Christina Finburgh

Christina is Assistant General Counsel at Bank of America. She began her training contact with Norton Rose Fulbright in 2004 and recently attended our 20-year reunion dinner for our 2004 trainee intakes.

You started with us as a trainee in 2004, what attracted you to the firm?

I always knew when applying to law firms that I did not want to work in a large magic circle firm and Norton Rose Fulbright stood out with its international seats offering and the flexibility of four-month seat rotations facilitating exposure to a wide variety of practice areas within the firm.

I completed mandatory seats in corporate finance and banking but I liked the flexibility of choosing other seats. I studied Geography as an undergraduate at Cambridge and found it surprisingly relevant to many of the practice areas I worked in. I particularly enjoyed the environment and planning seat (with Brian Greenwood) and the dispute resolution seat (with Charlotte Winter).

I had assumed I would take advantage of the overseas seat opportunities but my husband’s ties to his classic racing car business dictated that we remained in the UK.

Tell us about your time with us

Although I did not go abroad, I was fortunate to complete three secondments during my time at the firm, all of which have been fundamental in my career progression. My first secondment was as a trainee to ExxonMobil’s upstream oil and gas legal team. It was a fabulous experience working directly for the client, learning about their operations and getting an inside view of their interactions with external counsel, particularly at such an early stage in my legal career.

On qualification I joined the dispute resolution team working with Patrick Farrell but the workload was light across the team at the time so when an another opportunity arose to fill a secondment at Drax Power in Yorkshire I gladly accepted.

It was a fabulous experience, entirely different to what I had been doing in London and definitely a steep learning curve. I joined the in-house legal team overseeing all aspects of their energy and emissions trading business. I gained deep insight into Drax’s business operations and had enormous fun with the Yorkshire based sales and trading team in the process.

When I started at Drax their primary fuel source was still coal so it was exciting to witness their early transition to the adoption of biomass fuels (initially just for co-firing) then onto more significant clean energy solutions. It was a great introduction to emissions trading (itself nascent at that time) and it provided a solid foundation for my career in commodities trading.

On return from the secondment the strong personal and professional relationships I built at Drax led to a move from the dispute resolution team to a banking team to help build out the energy and emissions trading practice with John Wood and Andrew Hedges.

Where did your career journey take you after leaving us?

My final secondment at Norton Rose Fulbright was to the Commodities Legal team of Merrill Lynch (around the time of the acquisition by Bank of America) to focus on commodities trading generally with a specialism in energy and emissions trading (compliance and voluntary markets). This led to a permanent position, and I have remined there ever since.

Tell us about your current role

In my current role I still support the commodities business providing general and specialist legal advice to the UK, EMEA and APAC desks. My focus continues to be on the trading of emission allowances, voluntary offsets and environmental products generally. I also cover UK, EU and US regulatory issues impacting the commodities business, working regularly with industry groups. I am currently the Co-Chair of the Association for Financial Markets in Europe (AFME) Commodities Working Group which focuses on regulatory and legal policy issues specific to banks operating in the financial and physical commodities markets, developing and agreeing commodities-related policy positions on all UK and EU commodities topics.

It continues to be an interesting and exciting time to work within the commodities sector with factors such as the European political instability of recent years resulting in significant commodities price volatility and associated regulatory intervention coupled with the drive to decarbonise stimulating innovative market-based solutions in the energy and emissions sector in particular.

Can you share your thoughts on our recent trainee reunion

It had been 15 years since I left the More London office and walking through the doors was a powerful moment - it really took me back. For a trainee the shared experiences, hard work, and late nights translate into lasting memories and strong bonds of friendship with your colleagues and it was a real pleasure to reconnect with my cohort and reminisce on those days. I look back on my time at Norton Rose Fulbright with fondness and gratitude for the people I met and the unique experiences which contributed so positively as the fundamental building blocks of my legal career.