Season 2: Episode 3: Guillaume Zouker
Director of International Tax Services at PricewaterhouseCooopers
Guillaume Zouker
Director of International Tax Services at PricewaterhouseCooopers Miami office
How did a tax LLM make it to the top at Big Four?
Guillaume was tired of living Paris when he left his in-house job for a French oil and gas company. He always imagined himself working and practicing law in a language other than French, his native tongue. Upon graduating with his tax LLM, he was hired as a tax associate at PwC in New York City.
Today he lives in Miami and directs the International Tax Services at PwC. What is like to work in a fast-paced multilingual dynamic place like PwC, where the entire floor was staffed with people from around the world? How to get an internship at the Big Four? How to turn your internship into a job offer?
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Where did you grow up? What do you do as a lawyer?
I was born and raised in France. I received my first law degree and a Master’s degree in France. I worked for a few years as in-house counsel for an oil and gas company. And then I just decided that I wanted to learn English and practice law in English for some reason. And so I moved to the US to take an Intensive English Program. I applied for the LL.M. in taxation and completed it back in 2010. I applied for jobs and went on interviews. I finally got an offer from PricewaterhouseCoopers in New York City, where I worked for three years.
That my first tax job in the United States practicing law in English. It was a real challenge, especially with regard to writing in English. After that I moved to the Miami, practicing international tax law with PricewaterhouseCoopers in the Miami office. I’ve been practicing law in the U.S. for 12 years.
Why do you want to study in the U.S.?
Recently I was back home in Paris, and I was thinking about leaving everything behind to move to the US back in 2010. I was practicing French domestic law, specifically tax law at this oil and gas company in Paris. I had been working for three years. It was great, but something was missing. I wanted to practice international tax, not pure domestic tax. So that was the seed of the decision. I always thought it would be great to be able to use another language, as part of my day job. I thought maybe it would be great to first move to the United States and just learn the language. So that's what I did for six months. When I actually studied and applied for law school, I was lucky enough to get an offer to study law in the US. Later I was able to stay in the country to practice law purely in English as I wanted. There was a little bit of luck there for sure.
Could you share your experience work in the Big Four in NYC?
When you are a first year associate working for the Big Four with a demanding team and clients, it can be frightening. You are expected to take notes and handle technical matters quickly. In terms of the work that associates attorneys do, there is no distinction between a foreign-trained lawyer and an American lawyer. We do the same job for the same salary.
When you start on your first day as an associate at Big Four, if you have prior work experience, you start as what they call an “experienced associate”, even though you have never worked a day in the US. I started as an experienced associate. The task assigned to you is more challenging.
You are immediately part of a team working on clients’ cases. They are training courses. The expectation is within two weeks you would be fully embodied and involved in an engagement team working with multiple clients. The team consists of a partner, a director, a manager or senior associate and a new associate. Everybody comes to you with requests and action items.
People are very supportive. You spend so much time in the office with those people more than your family. Naturally they become your friends at work. It is very important to connect with people, when you start at a job. You will have questions, you will want to be able to rely on your coworkers for guidance and advice. That can save the day. It is important to be humble, and important to understand that you cannot succeed alone in those type of jobs where everything is so pressing and demanding.
How did you develop relationship and seek mentors at a fast-faced and dynamic workplace?
The Big Four is a very diverse workplace. When I joined PwC in New York City, there was an entire flow filled with offices for people from all over the world. Tax experts from China, Japan, anywhere in Europe, South America and the Middle East. Naturally you create relations with the people that may come from the same background or the same country or region. And you create natural connection with those people, who can guide you.
We have a French desk in New York with three people. I was able to maintain a relationship with my mentors from ten years ago from our time working in New York. You spend so much time with the engagement team on a daily basis. You find people you want to become. You follow their path, you see how they work with clients, and handle the pressure.
I was lucky enough to have a great mentor, who is calm, humble and caring for his team. I did everything he needed. But at the same time, I was receiving a lot of constructive feedback throughout the years.
What are the important legal writing skills you have learned in law school?
The first thing is to write concisely. In law school, we used to write those 12-page memo or briefs. In the real world, you realized clients don’t have time to read pages and pages of an opinion letter or memo. They know the facts, the assumptions and the presentations. They will move on to the analysis and the conclusions. The pages of case law that you cited, they just skim through that.
The second thing is to proofread your work. Don’t make sloppy mistakes. You will be slapped on the wrist. It creates a trust issue with the client. Make the client’s life as easy as it can be. I’d use bullet points in an email than a long one-page email.
Are there any interesting stories you encountered in the multilingual legal context?
On my first day at work, when I was supposed to be taking notes the call with clients from the U.S., the UK and around the world. I didn’t understand some of the things said at the meeting. I didn’t get much written down. At the end of the call, everybody was asking me for notes. I didn’t take much notes. I thought I would be fired on the spot. Fortunately they gave me another chance. It turned out to be a great learning experience. You need to learn and adjust quickly.
A big part of the job is to connect clients with the right people who can help them. People know that I’m from Europe. If they need services regarding matters in Italy, Switzerland or Luxembourg, they reach out to me.
What advice would you give people who are interested in an internship at Big Four?
Networking is important. You have to reach out to people, meet people or email people to introduce yourself. When you do an internship at the Big Four, you work as hard as the rest of the team. If you do a good job during your internship, the changes are good that they will offer you a job. It’s important to take ownership and be proactive.
