Antonio Michaelides is an experienced lawyer in London.
A multi-faceted individual, Antonio Michaelides is a stellar lawyer, leader, and advisor who, as a special counsel, advises clients in heavily regulated sectors on a broad range of cross-border regulatory and compliance matters, with a particular focus on Europe and the Middle East. He has particular expertise in helping clients navigate international HR-legal compliance issues—including labor laws, international equity compliance, and immigration matters—and frequently helps multinationals find solutions to their most complex global employment and benefits challenges. He is fluent in Italian (his native language) and English, advanced in Spanish and French, and knows basic Arabic.
Lawyer Antonio Michaelides has an extensive academic background. From 2005 to 2009, he attended University College London, where he got his LLB Law with Italian Law. He was a regular high-achiever during his time at UCL and received one of the highest grades in EU law awarded by the Law Faculty. After graduation, he went to the College of Law, London, and got a distinction for his Legal Practitioners’ Course.
Following this, he held an internship with the European Commission, where he worked with several members of the EU Commission in the fields of Free Movement of Persons and Services and EU Employment, Social Affairs, and Inclusion.
Antonio Michaelides, a lawyer, began his career in private practice at magic circle firm, Linklaters LLP, where he trained and qualified. Antonio had offers from no fewer than four leading law firms for a much-coveted training contract when he started out in 2010, something he remains very proud of to this day, being the first person in his family to go to university. He subsequently moved to Clyde & Co. LLP, where he spent time in both London and Dubai advising on cross-border matters.
It was at Clyde & Co. LLP that Antonio became an international employment and benefits advisor and started to work with government and semi-governmental bodies in the Middle East on legislative development and reform projects, thus further building out his practice.
Since 2014, Antonio Michaelides has been a Senior Associate at Covington & Burling LLP. As an attorney in the International Employment and Benefits team, he helps clients in the life sciences and technology sectors predominantly on a wide variety of domestic and international employment and benefits matters. He also continues to work on legislative development and reform projects in the Middle East.
As a senior lawyer, Antonio Michaelides has plenty of opportunity to use his leadership skills in negotiations and to further the interests of his clients. Antonio regularly advises on the employment and benefits aspects of public and private corporate M&A deals, assists early-stage biotechs and startup companies in the technology sector with employment-related matters, and coordinates multi-country reviews on employment and benefits matters for those with a global footprint.
Outside of being a lawyer, Antonio Michaelides enjoys food immensely. He is also closely connected to the social mobility movement, being the first in his family to go to university. He is a co-lead for this strand of his firm’s diversity and inclusion initiative and is committed to both D&I and pro bono. Antonio is a firm believer that lawyers have an important role to play, including through pro bono work, in creating the society we all want to see.
After delivering a presentation to a lecture theatre full of London university students in 2019 on the pro bono work that lawyers in the city do, he closed with the following remark: Whatever you do in life, try to make a difference. You won’t always succeed and will often face barriers. However, as someone who came from humble beginnings, Antonio has achieved a lot and, whilst he is by no means privileged, he is now in a position where he can help others and lift them up. He, therefore, sees it as his duty to do just that.
