Virtually all commercial transactions have tax implications. Accordingly, corporate tax is one of the most important practice areas for any major law firm. Working in corporate tax involves giving advice on the most tax-efficient means of acquiring, divesting or restructuring assets, negotiating and documenting the transaction, and ensuring the smooth running of the resulting deal. On the contentious side, corporate tax lawyers advise on all aspects of tax litigation and investigations, negotiate with tax authorities, and conduct litigation in the civil and criminal courts.

David Gubbay is a partner at international firm Dechert. He says: “I originally did a history degree at Rhodes University in South Africa. My father had been a lawyer so I knew something about it and was keen to study it.” David came to England to do a law degree at the University of Oxford and has stayed ever since. Now he specialises in corporate tax and enjoys “helping clients on deals and seeing things come together as you planned them”.

David knows that tax is a practice area that it can be hard to get a hold on. He says: “It’s quite difficult as a law student to have a real idea about which areas of law you want to practise. At that stage I certainly didn’t think I’d be working in tax and didn’t even study it. Not many law degrees include that as an option.” And anyway, as David notes wisely, “the actual practise of law is really quite different from studying it”.

David’s training contract was at a big City firm and he favoured his tax seat: “I liked the fact that you were dealing with many of the other practice areas within the firm, so you’d be working on corporate transactions, property transactions and fund transactions. Actually you needed to apply quite a bit of general law knowledge as well as having the specific tax knowledge. I liked the idea of being a bit of a specialist but still keeping in touch with all the other things that were going on in the firm.”

David stresses that tax lawyers need to understand other practice areas in their firm. He explains: “One obviously needs a good knowledge of tax law but it’s also important to have a decent understanding of the other areas that you’ll be interacting with. Typically, as a tax lawyer, you are primarily a service function to the other groups in your firm. So you need to understand how the deals work to make sure your advice fits into the deal structure and its commercial drivers.”

David has several large transactions on at any one time. He describes a memorable day: “A couple of weeks ago I was working on an interesting deal that had been in the press a lot, acting for the sellers of internet radio company Last FM to CBS, the big US broadcaster. On that particular day we had a meeting with our clients to go through certain elements of the transaction. The tax issues on that were quite important because we had a number of sellers with different tax requirements. There was then drafting to do on the sale contract and also a negotiation to be had with the lawyers acting for the buyer. A colleague from our financial services group and I then had a lunch meeting with a potential client who wanted to set up a hedge fund, so we met with two people from that company. Then in the afternoon I had a meeting with people from a Canadian real estate company who were looking to sell their UK property portfolio, so I went with a colleague from our real estate group and we met to go through things relating to the sale of the properties. And then late afternoon, into the evening, it was back on to the Last FM deal. We had a number of phone calls with our clients and the other side to try and agree on the deal and get it towards closing. That was a busy day!”

Being a corporate tax lawyer is very demanding, not least because of the volume of work. Having the ability to get to know clients and understand their business needs can also take a lot of effort. David explains that “being a tax lawyer, you’re asked to structure transactions in particular ways that enable the client to achieve their goals in a tax-efficient manner”. All the hard graft does pay off though. He says: “I enjoy it when you get involved with a client’s transactions early on and are able to add value to what they’re doing. I find that really satisfying.”

But still, tax is a complicated area of law. “You need to be an analytical lawyer who quite likes researching and thinking about difficult areas of law,” notes David. “You also need to have the ability to absorb very detailed factual situations and to break them down to their essence. That’s because if you’re trying to understand how something is going to be taxed, you need to get to grips with that and have the ability to work through complex factors.”

David has some concrete advice for budding tax lawyers: “You don’t need a detailed knowledge of accounting, but it helps to be able to look at a set of accounts and understand what the main numbers mean. That’s a useful skill to have.” And with firms increasingly wanting to see more than good grades, David advises that at interview it helps to “show you have a sense of humour and a point of view on things. Firms are looking for rounded people. It’s important to show your personality”.