Clifford Chance
From corporate investigations at Clifford Chance to uncovering corporate crimes for Amnesty International.
Despite the path Montse has taken since leaving the firm, she’s clear that her time at Clifford Chance “made me the lawyer I am today”.
After joining our New York capital markets practice in 2010, her 2012 move to Singapore meant greater responsibility within a smaller team, which “eventually gave me the confidence that I now have as a lawyer”, she explains.
After Singapore, she spent two and a half years in Hong Kong where she transitioned from the capital markets practice to the firm’s arbitration and litigation team. She particularly enjoyed the internal corporate investigations which might, for example, involve her examining a client’s overseas operations for any potential breaches of anti-corruption or anti-money laundering laws. She explains:
“I liked unearthing the truth and putting the pieces together.”
Then in 2017, as a senior associate in corporate investigations at Clifford Chance’s Washington DC office, she realised it was time for a major change.
Ever since her university days, and indeed throughout her time at Clifford Chance, Montse had dedicated significant time to voluntary and pro bono work, supporting the human rights of those who most needed them. Now, she felt, it was time to take on those matters full-time.
She began exploring the possibilities that were open to her in the human rights area and, after spells at TRIAL International and Justice Rapid Response, Montse started her current role at Amnesty International in 2020. She quickly found that the skills and experience she had picked up at Clifford Chance were not only relevant but unique. She says:
“I realised that I understood how companies think and that I was able to analyse complex financial and corporate documents that few people in the NGO sector can. That's how I used my experience at Clifford Chance as a breakthrough for my future career.”
Montse now manages the Corporate Crimes Project at Amnesty International, which investigates the involvement of companies in human rights abuses, assesses whether these amount to crimes and, if so, files criminal cases against them. She recently led an investigation into the supply of aviation fuel to the Myanmar military for use in unlawful air strikes that killed, injured and displaced civilians, amounting to war crimes. This saw Montse quoted at length in the Guardian newspaper and other media outlets.
Based in Geneva, with the rest of her team located in London, Montse has become an expert in open-source research using everything from leaked corporate records and satellite imagery to vessel tracking data to uncover corporate wrongdoing.
As she considers her lifelong motivation, Montse says:
“I've always felt very strongly about unfairness.”
While sometimes missing the larger resources available to her at Clifford Chance, she is passionate about her current role. Yet Montse believes that she wouldn’t be able to carry it out so effectively without the skills and mental attitude that she developed during her years at Clifford Chance.
While not formally involved in the alumni network at present, she enjoys reading about her fellow alumni and has many lifelong friends from the firm.
Looking back, she remembers a seminal piece of advice from an early Clifford Chance mentor, Ari Kahn, who said “Whatever you do, even if it’s not necessarily something you love, give it a hundred per cent”. That principle helped her put in the hours and hard work on the lengthy registration statements, complex contractual agreements and investment arbitration filings that now give her an edge in fighting injustice.
“Don’t forget your dreams.”
Her second piece of advice is a nice counterpoint to the first: “Don’t forget your dreams”. She notes how a lot of people start their careers with a clear dream or goal but then, as the adage goes, ‘life gets in the way’. Montse is living proof that the torch of justice, fed with the right fuel, is still burning bright for her and those that she helps.
