UK capital markets co-chair and graduate recruitment partner Adam Howard on adapting to change, developing future lawyers, and the opportunities created by the transatlantic merger
Adam Howard qualified as a corporate lawyer around the time of the global financial crisis, an experience that taught him one of the earliest lessons of his career: “things don’t always go according to plan”. In the years since, he has watched Brexit, the pandemic, wars and geopolitical instability reshape markets and technology, each affecting clients and transactions in different ways. “One of the things I’ve learned as a result is that being a corporate lawyer isn’t just about knowing the law; you need to understand what’s happening in the world around clients and be able to adapt with them,” he tells Legal Cheek Careers.
Before joining what was then Winston & Strawn ahead of its combination with Taylor Wessing’s U.K.-led business in June 2026, Howard spent more than 11 years at another US law firm, working on over $200 billion worth of transactions across public M&A and capital markets, including a number of first-of-a-kind and complex cross-border deals. Today he co-chairs Winston Taylor‘s UK capital markets practice and serves as a graduate recruitment partner, a combination he says he enjoys: advising clients on complex transactions while helping grow the firm and develop the next generation of lawyers who will build their careers there. “If anyone had told me when I was applying for a training contract where I’d end up, I certainly wouldn’t have predicted this route,” he reflects. His message to those starting out now is that “the world, markets, and profession will change, and while you can’t control that, you can keep learning, be adaptable, surround yourself with great people, and be ready to take opportunities when they come along.”
Asked what the graduate recruitment role involves day to day, Howard explains that “our role is to make sure that trainees have the best possible experience and development throughout their training contract.” That means working closely with the early talent team, providing a partner’s perspective and acting as an advocate for trainees from recruitment and onboarding, through seat rotations, all the way to qualification. Beyond meeting SRA requirements, he says, “the most interesting part for me is the human side: getting to know each trainee individually, understanding what they enjoy and where they need support, and helping them figure out what sort of lawyer they want to become.” He is clear that it works both ways, with trainees expected to take ownership of their own development, ask for feedback and build relationships.
That philosophy extends to how Howard thinks about developing talent generally. “My philosophy is quite simple: give people opportunity, give them responsibility, and invest the time to help them learn from both,” he says. Early in his own career, Howard was given exposure to significant matters and trusted with responsibility while supervisors remained available for guidance, a combination he calls vital because “you learn by doing in this profession.” Simply handing someone work isn’t the same as developing them, he adds: it requires explaining context, involving trainees in the wider matter, giving meaningful feedback and progressively increasing responsibility. There is, he says, no single template for developing a lawyer, since people arrive with different strengths, personalities and experiences.
On the merger itself, Howard is unequivocal about its effect on graduate recruitment. “The core fundamentals haven’t changed: our responsibility remains recruiting talented people and supporting their development into excellent lawyers,” he says, but what has changed is the scale of the opportunity, with more lawyers, offices, practice areas and a broader range of clients. Having originally been drawn to the firm partly to help build and grow its London office, he sees the merger as another step in that journey: “we aren’t just training people for the firm as it is today; we are developing lawyers who will shape the firm over the next five, ten, or 20 years.”
Personally, he has found the process “very exciting.” Corporate transactions rarely sit neatly within one practice area or jurisdiction, he points out, with clients often needing corporate, regulatory, competition, tax, finance, employment, incentives and disputes advice across borders on tight timelines, so broader and deeper capabilities mean the firm can deliver more of the transaction itself. Howard describes a “real, genuine sense that we aren’t just joining two businesses together, but taking the best of both to build something new,” and says the surprises since the merger have been “overwhelmingly positive,” particularly how quickly the breadth of the combined firm’s capabilities became apparent in conversations with new colleagues, and how readily everyone embraced becoming one firm.
Day to day, that has meant collaborating with a much broader group of colleagues, with conversations that start in capital markets or public M&A now quickly drawing in experts from other practice groups and offices. It has also created new transatlantic relationships: while his team was already connected to US colleagues, he says the merger has opened up “a whole new set of transatlantic relationships and opportunities,” helped by what he describes as strong cultural alignment across the Atlantic. Within the first 100 days, Howard saw cross-firm teams come together to execute transactions “that wouldn’t have been possible before,” which is when, he says, the strategic rationale became reality.
For trainees, the biggest change is the sheer breadth of opportunity now available, with access to more practice areas, sectors and cross-border matters on a platform Howard believes better supports what a training contract should be about: exploring different fields to discover what interests you. He is looking for people who are “curious, ambitious, and eager to get involved,” who enjoy complex work and teamwork, and who bring an entrepreneurial mindset rather than waiting for opportunities to come to them. Choosing Winston Taylor now, Howard argues, means getting “the best of both worlds,” the scale and quality of work of a major international firm alongside the chance to join an ambitious firm during a growth phase, with real responsibility for trainees from early on.
Finally, Howard’s advice to aspiring applicants is straightforward: “I’d say go for it!” He encourages candidates to do their research, understand what excites them about the merger, and “above all, bring your personality and passion,” rather than aiming for a rehearsed answer. Looking ahead, he says he is excited to turn the firm’s potential into reality by deepening client relationships and broadening capabilities, and as a graduate partner, to offer the next generation of lawyers opportunities that didn’t exist before. “It feels like we are at the very beginning of an exciting journey.”
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