Born and bred in Germany, I went on to live and study in the Netherlands, France and Ireland before moving to the UK. Feeling a bit lost during my school years and trying to test the waters a little by pushing the boundaries of my comfort zone, I felt that moving between different countries and cultures helped me build a strong inner compass when it comes to my own core values and convictions.

The most daunting thing I’ve ever done is come out. I was at a single-sex school where the only insult other than “gay” was a reference to “your mum”. Homosexuality was the butt of every joke and there wasn’t a single gay role model to challenge that. The prospect of openly admitting to people that I was homosexual was so intimidating that most of the time it seemed like it just wasn’t worth it – couldn’t I just stay in the closet forever?

I wasn’t happy at my previous law firm. I didn’t have any visible role models and I spent a lot of time and energy hiding who I was to all but a close group of colleagues. So I did my research before joining Hogan Lovells in 2012 and even asked questions about diversity at my interview. The fact that my interviewers could answer them gave me huge comfort. I attended my first LGBTQ+ event on my third day at work (it was a lot of fun!) and didn’t look back.

Before joining Herbert Smith Freehills LLP (HSF) in London, I trained at a law firm in Newcastle. While the firm was very open minded, at that stage in my life, I just wasn’t ready to be totally open about my sexuality in the workplace. I was ‘out’ to close friends and family, but the prospect of making a broader declaration to my colleagues filled me with dread.  

DiversCity in Law is a unique event which deals with a delicate issue in a completely professional, positive and inspiring way. A lot of people from the LGBTQ+ community still hold the feeling they are likely to face (un)conscious bias when working in the City, particularly in the legal sector. The annual DiversCity initiative recognises this and gathers a number of high-profile City firms to separate myths from reality, dispel a lot of the misconceptions around the issue, and show their support to a group which has in the past been heavily segregated, both in and outside the workplace.