A journey from History and Politics to venture deals

I studied History and Politics at university, which gave me a strong foundation in writing, analysis, and critical thinking. I knew early on that teaching, research, or politics weren’t for me, so I started looking for a career that would allow me to use those skills in a more practical, commercial setting. Law ticked all the boxes - it’s intellectually demanding, constantly evolving, and offers the chance to work on real-world problems with real-world impact. I also had friends who studied law and hearing about their experiences helped me see how rewarding and challenging the profession could be.

Before starting my training contract, I worked at a startup - Wowcher - which was an eye-opening experience. Being inside a fast-paced, high-growth business gave me a real appreciation for the challenges founders face. That experience still shapes how I work with clients today.

I chose Marriott Harrison because I wanted to work with exceptional clients - the best VCs and startups in Europe - but in a firm that values thoughtfulness, collaboration, and being calm under pressure. I’d worked opposite Marriott Harrison on several transactions and was struck by the quality of the lawyers and the way they carried themselves: confident, clear, astute and considered. When the opportunity came up to join, it was an easy decision.

As a partner, no two days are the same. I split my time between advising founders and investors on complex legal and commercial issues, supporting and mentoring our associates and trainees, and helping to grow the firm - whether that’s through business development, writing, speaking, or just grabbing a coffee with someone interesting. I’m also the firm’s training principal, so I’m closely involved in our trainee recruitment and development. I love the variety - it keeps me learning and evolving every day.

What I enjoy most is helping clients make difficult decisions with confidence, and seeing our junior lawyers grow into brilliant, well-rounded professionals. It’s incredibly rewarding to be part of that journey.

My advice to anyone thinking about a career in law? It’s hard work, but worth it. Be curious. Ask questions. Learn from everything and everyone. Focus on becoming the most well-rounded lawyer you can be. Yes, drafting and negotiating skills are important, but so is understanding how law firms operate, how clients think, and how the legal industry is changing. Clients come first - always - and the best lawyers are the ones who never stop learning how to serve them better.

I look forward to meeting you soon.

Graham Halliday
Partner and Training Principal | Corporate

From Environmental Science to corporate deals: How brand protection sparked Tilly’s legal career

I studied Environmental Science at the University of Nottingham. Having undertaken a marketing internship for a brand protection tech company, I developed an interest in the legal aspects of building and protecting a strong brand. I wanted to apply my analytical mindset to real-world commercial challenges, so I studied the GDL and LPC at BPP University in London earning a commendation and distinction respectively.

I joined Marriott Harrison as a paralegal in the Commercial and Intellectual Property team, aiming to continue building the IP team, using my practical experience from working at a Trade Mark and Patent Attorney firm. I wanted to work somewhere that valued technical excellence as well as collaboration, which is why Marriott Harrison stood out to me, its genuinely supportive culture feels like the right fit. I worked closely with the team, almost doubling the number of trade marks we managed for our clients, and delivering training sessions on tech-related contracts and copyright protections to our internal teams and clients.

In October 2024, I moved over to the Corporate team, where I have continued to hone my technical abilities, and gain new skills. Every day is different in the Corporate team, from drafting due diligence reports to project management and producing advice notes. I have worked hard to develop my understanding of corporate transactions and how to add value to our clients, and earn the trust of my supervisors to take ownership of my workstreams. This September, I start my first seat in the Corporate team, dedicating half my time to the Accel Starter Program, where I hope to expand my knowledge of venture capital transactions.

Getting involved with the firm outside of the legal work is one of my favourite things about Marriott Harrison. I have become very involved in organising firm social events and fundraisers, it is a great way to get to know your colleagues and we can all have a good laugh together. Being able to attend conferences and networking events with partners and associates as well as joining the Marriott Harrison Football Club has been wonderful - scoring a goal at Selhurst Park was not something I thought I would achieve in my professional career. But again, pushing people towards success is one of the core aspects of Marriott Harrison.

Overall, everyone has been incredibly supportive of my professional development and very generous with their time. I look forward to this next stage of my career at Marriott Harrison.

Tilly Tribe
Trainee

Corporate deals and captables: a global career in law

I joined Marriott Harrison as a Senior Associate in October 2023, and was promoted to partner in April 2025.

I took a straightforward route into law - an LLB in Law, followed by the LPC and then a training contract at a large international firm in their London office. After qualifying as a Corporate lawyer, I spent 2+ years in the London office of that firm, followed by 5+ years in their Melbourne office (with 18 months of snowboarding and sleeping in a camper van in between!).

When I returned to London, I chose Marriott Harrison for its market-leading venture capital practice. The client list is enviable and the team are amazing. As a firm, the culture is completely different to what I experienced in a large international practice. People treat each other with respect and there isn't a hierarchy. As a trainee, you will get hands-on experience working on interesting work for clients doing an array of innovative things. No two days are the same. You will work hard - we all do - but the firm is realistic about deadlines and your other commitments.

One of the things I love about my job is seeing what sectors VC funds are betting will deliver them huge returns, and looking under the hood of the startups and scaleups trying to make it big. I get to work alongside true innovators which is a real privilege. I also enjoy collaborating in small teams to take an investment transaction from term sheet through to completion. You will get a real sense of achievement for delivering a result which makes clients on both sides of a transaction happy.

Choosing between law firms when you are applying for training contracts is difficult. Until you've spent time at a firm, it's hard to know what that firm is really like and a lot of firms say the same thing. My advice to anyone applying is - try and get a breadth of experience and keep an open mind. There are pros and cons to all workplaces and the experience you will get as a trainee at a firm like Marriott Harrison will differ greatly to the experience at a large firm. I happen to think there are a lot of pros to working at Marriott Harrison.

Bradley Heath
VC and M&A Partner | Corporate

A historian’s path to building a career in disputes

I read modern history and modern historiography at university. History had always interested me at school, and I found it particularly fascinating to understand how we understand and use the past in everyday life, socially, personally and politically.

At the same time, I had settled on the idea that law interested me as a career by my early teens. Brief considerations of the idea of becoming a botanist or a chef had fallen away. But my various early work experiences in the legal sector did not help me shake off the idea that I would still prefer to study history at university and then convert to law afterwards.

I chose Marriott Harrison - or rather Marriott Harrison and I chose each other - on my first change of firms. I had, as a trainee, been involved in two particular cases that ran in parallel and had many similarities. Marriott Harrison was on the other side of one case, and the matter reached a sensible and satisfactory settlement. When an opportunity came up at Marriott Harrison to deepen and progress my commercial litigation practice, I therefore jumped at the chance, having had this initial insight into the firm and its fee earners. The interview process confirmed that the quality of the firm's people, its high technical standards and entrepreneurial culture were all key ingredients in making the next step in my legal career.

No one day at Marriott Harrison resembles another. This is characteristic of dispute resolution work, which throws up unexpected fee earning developments every day, whether they come from the court, from clients, from opponents or elsewhere. It also reflects the diversity of professional commitments that come with work at Marriott Harrison, in terms of CSR, professional and business development and internal knowledge and training initiatives. One thing every day has in common nevertheless, is the depth and quality of interactions with colleagues at all levels in the firm and the support available to meet the challenges of life in a medium size City firm daily.

Marriott Harrison strives to provide space in which to grow as a legal practitioner, and to grow alongside very talented colleagues. This is undoubtedly one of the most enjoyable aspects of a career at Marriott Harrison. It means that I am involved in CSR initiatives, most recently founding the firm's interaction with a pro bono clinic for individuals facing court alone, without legal representation - RCJ Advice. In addition, I am active in a number of business development activities. These include actively participating in AIJA to promote the firm internationally and to build professional and fee earning opportunities across borders, both at UK and international conference and networking events. I am a committee member of the JLSLA, which represents the interests of junior litigation lawyers in London in a dual program of academic events including panel discussions and networking social events. I also actively contribute to the firm's contact with France and francophone jurisdictions in support of clients' needs, including embarking on new initiatives in London, for example with the French Chamber of Commerce of Great Britain. These and other activities foster sustainable career development and profile building in a particularly Marriott Harrison way.

I have never participated in Marriott Harrison's SVS scheme other than as a fee earner providing DR related tasks for candidates and attending candidate events such as the drinks, the debate and the Friday presentations. Likewise, I have no Marriott Harrison trainee experience, having trained elsewhere. As an outsider looking at both opportunities, they are super opportunities for any candidates who have the ambition and discipline to take up and mould in a professional way their futures.

For anybody looking to pursue a career in law: get as much experience as possible; be yourself and don't let comparisons with other lawyers or candidates put you off; be your own advocate; push yourself and your communication skills; and most importantly, enjoy it!

Joseph Tendler
Senior Associate | Dispute Resolution

A Classics graduate's journey to commercial law

As a Classics graduate, I naturally gravitated towards a career in law, feeling that my strengths lay in linguistic analysis and presenting arguments on paper. After graduating, I gained experience as a paralegal in the commercial dispute resolution department at another firm, before making the final decision that a career in law was right for me.

With paralegal experience, I had a clear idea of what I was looking for in a place to train - I wanted direct access to good work and real responsibility as early as possible. Marriott Harrison is a specialist firm with a leading reputation in the M&A and venture capital space. It immediately appealed to me as a place to train, offering both good quality work and the benefits of a smaller headcount in terms of early responsibility and client contact.

As a trainee at Marriott Harrison, you can expect to be kept on your toes, with exposure to a broad range of work – from assisting with employment tribunal proceedings in your Employment seat, to advising companies, big and small, on a range of transactional matters in your Corporate seat. Fortunately, I’ve also felt supported and a part of the firm since day one, making what might have been unsettling, instead exciting and stimulating.

Hermione Buttery
Trainee

Developing as a lawyer at Marriott Harrison

When I set out to study law, I knew I was interested in how it interacted with the worlds of business, finance, and economics, but I did not have a clear intention in my mind of becoming a lawyer. My decision to become a lawyer was ultimately a combination of enjoying the academic pursuit and finding a workplace in which I could see a long-term future that would allow me to develop professionally and personally.

Marriott Harrison fulfilled those ambitions because it is a firm that focuses on developing its people first in the knowledge that a positive work environment and client success stories will naturally follow. As a trainee, I worked with partners on a daily basis – often one-on-one – and was given opportunities to advise clients directly under their supervision. This approach to learning at Marriott Harrison has allowed me to develop my knowledge and style at an accelerated rate, which has set me on a path to becoming a lawyer that clients rely on as a trusted adviser.

From my first introduction to Marriott Harrison, I sensed it was a firm that would give me the space to stretch whilst providing genuine support and care for my development – a combination which is rare to find in the one business. Looking back over the past five years (from my training contract, through qualification, and into my early years as an associate in the corporate team) that high stretch/high support environment has never changed and remains a core part of Marriott Harrison’s DNA. I feel as strongly now as I did then that there are few law firms at which you will get better training and development for wherever your career takes you.

Lisle Gannon
Associate | Corporate

Shaping tomorrow’s technology at the intersection of AI and law

I joined Marriott Harrison in 2021 as a paralegal and trained here, completing seats with the Commercial, Disputes and Corporate teams. I qualified into the Commercial team in September 2023 and now advise on all different types of commercial and intellectual property matters - contracts, data protection and intellectual property, with a growing focus on how these areas intersect with emerging technology and AI.

My route into law began in Los Angeles, where I studied Political Science (with Law) at the University of Southern California before returning to London to complete the GDL and LPC at BPP.

I like the process of commercial problem-solving - in particular, I like getting really close to the product or service and the people building it and understanding how it works. Recently, I helped draft an article on AI coding tools that set out contract issues which software developers should have on their radar when using these tools. This is exactly the kind of real-world, technology-focused work I love to be part of; it is work that shapes the software we use, the music we hear, the things we read and the AI tools we rely on every day.

This firm is built around growing companies, investors and founders. This is reflected in my ability to build my own future at Marriott Harrison and be creative with my career, which to me is more than drafting contracts and advising on trade marks or data transfers: it's about the people we connect with and the impact we have on them. For example, mentoring is central to how I define myself as a lawyer. As a member of the firm's Recruitment Team, I take pride in supporting applicants, junior colleagues, and students - offering the kind of practical guidance that shaped my own journey as a trainee. I like working with the innovative people in all levels and areas of the firm to build the future of Marriott Harrison.

Liberty Pearl
Associate | Commercial

From climate modelling to the High Court of Appeal

Before studying law, I completed an integrated master’s degree in Natural Sciences, with a specific focus on climate modelling. During the final few months of my degree, I began working part-time for a London barristers’ chambers. I soon realised that law could provide the technical challenge I enjoyed in science, along with a dynamic, social and impactful environment that I had been looking for. I therefore decided to swap the laws of thermodynamics for the Companies Act and began pursuing a career as a lawyer.

I initially had my eyes set on becoming a barrister, and after winning a tax competition, I completed a mini-pupillage at a London tax chambers. I enjoyed the complex and creative nature of the work but decided that I wanted a position placing a greater emphasis on teamwork, in a firm with a specialist element but also providing the opportunity to learn across an interesting array of practice areas.

With its midsized headcount, high quality work and aspirational culture, I applied for a vacation scheme at Marriott Harrison and haven’t looked back since. It’s not always mentioned at law school, but working with people whom you respect and get along with goes a long way to positively shaping your experience as a trainee. Throughout my vacation scheme, everyone was prepared to give up their time to answer my questions and were genuinely interested in helping me progress during the week.

Now as a trainee, I have completed seats in the banking and restructuring team and the corporate team, and have been exposed to a variety of work. This includes refinancings, acquisition finance, buy and sell-side M&A, a range of venture capital work and I’ve been to the High Court and Court of Appeal in relation to the Thames Water sanction hearing. The lack of hierarchal structure provides a unique opportunity to learn and gain insights from some of the best in the business, right from the off. It’s not all work though – the firm holds regular social and sporting events, and there are plenty of opportunities to get involved with charity work throughout your time at the firm.

If you are interested in a training contract where you can take on responsibility from the start and be involved in high quality, meaningful work, all within a supportive and dynamic environment, Marriott Harrison may be the firm for you.

Toby Ferrison
Trainee