Clifford Chance

Clifford Chance announces Robert Natzler as overall winner of the firm's Intelligent Aid competition

International law firm Clifford Chance today announces that Robert Natzler from Oxford University is this year's overall winner of the third Clifford Chance Intelligent Aid, the firm's annual competition for UK students. In total, sixteen winners were awarded places on the next Clifford Chance vacation scheme.

Robert has nominated Trees for Cities to receive £1,000 from the Clifford Chance Foundation and has also won a vacation scheme placement at Clifford Chance, an all expenses paid three-night trip to Rio de Janeiro for two and an iPad. In addition to the individual prize, the members of the best team - Samuel Harwin (Oxford), Laveen Ladharam (College of Law), Robert Shorrock (Cambridge), and Nikhita Suria (Manchester) - each won an iPad as well as a vacation scheme place.

As part of Clifford Chance's graduate recruitment activities Intelligent Aid, which first launched in 2010, challenged this year's entrants to write a short essay about the most successful ways in which governments could ensure emission reduction targets. The top 40 entries were invited to come to Clifford Chance to work in teams to develop a new business pitch based on a case study relating to renewable energy, and were judged by a panel of experts from the firm.

Graduate recruitment partner Emma Matebalavu comments: " We would like to congratulate all the students who were selected to attend the final round. The competition really threw students in at the deep end, requiring them to prepare a pitch for a complex renewable financing transaction. We were really impressed by the quality of their presentations, especially given the limited time to prepare. So much so that we had to increase the number of spaces for winners on our next vacation scheme from 15 to 16!"

Tony King, Director of the Clifford Chance Academy, adds: "The breadth of the winners' knowledge of the renewables market, and their understanding of the role lawyers play in complex transactions, was really impressive. We look forward to seeing them all in the near future."

The finalists came from a wide selection of Universities across the country including Sheffield, Leicester, Bristol, Oxford, Warwick, Nottingham and Queen Mary. Their backgrounds were just as varied ranging from first years through to post-graduate candidates studying anything from law to environmental policy.

Clifford Chance is a leading player in the climate change and wider renewable market. Named Best Law Firm in Renewable Energy, Europe 2011 in Environmental Finance's 12th Annual Market Survey, Clifford Chance is also the only law firm in the UK that is listed by Chambers UK as a top-tier firm for climate change around the world. The Firm has been advising clients in the sector, which covers biofuels, biomass, carbon, solar, onshore and offshore wind and hydropower, for over 10 years at both a local and international level.

For more information about the firm's graduate recruitment opportunities or the firm's climate change and renewable energy work, please see the Clifford Chance website.