Hammad Akhtar – senior associate: "I think for graduates looking to pursue a career in Law, in particular city law, there’s probably a number of recommendations that I would make, or advice that I would give them. I think one of the most important things is to do as much research as you can into the law firms that you are intending to make an application to. Find out who they are, what their strategic goals are, who they work for, and think carefully about what it is about a law firm that appeals to you as an individual, and why you think that law firm is suited to you."
"I think it’s also very important to give some careful consideration to what area of Law you want to practise. For most people, they might have a general idea about whether they want to be a high street lawyer, and perhaps things like family law, criminal law, or whether they want to become a city lawyer. But the reality of what you do in practice, whether you are a city lawyer or a high street lawyer, and what your perceptions are when you are going through the application stage, can be very different. And so it’s important, I think, trying to get as much exposure as you can to the law firms, whether it’s doing vacation placements, whether it’s going in for open days, whether it’s going to recruitment events. Trying to get as much exposure and understanding as you possibly can, so you can make an informed decision about which law firm and which area of Law in particular are of interest to you."
Claire Kinselley – graduate recruitment manager: "Good applicants or strong applicants normally have very high academic qualifications. These applicants can be from any background, any university. Normally they are quite proactive individuals with really good interpersonal skills, team-working skills; people with a good level of commercial awareness, commercial knowledge; and people that show real passion or interest for the Law and can demonstrate that throughout the selection process."
Kimberley Hickman – trainee solicitor: "The other interesting thing about working at a law firm is the fact that people often forget that a law firm is a business, and it’s seen as rather an academic body. But if you are interested in the business, and if you are interested in seeing how a law firm runs, and helping with that, lawyers get very involved in business activities like business development, marketing, recruitment, corporate social responsibility; and rather than taking on a job in one of those fields, you can be a lawyer and get involved in all of those things as well at a law firm."
Chris Parsons – graduate recruitment partner: "One of the interesting features, I think, of international law firms over recent years is that you have seen enormous growth, particularly in and out of the London market; and one of the nice aspects of being a UK qualified lawyer is that there are two dominant laws in the world, and that’s either English Law or US Law. So if you look at any major transaction anywhere in the world, if they are of a cross border nature rather than just purely domestic to a particular country, the two laws that are chosen to cover that transaction would typically be US Law or English Law. So Herbert Smith, like a number of our peer group firms, has been typified by very significant growth in and out of the London market, but servicing international clients and international needs. I think what we are going to see, going forward, is growth in the rapidly developing markets; and already we are seeing major growth in Russia. Our Moscow office has probably tripled in size in the last three years. From having nothing in the Middle East a year ago, we have now got 40 lawyers based in the Middle East, and I think we will probably see that double in size or triple in size. I wouldn’t be surprised in the next three or four years. China has been an enormous engine of growth. So my sense of what we are going to see going forward is just these economies growing. And one of the challenges, and one of the interesting things from my perspective, with my graduate recruitment hat on, is how we resource the needs of those offices and those jurisdictions."
Hammad Akhtar: "I think the highlights over the last several years have been the opportunity to work with gifted individuals in a team environment. That has probably been the most one; both internally within the firm, and also with our clients. We tend to deal with very sophisticated individuals, and that brings its own challenges, but it also can be immensely rewarding as well. It is also quite attractive and appealing to work on transactions or news stories which are on the front pages of the business papers on almost a daily basis. I was working on a transaction last year which was almost daily in the newspapers, on the front page; and that was quite attractive as well, because you can see that you are having a real impact on something which is happening and is of general interest to the business world. That’s quite attractive."
Chris Parsons: "For me, some of the major differences for Herbert Smith are: one would be the breadth of our practice, so that in addition to having a very strong corporate and finance practice, we also have a really fantastic disputes practice; and that’s unusual, and it provides both a strength for the business, and also an interest, particularly if you are a trainee coming to work at Herbert Smith."
Kimberley Hickman: "I don’t think that the financial reward is necessarily the best thing about the job. I think it’s something that people in this industry grow to expect, and for that reason it’s inevitable that a city solicitor is going to be well paid. But I actually think that if that’s all you are doing it for, it’s not really going to be the job for you. In terms of the best bit about the job, I actually think that it’s probably about halfway through your training contract, when you suddenly realise what all the hard work has been for, and you either give your first piece of real advice to a client, or you are in a team that is completing a deal that day, and you have a big completion party, and then the next day you read about your deal in the papers and the national press. I think they are the kinds of things that really sell the job to students, and I think that is what makes it a worthwhile job."
Chris Parsons: "The really nice thing about a career in the Law, I think, is that it’s sort of intellectually stimulating from day one, and doesn’t stop being an interesting job, I think, until the day you retire. So the nice thing about it is that it’s always a challenge. It’s always rewarding from that perspective."