A signed agreement can mark the beginning of a relationship that still has to work. The seller may remain involved in the company. The buyer may depend on a transition period. An earn-out may require cooperation long after the lawyers have finished negotiating its terms.
For Megan Mossip, a partner in WeirFoulds’ Corporate Practice Group, that continuing relationship changes how a deal should be handled. Protecting a client includes understanding what that client will have to live with once the transaction is complete.
“I have seen situations where hardline tactics over relatively minor points created so much animosity between the parties that the transition period became unworkable,” she tells LAPSOFLUX.
It is a revealing place to begin a conversation about corporate law. Mossip is interested in the documents, but equally in the people whose decisions give those documents meaning. Her approach depends on understanding what a business needs, what a client can tolerate and which disagreements deserve the greatest attention.
Learning From Businesses That Went Wrong
Mossip entered the profession at the tail end of a recession, when opportunities were limited. She accepted an articling position at a boutique insolvency firm. The experience gave her an education in how businesses and transactions can unravel.
“You learn very quickly how transactions are structured when you spend your time picking apart the ones that have gone wrong,” she says.
When a corporate associate position became available, she took it. The earlier experience stayed useful. Advising a business through growth requires an awareness of what can happen when circumstances deteriorate, and a willingness to remain present when clients face difficulty.
She speaks with unusual directness about enjoying her work. Legal practice can be demanding, and she watched talented colleagues leave private practice during its first decade. Her own satisfaction comes from helping clients build, recover and move forward.
A new venture, a financing arrangement and a difficult commercial decision each offer a different expression of that work. The closing itself brings a rush, but the engagement begins well before the signatures.
Firm Advice, Relationships Intact
Mossip’s perspective developed across transactions and personalities rather than through one defining deal. A consistent lesson has been the importance of rapport with opposing counsel.
In her experience, treating every disagreement as a confrontation can damage the commercial purpose of a transaction. The lawyer may believe a point has been won while the client inherits an increasingly difficult working relationship.
“The best corporate lawyers I have worked with understand that their role is to protect their client’s interests firmly and effectively, while preserving the commercial relationship that makes the deal worth doing in the first place.”
This requires judgement about where to apply pressure and how to move a discussion forward. Some issues demand a direct technical exchange between lawyers. Others are business disagreements that need a different conversation.
Reading the room matters. So does recognising when the formal legal process is no longer the quickest route to understanding what is actually preventing agreement.
Knowing the Client Beyond the File
Mossip gives clients the same standard of responsiveness while adapting the work to their circumstances. An early-stage founder may need help understanding diligence and preparing for institutional investment. An established company may need focused execution and careful management of a transaction’s risks.
The distinction is in the service required, not in the attention the client deserves.
“It starts with knowing your client, not just understanding their business on paper,” she says.
That knowledge also informs her view of strategic advice. A long memorandum identifying every imaginable risk can leave a client with more uncertainty. Useful advice requires the lawyer to identify the central problem, understand its context and explain a practical response.
“This is why I may delegate a task to an associate, but I will never delegate a client.”
Her decision to move to WeirFoulds followed a similar assessment of client needs. She had reached a point where matters involving complex employment issues or insolvency litigation required referrals elsewhere. She wanted colleagues who could provide that expertise within the same firm, while preserving the relationship clients already trusted.
Building a Practice of Your Own
Mossip is equally candid about partnership. A title can recognise excellent service or encourage a lawyer to remain with a firm. Building a durable career, in her account, also requires developing independent client relationships and referral sources.
It is easy to remain absorbed in work supplied by senior colleagues, especially alongside responsibilities at home. But completing that work does not automatically establish an independent practice.
Her advice is concrete: meet people, take coffees and lunches, attend events and become known for something specific. She still carries business cards. Relationships need time outside the immediate demands of a file.
For lawyers growing under an influential mentor, there may eventually be a need to create more space.
“That is not disloyalty, that is growth,” she says.
That can mean developing another area of expertise or reaching a different group of clients. It need not mean leaving the firm. The objective is an identity that clients and colleagues recognise as the lawyer’s own.
Mossip also resists a prescribed account of what being a woman in corporate law must have meant for her. She says she has not personally encountered particular career challenges because of her gender, while acknowledging that many women experience significant barriers. She credits the support available at home and describes the importance of mentoring and professional networks.
The refusal to manufacture a more convenient narrative is consistent with the rest of her interview. Context matters. People have different circumstances. A useful answer has to fit the reality in front of you.
That is the standard she brings to the negotiating table: understand the people, identify what matters and remember that the relationship may have years left to run.