Ex-City lawyer moves to a property fund via Goldman Sachs

James Gilbert trained at Allen & Overy and qualified into their corporate department.  He left law at 18m PQE to join the Financial Institutions Group of Goldman Sachs, where he worked for just under a year.  In 2006 he moved to Apollo Real Estate Advisors, a leading real estate investment fund manager.  He is now responsible for sourcing and overseeing investments across Europe.  We asked him about investment banking and why he made the switch to a property fund.

mtl: Hi James, can you start with telling us about your legal career?

James:  I enjoyed studying law at university and decided to qualify as a good way into the City.  I loved the training at Allen & Overy, particularly my seat in New York.  While I was there though, I realised that I would rather be making commercial calls and advising clients on the financial aspects of a transaction, rather than managing the inherent risks involved on the legal side.  About nine months after qualifying into the corporate department, I contacted an investment banker at Goldman Sachs, with whom I had previously worked, in order to get the ball rolling for a career change.  

mtl: So how easy was it to switch to investment banking?  

James:  It took nine months and 14 interviews from sending my CV to walking in through the door at Goldman Sachs.  It was a very rigorous assessment process and I had to be “passed” by the whole team that I ended up working with.  I was tested on how serious I was about the move, my knowledge base, social skills and desire to do the job.  You have to really want to learn about banking and be passionate about it in order to get in. 

It is not usual for lawyers to make this move as they generally lack the numerical and modeling skills that a banker has to use (as was the case with me). This meant that I went in at the (junior) analyst level.  It takes three years as an analyst in banking to become an associate. My year of law school and 3 ½ years at Allen & Overy only counted as one year towards this which was fairly sobering. However,  I wasn’t worse off financially and I found that even as an analyst, I was given a good level of responsibility.  It was also inevitable that I would have to take a “cut” in status as I didn’t have the numerical skills that I needed when I switched from law.  

My colleagues at A&O were surprised by my decision as it is quite rare for a lawyer to go into investment banking as an analyst.  The usual route would be to leverage your experience and go in as a Vice-President in-house lawyer.   

After a training course in New York, I started in the Financial Institutions Group at Goldman Sachs.  I soon realised that it was a lot easier being a trainee in a law firm than in a bank!  As a trainee solicitor, you are working in a risk averse environment where your work is usually checked by trainers.  In comparison, in a bank you’ll be handed something as an analyst and told to get on with it. You find yourself alone on the floor at 4 a.m. working it out as you go.  It equates to a sink or swim environment.

At GS, I loved the work, found the people highly intelligent and from the standpoint of work rate I have never experienced anything like it.  There is a complete devotion to getting everything done perfectly - and the standards are exceptionally high.  With that came a high level of responsibility and a lifestyle that involved work to the exclusion of all else.  At my level, and even at associate level, a 9am-12am working day was considered average and it was more usually until 1am / 2am every night, with work at the weekends too.

Although I enjoyed what I was doing and learnt a huge amount, I quickly realised that it was a far too expensive trade and so I left after ten months. I spent my gardening leave taking every meeting on the street. It would not have been an option to job-hunt while still working 100 hour weeks at GS...   

mtl: Now that you have seen it from the inside, what is the appeal of doing investment banking, when it sounds so tough to the outsider?   

James:  It allows you to fast track your career.  For example, if you go in at 21, after three years you are an associate making about £180,000 p.a. and having learnt a huge amount (probably the equivalent of 6 years’ work in most other jobs).  You can then go to a private equity shop or a hedge fund, where you can start making seriously informed opinions about deals and can value companies with confidence.  If you compare that with being a newly qualified solicitor in your mid-twenties, it is like night and day.  But you pay for it in terms of lifestyle…

From my point of view, I did it to get the numbers and valuation training and because I really wanted to work for them.  I stayed as long as I could to get the knowledge base.  Some people learn to live with the lifestyle and some people don’t.  Looking back, A&O was much less intense. If you are considering it then try to imagine how it will feel to work almost non-stop over a whole summer with no evenings or weekends off!   

mtl: So what do you do now?     

James:  As a result of having Goldman Sachs on my CV, I was offered several jobs when I left.  I considered boutique investment banking, although the lifestyle would not have been much better.  I decided to join Apollo Real Estate Advisors which is a well-known real estate private equity house.  I think it would be very hard to go directly into this job from law as you really need the numbers and modeling experience... 

In general terms the fund targets opportunistic returns by acquiring, with the help of local joint venture partners, portfolios or single assets which require “bottoms up” real estate expertise to stabilize. My job title is associate and my job is to source and execute investment transactions.  We are a small team (20 professionals in London) and travel a lot as it is a pan-European fund.  For example, I spend a lot of my time in Moscow, western Germany and most recently, Istanbul.

mtl: Any comments for others thinking of leaving law?       

James:  I don’t regret leaving law but I don’t regret doing it either.  It has been a fantastic grounding in how to manage a deal.  Whatever business you are in, you will always be exposed to legal documents and will have to be able to understand them.  At Goldman Sachs for example, I was able to help negotiate deals alongside a Vice-President, which is something that analysts don’t often get to do.  I have no regrets about not being on the partnership track in a law firm now as I find the work that I do very interesting.  

Of course it can be stressful because of the responsibility involved though.  People lose money if we make a bad decision, although having that responsibility is also enjoyable.   As far as what to think about when considering a career change I would just say keep thinking about alternatives and make sure you do plenty of research into what you are considering before making a move. 

mtl: Thank you James. 

James works for Apollo Real Estate Advisors.

If you know any other ex-lawyers who have gone and done something interesting or unusual with their lives then please get in touch.

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