In conversation with Sarah Reddick

In this blog post, we speak to tax lawyer and ultimate world traveller, Sarah Reddick. Sarah is a Senior Associate at Greenwoods & Herbert Smith Freehills, and has worked in New York, London, Singapore, New Zealand and Sydney (where she is now settled)! She tells us why she loves tax law (yes - she does indeed love it), and why lawyers should work in many different jurisdictions.

TLC: What made you want to study law?

SR: I was studying for a finance degree and picked up a tax law paper, which I enjoyed so much that I then kicked off a degree in law (way more interesting!) - and the rest is history.  I have found the study of tax law particularly satisfying - it is an area where technical expertise is highly valued, such that the time spent in study is well rewarded.  It is also an area where you need to continually challenge yourself to learn as law and practice evolves.  Studying to be a tax lawyer is a long term commitment and it seems to me that, in tax law at least, the older you get, the better you get!  

TLC: Tell us about your journey to how you got to where you are.

SR: I started out in NZ in the tax team of a great firm, Russell McVeagh.  However, the opportunity soon arose to study for an LLM at Cambridge and so I took off to the UK.  After graduating, I spent a couple of years at Freshfields in London and then moved on to NY to become a US tax lawyer at Sidley Austin.  That was a big challenge and very rewarding – I was lucky to work with some outstanding tax professionals and the training was excellent.  After my first child was born in NY, my husband and I moved around the world for the next 10 years with his career – to Sydney, then London, back to Sydney, then Singapore, Sydney again, then NZ and finally settled (for the time being at least) back in Sydney 8 years ago.  When I returned to Sydney, I joined the Sydney office of Sidley Austin and, in the absence of any US tax work, retrained as a US capital markets lawyer.  From there, I moved to a great team at Westpac to work as a treasury lawyer - and then finally found my way back to tax when I joined the excellent tax practice at Greenwoods in 2016.    

TLC: What is the funniest or weirdest moment you've had in your legal career?

SR: What can I say that is fit to print - feel like I’ve made it this far relying on discretion and am thinking it should probably stay that way!  

TLC: What is your one piece of advice to law students of today?

SR: The advice that I give my eldest daughter, who is currently studying law, is to seek out opportunities to study and work in different jurisdictions – it is so much fun and the perspective it gives you is tremendous.