Job van der Pol – Associate

After graduating at university I joined Freshfields' tax practice group and from day one I have been involved in meetings with clients and discussions within our tax team about case law and current matters. Most of my work is cross-border, and we do transactional work with teams in the majority of the offices within our international network. The international tax group is a close-knit team and I know most of the tax associates and partners across the world. Because we work so closely together, it means we can overcome any cultural disparity - in fact, those small differences just make our relationships more interesting. It's a firm where everyone works hard to find information for our clients and present it to them in a way that they understand. At Freshfields, you won't find anyone sitting in an ivory tower with their head in a book.

On the majority of matters, we work in close collaboration with one of the tax partners. In tax, it's often a big responsibility because whether an area is right or wrong can have huge financial consequences, so we dig deep into problems. The challenge is focusing on the right detail and our clients really value our attention to the small things that are relevant to them. That's what you'll find everywhere in Freshfields - we do more than just the required legal work. All of my colleagues have real commercial awareness and they're also good at dealing with people.
That's reassuring for our clients. They know that when they consult us it will be within a consistent, personal relationship, rather than having to talk to a different team of lawyers every time.