Clare O’Hare – Associate

When I was at university, I never thought I'd find myself working in Dubai. I started applying for training contracts with Irish firms but had not intended remaining in Dublin, although moving to Dubai wasn't something I had thought about.

My specialism is finance law. I did my training contract with Freshfields in London and during that time I spent six months in Dubai. I then returned to the London office and after 15 months I moved out to Dubai. When you qualify in London, you qualify into a particular team and I qualified into structured finance. Here in Dubai, our team's smaller so you've got to be a bit more of a generalist and I've really enjoyed that. Although the work in London was very challenging and specific to structured finance, here I've experienced a wider range of work and have started to see a wider spectrum of financial work. I'm working with a far broader range of clients and transactions, and really getting to know the foundations that finance is built on.

Our office is in an incredible location, right in the centre of Dubai's financial centre. And being in such a central location in a small community means you soon build up a professional and personal network.

I've dealt with some really interesting transactions since I've been here. For example, I've worked on infrastructure projects in the city and, because things happen so quickly here, you soon see the works starting. And the actual structure of some of the Saudi transactions I've worked on has been interesting - sometimes quite different from the structures I came across in London and rewarding.

Probably the most enjoyable aspect of my work is seeing transactions I've been involved with crop up in the press. A lot of our clients work for large businesses, and you'll often see reference to them in the papers, talking about deals I've been involved with. Working with the legal team gives a good insight into where the business community sees things are going. Of course, they've got very high expectations of us, but I wouldn't want it any other way.