“I think people are often surprised that the lawyer’s role can involve quite a bit of numerical or data analysis, actually, particularly if you’re working for clients who are quite sophisticated and have complex products and services,” said Ms Webster, who ultimately won the dispute resolution and litigation category at the 30 Under 30 Awards.

“A good example of that would be clients like investment banks and hedge funds, which I work a lot with. For example, if you are looking at a market manipulation case, and you’re trying to get [to] the bottom of understanding whether a party has created an artificial price for trading in a financial product or security, you end up inevitably having to look at the raw data, which is not something actually that most law degrees prepare graduates particularly well for.

“Even though you might engage expert witnesses to do a lot of the deep dive for you, you still need to understand enough to be able to effectively instruct the experts to interpret the evidence that comes out and to think about how that’s going to inform or affect your case theory.

“For new lawyers who don’t have the technical background, that can be really challenging, but also a great opportunity to keep learning something new and to exercise that side of your brain. That’s something in general that I’m really passionate about. I spend a lot of time internally trying to develop practical training programs that help junior lawyers to develop more confidence in working on those more forensic work streams.”

As financial services are so intrinsic to the economy, it was always going to attract significant regulatory interest, placing increased technical demand on young lawyers, according to Ms Webster.

There were also many developments in digital transformation that continue to be a really dynamic area and have created lots of new opportunities for junior lawyers.

“The way I would think about it is in two categories. The first is that we’ve got new and growing tech-enabled players that are bringing their own distinct legal issues to the table,” she said.

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“Years ago, when I started my career, the focus was on fintech, and it’s kind of ironic now that the integration of finance and tech is just so ubiquitous that the term is kind of superfluous now, but it was all about fintech.

“Then there was a lot of interest in challenger banks, the buy-now-pay-later players, and now there’s a lot of focus on players in the cryptocurrency ecosystem. Depending on your firm or your group, those clients may now fall within the purview of financial services lawyers. So, there’s a great mix of new clients coming into the fold.

Ms Webster said the second category of challenges was there were now established clients who are facing new challenges, and one priority area was cyber security, which had become really topical at the moment.

“In May this year, there was a Federal Court judgment, which was significant because it was the first time the federal court had found that a failure to adequately manage cyber security risks constituted a breach of the general AFSLs, that’s Australian Financial Service Licence obligations,” Ms Webster explained.

“That’s really brought the management of cyber security risk to the fore for a lot of our clients, and it’s compounded also by the regulatory interest in this space. In March this year, for example, ASIC introduced some new market integrity rules that were aimed at improving corporate governance and also technological resilience.

“Those rules require that market participants and their operators establish, and also regularly review, their business continuity plans to respond to major events like cyber attacks, but also more generally, things like pandemics and natural disasters. So that’s just one example of a really topical and emerging issue for some of our clients, which presents a really interesting opportunity for people who are interested in that space.”

Also speaking on the podcast, The Fold Legal senior associate Glenjon Aligiannis and 30 Under 30 finalist in financial services said the opportunities emerging in this space were always changing.

“The attitude towards what regulation can change on the day. I mean, depending on the election, that changes how we look at regulation and it depends on what happens overseas. I think it’s a very exciting area to get into,” he said.

Mr Aligiannis said junior lawyers who are interested need “to get loud” and “make yourself present and aware and let people know that you’re there” to meet the evolving challenges in this space.

“You need to get passionate and get into the weeds on the legislation. Really, it’s an area where you got to grab it with both hands,” he said.

“To me, what that looks like in practicality, is I think it means having frequent conversations with your partners and saying, ‘How do I get more involved in this? What are we doing in and around these spaces?’ and saying to yourself as well, ‘How do I become more of a present person? Am I marketing myself? Am I making myself known as someone who’s interested in those areas?’

“I think the other part of it is asking for help. The most important thing I’ve found is when I’m trying to either get into a new area or try something out that I haven’t done before, say to somebody, ‘I don’t know exactly how to do this. Can you help me?’ And usually, the people around you are very willing, and they’re learned, and they’re happy to pass down that wisdom. I think it’s just about getting really loud and making yourself known, and letting other people know that you’re keen to get involved.”

For junior lawyers in financial services, Mr Aligiannis noted the biggest challenge was taking into consideration the COVID environment that lawyers have been working in, with the most important factor being able to access the partners and the staff.

“It’s that everyday conversation or that late night, ‘Do you want to have a chat about that case that we just worked on or that matter that’s just come through?’ where you really start to develop relationships and work out, whether you like the practice that you’re in or whether you like the environment that you’re in or whether you like the field of law that you’re in, because you’re working out smaller issues through conversation with people who are more experienced,” Mr Aligiannis explained.

“I think what happens is that a lot of junior lawyers have had to take on a higher degree of responsibility to overcome that lack of contact, because I had to make more assumptions about, ‘Well, okay, if I can’t access the partner, how do I make an executive decision, within the field of authority that I have, to be able to get them out at the next level and develop that?’

“I think we’re seeing a lot of junior lawyers try to work on their sense of autonomy and understanding that they have to work independently. But now as we come out of that, how we get back together at least a couple of days a week, so that we still have that environment of collaborative learning and working out that team sense of environment.” 

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Sarah Webster and Glenjon Aligiannis, click below: