James Br

Profile:

I am a tax lawyer at Farrer & Co. I joined the firm in 2014, after completing my training contract and qualifying at an international City firm.

I was the first person in my family to attend university to study for a professional career and also the first trained lawyer. Growing up, I went to school at a state comprehensive in Northampton, then studied law at the University of Sheffield. I managed to secure a training contract whilst at University and looking back, I was probably extremely fortunate, as concepts like commercial awareness were fairly alien to me back then!

I absolutely love my job and working at a Farrer. Tax is quite an academic field of law and, at Farrer, it offers an unrivaled variety of work for a really diverse range of clients. On any one day, I might advise an individual on a crucial family decision, a corporate client on an multi-million pound M&A or real estate deal, or a renowned charity on a significant donation.

Being frank, I am not sure it ever would have occurred to me to seek out a career at somewhere like Farrer when I first started out. Back then, I might have (wrongly) regarded the firm’s prestige to be a bit daunting! However, that would not be more wrong; today I am thoroughly privileged to work with such brilliant, friendly, outgoing and open-minded colleagues.

Some lawyers will have been first introduced to the profession by a network of friends, family or other contacts at a younger age. Like many, I had no such network growing up and so I’d love to help those with more diverse backgrounds access a career in law at a firm like mine today.

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