“Our traineeship wasn’t just training, it was a bootcamp”

What’s your astir vivid representation from being a trainee?  

My astir vivid representation arsenic a trainee is not glamorous astatine each – successful fact, it progressive being half‑asleep, freezing, and opinionated successful a very agelong queue. I still retrieve lining up astatine 5am extracurricular nan commercialized registry agency pinch 30 aliases 40 different trainees, each of america clutching heavy files for illustration they were life support machines. Our mission? To registry nan conversion of nan stock superior of a number of companies earlier nan 1 January 2002 deadline.

We looked for illustration a bizarre dawn‑patrol ineligible brigade. I retrieve thinking: “If this is what precocious finance looks like… I’ve been misled.”

But it taught maine thing important early on: rule is sometimes astir large ideas – and sometimes astir showing up astatine ridiculous hours to make judge nan rule really useful successful practice. And, of course: “Nothing bonds young lawyers for illustration a shared sunrise and a looming regulatory deadline.”

Tell america astir a sliding doors infinitesimal erstwhile your profession could person gone successful an wholly different direction?

My existent sliding‑doors infinitesimal came years later erstwhile I started moving pinch MAZE, nan effect finance firm, and met its founder, António Miguel. We collaborated pinch them to thief create nan first effect fund, and that acquisition opened a wholly caller world to me.

I often say: “Some group observe effect finance by reference astir it – I discovered it by helping build it.”

That collaboration changed not only really I spot investment, but really I spot nan domiciled of rule firms successful shaping societal change. Without that encounter, ESG and effect mightiness ne'er person go specified defining pillars of my activity today.

What’s nan hardest mobility you’ve ever been asked astatine interview, and really did you answer?

 The hardest question and reply mobility I’ve ever faced was elemental and brutally direct: “Are you assured that your strategy for nan patient is going to activity out?”

At nan time, our group of partners had started implementing a bold strategy – refocusing nan patient connected high‑end transactional and litigation work. Publicly, we had to opportunity we were very confident. Privately, of course, we were excited… but besides human.

As I answered, I retrieve thinking: “You can’t admit you’re tense – moreover if this has ne'er been done astatine this standard successful Portugal.” So I said, pinch a consecutive face: “Absolutely. We cognize this is nan correct path.”

And nan champion portion is: we were right. The early validated that assurance – moreover if, heavy down, we each felt a mini flutter of “I dream this works” astatine nan time.

What proposal would you springiness to personification who wants to get to wherever you are/do nan occupation you do?

My proposal is simple:

Be funny astir much than law. Behavioural science, ESG, tech, guidance – these are nary longer broadside dishes; they’re nan main course.

Learn to fto spell and negociate group early. A large portion of your maturation and occurrence comes from becoming replaceable successful your erstwhile functions and becoming a leader of much and much people.

Embrace innovation. If you’re waiting for a memo to show you nan world is changing, you’re already late.

Have a master intent extracurricular billable hours. Research, teaching, penning – they kept maine crisp and grounded.

Tell america astir ONE erstwhile workfellow who you miss, and why? (It doesn’t person to beryllium a lawyer)

What I genuinely miss nan astir are my chap trainees from those early years. Our traineeship wasn’t conscionable training, it was a two‑and‑a‑half‑year bootcamp wherever camaraderie and communal support were nan only measurement to survive. We shared everything: intolerable deadlines, dawn queues astatine nan registry, late‑night drafting marathons, and nan benignant of corporate panic only inferior lawyers tin afloat appreciate. It was intense, exhausting, and perfectly unforgettable. The enslaved that forms erstwhile you turn up professionally together is thing you can’t recreate later successful your profession and continues moreover if we meet little often. A large shoutout to Luis Villas-Boas Pires, now caput of agents astatine FIFA, and Catarina António, now astatine Novo Banco.