawyers, including in the firm’s Competition group! To assist with the move, Slaughter and May helped me organise and pay for my UK work visa, temporary accommodation on arrival and my flight, and also provided financial support for my relocation costs.

As my previous firm also adopted a multi-specialist and meritocratic approach to work, this helped the transition to working at Slaughter and May – however, you do notice the difference in size and scope of transactions and investigations, which has been a challenging, but rewarding, adjustment.

My day-to-day

During my time in the Competition team, I’ve worked on a number of significant and interesting competition law matters, across investigations, transactional and advisory work. The breadth of work is great for always keeping things interesting. A couple of the key matters I’ve worked on include:

  • Advising Google in relation to various investigations, including the ad tech investigations by the European Commission (EC) and the UK Competition and Market’s Authority (CMA). Over and above the day to day, this entails coordinating with Google’s legal counsel across the globe and getting to work with, and manage, a large team of associates.  The EC’s investigation has been a particular highlight, and quite the challenge, as we have had to navigate novel alleged breaches of European abuse of dominance law.
  • Working on the UK competition law aspects of Korean Air’s merger with Asiana Airlines, which involves implementing remedies agreed with the CMA (and one of the first CMA airline merger approvals).

I have also had the opportunity to do a three-month secondment at American Express, where I worked in the Antitrust Policy & Strategy team. This was a fantastic opportunity to hone my advisory skills, advising the business on day-to-day competition law compliance, as well as build relationships across American Express’s legal and business teams. The consistent flow of high-quality client secondment opportunities is definitely a key benefit to working here.

The consistent flow of high-quality client secondment opportunities is definitely a key benefit to working here.

Collective endeavour in action

My favourite part about working at Slaughter and May is that while working on leading competition law matters, I get to do so with a fantastic group of people. One of the things I missed most about the firm during my time on secondment was working in bigger teams – being able to bounce ideas off colleagues and share in the natural highs and lows of matters.

One of many highlights so far

One of my highlights to date has been working on Greencore’s proposed acquisition of Bakkavor – a UK plc to plc takeover.  In 2025, I was given the opportunity to lead a fantastic associate team on a CMA Phase I investigation in the prepared food sector – i.e. the chilled ready meals, ‘meal deal’ sandwiches and salads, chilled soups and sauces you can buy at UK supermarkets. The best part about being a competition lawyer is that to advise our clients, we need to really get under the hood on how their products are made and their services operate – and what better product to do so with than food products we all see on a daily / weekly basis!

My advice to candidates

When moving over from Australia, I was nervous about working at a firm whose reputation perhaps precedes it. While I have had the opportunity to work on best-in-class competition law matters, as I was expecting, the one thing about the firm that has really stood out for me is the people. The competition group is full of with friendly, welcoming, ambitious and hardworking people who make it a great place to work.