Today on Beyond Billables, we break down one of the most common career pivots for lawyers: a move into the banking sector.

Here to illustrate and serve as an example is a solicitor, hedge fund sales trader and startup founder, Travis Leon. Travis worked at Linklaters in 2008 before choosing a voluntary redundancy in the recession, he then worked as a sales trader in an investment bank and is now co-founder and executive director of XRef.

In our conversation, we chatted about many things but really focused on Travis’ career transitions, first from the law to Merrill Lynch and then to his stab at entrepreneurialism. Travis talks about the importance of ‘cutting your teeth’ in the right place, the crazy expectations for some junior associates and how doing his own thing has been so professionally rewarding.

Listen to the full episode to hear all this, plus things like:

• What drew Travis into the law in the first place
• How to deal with being overwhelmed
• Why the keenest and brightest lawyers often struggle the most
• The realities of life in corporate life
• The differences between legal practice and investment banking
• Travis’s experience working for Merrill Lynch
• The issue of transferable skills
• What it’s like to be in the world of entrepreneurialism
• The continued value of ‘soft’ legal skills

 

Links:

Linkedin

XRef