Anna Rogers - Sheffield High School 1971- 1979
Pensions law is fun!
I am a partner in Mayer, Brown, Rowe & Maw, a large international firm of solicitors whose main offices are in the US and the UK, which also has offices across Europe. Our largest practice areas are corporate and litigation, but we have many specialist practices, one of which is pensions. We act for the trustees of company pension funds, or the companies that set them up.
Pensions doesn’t sound a very sexy subject but it is a sector concerned with providing a decent standard of living in old age – something everybody should be entitled to, but only maybe half the population achieve.
I read law at Oxford, mainly because it sounded glamorous and was competitive to get into. I did my two years’ articles with a West End firm, Nabarro Nathanson. It was fun socially, and much of the work was also interesting. I was attracted to the idea of working in a specialist area because I felt that after a while one commercial lease or company purchase would be much like another. The people in the pensions department were nice so I gave it a try. Before I knew it , I was hooked. That was in 1984, and I have worked full-time in the pensions field since qualifying 17 years ago.
Trying to be analytical about it, the good things about pensions law are:
- Our clients tend to be nice, genuine and reasonable people. They often trustees of pension funds or agents of the trustees, and they sincerely wish to do the best for the members of the funds.
- The objective is worthwhile –helping to avoid poverty in old age.
- The law is complicated, which is what makes it interesting, and much of it is new, so you have to work the answers out for yourself. Because it is fairly recent legislation, there are few decided cases on what particular words in statute mean. You therefore have to advise clients against a background of some uncertainty, which makes it more a question of commercial judgment and feel rather than “black letter law” where the answer is written down somewhere if you know where to find it.
- Clients can afford to pay the fees to do the job properly. The importance of this is not to be underestimated in terms of job satisfaction.
Our day to day work involves reading papers, writing letters, talking to people and making phone calls. There are also lots of meetings, including trustee’s meetings where major decisions may be taken which will affect the lives of other people, and the decision may rest on the advice you give.
A board of trustees will often include senior executives of the company and also trade union representatives, shop floor workers and pensioners who may well be equally intelligent but are often less educated and less aware of investment issues.
To be a good pension lawyer you need to enjoy paying attention to detail, but also enjoy communicating complex ideas in a simple way to people whose question is not “What is the law?” but “What should we do?”.
You need good writing skills and an aptitude for precision and detail. You also need to be able to write and speak persuasively and have the confidence dealing with all different types of people.
If you have queries about pensions law, or would like to enquire about out vacation placement scheme or a solicitor’s training contract, you can contact me at arogers@eu.mayerbrownrowe.com