Debt Finance Associate

A&O Shearman is a new global industry-leading law firm, nearly 50 offices in 28 countries worldwide. Our fluency in English law, U.S. law, and the laws of the world’s most dynamic markets, enables us to provide unmatched insight and seamless delivery to clients. We work on challenging and important deals and disputes that have the potential to shape the future.
 
We offer exceptional opportunities for our people; opportunities to work for the world’s leading businesses; to transform the status quo, and to deliver your best work, helping you and your career to thrive, while delivering unparalleled outcomes for our clients.
 
Whether you’re helping clients solve complex challenges, transforming the ways we manage our business, or ensuring the smooth-running of our operations, this is an environment where you can belong and excel. We provide first-rate training and development, we are committed to diversity, equity and inclusion and we provide support and ways of working that help you optimise your wellbeing.
 
What truly defines a career with us? We recruit the best and ask for the best of you. And together, we will redefine success.

Department Purpose and Structure:

With over 1,000 lawyers worldwide, we have one of the largest and most international teams of debt finance lawyers of any global law firm. Few practices can match our top tier position across the full range of financial products.

With such a deep team and global reach, international and industry-leading ‘first-of-a-kind’ transactions are our hallmark. We have been instrumental in nearly all the major developments in the modern financial markets.

The Hong Kong practice is deeply committed to providing our clients with market leading legal advice. It is a very dynamic team that works across a number of regional markets linking to China, Asia and Europe. Team members can expect to gain experience of all our major banking products across a range of industries and sectors.  Our Debt Finance practice sits within our wider Finance Group, which includes the Global Financial Markets practice. We regularly work and collaborate with our GFM colleagues, particularly when it comes to servicing clients.  As an associate, your responsibility levels will be high and you will be exposed to many different types of transactions.

Role & responsibilities:

Working alongside our Debt Finance partner group, we are seeking a mid-level debt finance associate to join our team to advise clients on a full range of debt finance transactional work for international and domestic financial institutions, funds, corporate and sponsors in leveraged acquisition finance, global loans, margin loans, convertible and exchangeable instruments, asset finance and real estate finance matters.

We are looking for candidates with ambition and enthusiasm to be involved in business development activities, including participating in industry related programs and developing strategic relationships and networks.

Experience, skills and competencies:

Key to success in this role, the incumbent will display the following experience, skills and attributes:
3-6 years of lender side experience with a leading international or reputable law firm and strong academic credentials;
HK qualified or common law qualified;
strong drafting skills and strong debt finance credentials;
a self starter, dependable and capable of working with lawyers from different cultural backgrounds with good interpersonal skills;
excellent English communication and presentation skills(written and oral);
Mandarin language skills are beneficial but not essential;
an effective team player who can operate in a highly collegiate atmosphere;
commercially astute with outstanding technical ability, including research and drafting skills;
exceptional problem solving and organisational skills;
an ability to manage, prioritise and meet deadlines, working efficiently and effectively under pressure; and
desire to join a truly global team with an international outlook and commercial mind-set.