Name: Johanna Sheppard
Job title: Associate Lawyer
University attended: University of Nottingham
Degree obtained: Law with American Law

I chose Clifford Chance mainly because I was interested in a secondment abroad as part of my training contract. I particularly wanted to go back to the US as I did an English law and American law degree that involved spending a year at the University of Texas. At the time I was applying for training contracts, Clifford Chance were the only magic circle firm with a solid presence in the US and even now I think we’re the most credible. I ended up spending my third seat in New York, which was a fantastic experience.

I chose Tax for my fourth seat because tax permeates every department of the firm. Every deal has tax drivers affecting how it’s structured. Because it’s essential that all transactions are tax-efficient, I wanted to get a good understanding of the basic principles. Even though I’m going to be qualifying into a different practice area, when I work with Tax teams in the future I’ll have a better understanding of the issues they are facing.

You get a really good variety of work here because you’re often working with other departments in the firm. One particular deal I worked on was the restructuring of a FTSE 100 company, which also involved them setting up a joint venture with another company in their industry sector. We had to help them restructure their business in a tax efficient way and ensure that they were able to transfer assets without becoming liable for transfer tax. The potential transfer tax liability was around £50m; that’s the kind of impact that good tax structuring can have on a deal.

My main tasks were drafting the letters and submissions to Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC). We had to review all the documents produced by our corporate department to make sure that things had been correctly implemented from a tax perspective. There was also a 30-day time limit on the submission to HMRC so I had to have everything ready - all the original documents and submissions - to go to HMRC quite quickly.

I had a one-to-one meeting with our client’s head of legal to get the submissions signed, which is exciting when you’re at a junior level. Having such exposure to an important client, along with the level of responsibility it entailed, was great.
When we received the documents back from HMRC and found we’d been granted the relief we’d applied for, it was really satisfying. All the work that had gone into the submission meant that no transfer tax was payable on our client’s restructuring.

When you go through your training contract you pick up different skills from each practice area. Tax will always impact on a deal because you have to make sure you’ve considered any tax risks. It’s also one of the more academic areas of law, which is great if you enjoy reading cases and doing legal research.

I really enjoy working here because I find the people very friendly and supportive. I’ve always felt that I’ve been treated as an individual rather than one trainee out of 130, and that’s something I’ve really appreciated. People tend to give you work that is suited to how much responsibility you can take on. If you’re constantly being pushed and given just that little bit more responsibility, it makes every day more interesting.