“Curiosity Is Your Best Asset”: An Interview with D2 Legal Technology Senior Consultant and Trainee Solicitor Stephan Werthauer

Why did you choose to pursue a legal career?

It's fair to say my legal career has taken a slightly more winding path than others'. I wanted a career that would be intellectually rigorous and regularly provide new challenges and opportunities to satisfy my curiosity.

Originally, while doing A-Levels and my first year of university, I thought about becoming a human rights barrister. However, upon completing a couple of mini-pupillages, I became less sure about this career path. As I progressed through university, I became increasingly interested in finance and banking, culminating in an internship at a bank.

While that position was certainly interesting, it waswasn'tite right for me. Still, I loved the dynamic environment, which led me to consider combining both interests: legal work within the banking and finance sector.

I leveraged the contacts I made during the internship to secure a six-month intern position on the M&A and Derivatives teams in New York, with the French-American Chamber of Commerce supporting my visa application.

After that, I secured a paralegal job in the firm's derivatives team in the London office, during which I self-funded my Legal Practice Course (LPC). After that, I successfully applied for a position at D2 Legal Technology (D2LT) as a junior consultant.

As an award-winning legal data consulting firm in the fintech and legaltech sector, D2LT was particularly exciting to me.

What has been a highlight of your career so far?

I've been lucky to work on a range of projects, from remediation work in North Carolina to internal research and support for high-profile client market events. For example, D2LT recently completed a client's exit transition project, which I led.

This was a really significant project which spanned almost three years and involved supporting the establishment of a new European subsidiary of this Tier 1 bank; ensuring it was operationally functional by the end of the Brexit transition period; negotiating new trading agreements on behalf of the bank with its clients; and managing the transition of all the client's trade portfolio to the new European entity.

Over these three years, as the project progressed and I built my relationship with the client and grew more comfortable with the subject matter, I took on increasing responsibility, supported by continuous oversight from D2LT's managing directors. This was a major initiative.

We regularly interacted with the bank's senior stakeholders, Heads of Business, regulators, and Managing Directors, and ensuring a smooth, successful transition was critical.

Unsurprisingly, picking up and moving an entire bank during a period of unprecedented political uncertainty, while also dealing with COVID, was not without its challenges. Hence, this feels like such a highlight to me.

Have you faced any challenges throughout your career?

I think the biggest challenge for me has been figuring out how to qualify as a solicitor. As I said at the outset, I diddidn'tke the traditional route: university, an LPC paid for by a law firm, and a training contract. I think my uncertainty about what I wanted to do for a career prevented this, so I consciously had to save to self-fund the LPC.

Fortunately, I received a fantastic offer from D2LT to be a Legal Technology Consultant. I started working on challenging, fast-paced and interesting projects, which, as I mentioned before, was really the original reason I got into law.

After a year at D2LT, I started to worry that without being a qualified solicitor, I might be limited in opportunity, even though I would be hugely fortunate to work on really interesting projects and innovations and grow specialist knowledge in Law, Finance, and Tech.

I wouldn't necessarily be able to demonstrate that knowledge externally, particularly to D2LT's Clients, to show why I could act as a trusted advisor on more senior elements of a project. As part of D2LT's Strategic growth plan, and working with senior management, we registered with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) as an authorised training firm, and I joined D2LT's Trainee intake.

A day in your life as a senior consultant at the firm

I'm vI'm fortunate, and my workdays are enormously varied, depending on the projects I am working on, where we are in the project lifecycle, and how I am engaged. Given the nature of the work D2LT undertakes for our clients, projects rarely repeat, so there is also an element of continuous learning.

Currently, I am deployed on a large-scale remediation project for my primary client, a technology innovation programme for my secondary client, and some exciting internal research projects.

Currently, these projects include developing an ESG product offering; working on Smart Contracts; and building a partnership with a LegalTech vendor. I've signed up for a pro bono programme through one of my clients, so I dedicate a small amount of my time to it each week, which I feel is really important.

What are your career goals or plans for the future?

This might be a recurring theme throughout this interview, but I'm not too sure.

In the short term, I am determined to qualify as a solicitor, and I have about 6 months left on my training contract. After qualification, I think I would (1) like to learn how to code; and (2) dedicate more of my time towards thinking about the role law has to play within new technologies such as crypto-assets and blockchain.

I believe society is on the precipice of implementing these developments in the current financial ecosystem, i.e., regulators receiving data via a permissioned blockchain. I think D2LT is uniquely positioned to lead this step change.

In the medium term, I would love to work abroad again. I really enjoyed my time in New York, so I would like to go back, but Hong Kong also really appeals to me.

I find that my current practice area throws up some really interesting work; for example, one of my mentors worked on the financing agreements for a major Premier League football stadium (which I have always thought must have been a really cool deal to work on, given I am a bit of a sports geek), so I see myself continuing to work in banking and finance for the foreseeable future.

In the long term, this is a bit more difficult. I have always thought that people get two careers. At some point, I might do an MBA and work in a more direct business/front office capacity. I also admire D2LT's business model: I think legal consultancy has huge growth potential, especially as you move toward innovation in the legal space, as D2LT is.

I have always quite liked the idea of owning my own business, so I could see myself running my own consultancy firm in this space, maybe with a bit more focus on strategic consultancy for legal functions and firms.

What is one thing you would have liked to have known before starting your career?

Learn from your mistakes. The most important thing I've realised early in my career is that making a mistake isn't the end of the world; they happen. People I've met are generally patient and won't hate you for making a mistake as long as you're proactive about finding a solution.

I believe the worst thing you can do is not learn from a mistake and repeat it; that's when people get really annoyed.

What advice would you give to someone who wants to become a legal tech consultant?

Try to be that. I know it's tiring to do more than you already have to for your studies or job, but curiosity is invaluable.

Knowing what someone else is doing and why has been hugely beneficial to me, because it helps you understand the context of the conversation and appreciate other people's concerns and angles.

For a long time, I feared that if I asked a question, someone might think I was stupid. I don't think that's ever been the case (at least I hope not); as long as you ask the right people the right questions in the right context, you'll be absolutely fine, and it'll stand you in good stead in the long run.