I am a Lawyer in the Financial Disruptions Litigation Team.

I arrive in the office, log on and spend 20 minutes or so working through emails before starting on more substantive tasks.

We have a hearing in a week’s time on a contempt of court matter and Counsel has sent over a draft ‘Note to the Court’ to review. The note needs to be served on the Court and the other side so I review it, adding corrections and comments, before forwarding it to the investigators for them to approve and returning to Counsel for finalising.

At 10am, I join a daily case team meeting for a particularly complex and high value account forfeiture case. Lawyers in the team can, and do, run cases themselves but the size and complexity of this case means we have three lawyers, two trainees and three paralegals assigned. We discuss the main tasks for the week and allocate them accordingly. We have daily meetings to ensure the case runs smoothly.

As part of the above case, I need to review a request for evidence to be sent to the authorities in another country. We require banking material from them and the financial investigator has drafted a formal request to the authorities there. We make these sorts of requests regularly, to countries all over the world, but Brexit has changed the legal basis on which we can approach EU countries.

The investigator has therefore asked the legal team to review the request. I research relevant changes and amend the request to ensure we are referring to the correct legislation and treaties.

At 2pm, I dial into a case conference with Counsel, two investigators and another lawyer from my team. We have an ongoing investigation into the seizure of a large amount of gold and have been working closely with law enforcement overseas. They have provided us with a vast amount of material which we have been reviewing. The conference is a chance for us to discuss what the evidence shows. We agree that we will approach law enforcement in other countries to make further enquiries and set up another conference call for 4 weeks’ time to discuss further progress.

I then work my way through more of my emails; often quick queries from investigators and Counsel on ongoing cases. I have a number of live cases with competing deadlines, so good time management is key to ensuring they are all being progressed appropriately.

My next task is to put together an agenda for a settlement meeting taking place at the end of the week. We have an ongoing civil recovery case at the High Court but have agreed to a without prejudice meeting to discuss possible settlement options.

My final task for the day is to send a brief to the Press Office on an ongoing case. Our cases often attract media attentions and media reporting is a good way of engaging with the public so it’s important to keep the Press Office updated on the most recent developments in cases.