From business manager to banking lawyer

Too old for a clerkship?

In his penultimate year at UTS, he successfully applied for a summer clerkship with Corrs Chambers Westgarth, something many of his peers were wary of doing.

“Some would say to me, ‘I’m not doing a clerkship! I’m going to be the oldest person there!’” he says.

It was something Emmanuel had also been concerned about at first. “I had a previous career, I worked my way up a little bit – I thought, what am I going to do if I have to go back to the bottom?”

But working in a real-world legal environment gave him some clarity about the sort of law career he wanted, which in turn helped him to choose JD electives that would maximise his chances of success in a new industry.

Choosing the right subjects

“I did finance law, which is very applicable to my everyday job now. Then I did corporate governance, because I think you should always have an understanding of this area when working in commercial law, regardless of what your core function is, and finally I did insolvency law,” he says.

His mentor, a barrister, encouraged him to stay the course.

“He said, ‘It will come; your future career will come. Once you’re in the door, once you’ve found a job and a firm you like, you work hard and keep progressing,’” Emmanuel says.

From clerkship to job offer

His mentor was right: after Emmanuel’s clerkship, Corrs Chambers Westgarth offered him a role as a paralegal during his final year; a year later, he was working as a fully-fledged banking and finance lawyer. And, far from facing discrimination for his age, Emmanuel says being a mature-age student has been beneficial in the competitive world of law.

“I was lucky enough to have a certain amount of commercial acumen before I came into law. I felt like I had a lot of insights into the business world that someone who just finished an undergraduate degree probably wouldn’t have,” he says.

“From my perspective, as someone who’s 29 and had a previous career, I’ve seen what else is out there and I know this is for me. I’m very satisfied.”