Typically, competition and regulatory work includes merger control under the Act 2002, regulatory and court proceedings under the Competition Act 1998, issues arising from sector-specific regulation, state aid, public sector and utility procurement issues. UK companies must also comply with the relevant EU rules which apply directly to their conduct. There has been significant reform of both UK and EU competition law and practice in recent years, and further proposals are being considered. An interesting recent development in the has been the introduction of a cartel offence giving rise to liability for individuals, rather than just businesses; this adds an important new criminal dimension to competition law work. Private competition law actions are a particular area to watch, with both the UK and EU authorities keen to foster such actions.

As a student, Alastair Chapman embarked on a law degree as it "chimed with the things I was already interested in; I'd done debating and public speaking at school, and was always keen for a decent argument". He was also drawn by the parallels between history - his strongest subject - and law: "In both, you're focusing on textual analysis, and looking at facts which appear objective but can in fact be subjective, depending how you present them."

A Freshfields lawyer born and bred, Alastair has now been with the firm for over a decade, progressing from trainee to partner in the antitrust, competition and trade group. After a flexible training contract, which unusually allows for a combination of six and three-month seats - "it's great being able to try lots of different areas, especially as it's rare to know exactly what you want to specialise in before you've practised" - Alastair qualified into competition. He was won over by its unique mix of law, economics and politics: "Even in the 10 years since I qualified, competition law has expanded hugely - it's turned from something quite niche into something that is central to the firm's practice."

Early in his associate career, Alastair did a postgraduate diploma in EU competition law at King's College London, something he describes as definitely worthwhile once you've got a bit of practical experience under your belt: "You want to be at the stage where you've already got a handle on the key principles, but accept that you don't know it all! The course gives you the ability to fill in the blanks that haven't otherwise been covered by doing the job."

And in terms of ‘doing that job', Alastair offers insight into what he might experience in a typical week: "This week, I have been drafting a submission to the European Commission arguing that it should clear my client's contemplated merger. I'm also preparing to appear before the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), to persuade it that the way one of my clients is behaving isn't anticompetitive. I've viewed some commercial agreements, drafted conditions precedent to a deal, attended a meeting with economists, presented a competition law compliance seminar to a board of directors, interviewed potential trainees and taken a summer vacation scheme student out to lunch to explain what competition lawyers do." Sounds varied, but as Alastair identifies, the common thread is "working with people - be they regulators, economists, clients or colleagues. Regardless of what bit of paper is in front of you, the big picture is that you're always focusing on human relationships".

Freshfields' competition team has an integrated litigation arm which operates alongside the general advisory and M&A group, where most of Alastair's work is situated: "As a market-leading team, we get really good-quality work. A particular highlight for me was representing Tesco on a Competition Commission investigation. I was part of the team that successfully judicially reviewed the decision - it was the first time it had been done. We won competition team of the year that year too!"

There's also plenty of scope for exploring international waters: "Most practitioners in Europe need to practise competition law in two jurisdictions - their own member state and the European Union. If you're doing a lot of EU work, you see a fair bit of the inside of the Eurostar! And we have a lot of international clients, so it's often necessary to go to their headquarters to understand their business."

The ability to forge solid client relations and an appreciation that it's not enough just to know the law are key factors to success as a competition lawyer, explains Alastair: "This is a real mix of disciplines - there's lots of black-letter law, so you have to master that, but there are still plenty of grey areas where you need to understand the impact on the wider market of the way your client is behaving, conduct a sophisticated analysis in order to quantify risk and work out where the client sits within the law. You have to understand the motivation behind what your client is doing, the parameters of its business, what its products do and who its competitors are. You then need to reduce your complex analysis to digestible advice that will bring your client alongside you. The whole goal is to become a trusted adviser of the client, and the best way to do that is to show that you understand its business and appreciate the challenges it faces. If you want to sit in an ivory tower and hand down learned treatises, you will be of no use to your client."

As for change on the horizon, Alastair mentions the current government consultation which is reviewing the entire structure of the competition law regime, and which may see the OFT and the Competition Commission merged into a single body. He also cites the growing importance of economics in competition cases: "In the 1990s, the European Commission had one economist for every seven competition lawyers. Now the figure is one to two! So one of the real challenges as a lawyer is learning to speak the language of economics."

There has also been a boom in private competition law actions - private damages actions that follow a cartel decision, where customers or businesses use the regulator's findings as evidence to sue the members of the cartel in a national court. "There is scope for further development in this area and potential for the development of class actions," says Alastair.

To get to grips with this area of law, Alastair suggests doing vacation schemes and minipupillages, speaking to practitioners and checking out firms' websites. There are also specialist competition law sites on which you can read about latest developments, "although increasingly, you read about big competition issue on the front page of the FT - although that's usually when things have gone wrong for your client!"

Alastair himself is an example of someone who did all the right things in the early stages - "I did vac schemes, read widely and spoke to practitioners" - and now, at partner level, is still excited by "the consistently highquality and challenging work". Inevitably, if you're working at a magic circle or US firm, your hours will never be nine to five: "Your career can be all-consuming at times, but my view is that if you're doing interesting and challenging work with impressive people, the positives far outweigh the negatives. I wouldn't still be here if I didn't thoroughly enjoy what I do."