I am a newly qualified associate in the finance division. I did my first trainee seat in London finance. I studied Law at University College London and prior to that I studied Political Science at St Lawrence University in New York. I joined Herbert Smith as a trainee in August 2009.
Variety of work
I was very lucky to do my finance seat first at Herbert Smith. I really enjoyed the debt finance module on the LPC and the actual work has exceeded my expectations. My second seat in corporate has reaffirmed my conviction. I love the transactional work and at Herbert Smith, we have really good blue chip clients, we get to work on the best deals and in corporate I’ve seen a lot of really big deals go through that have made the front pages of the Financial Times. Even though we are renowned for our litigation practice we still get the best corporate work.
International work
The work that we do is truly international. I don’t think I have ever done a deal that is completely English law based. I’ve worked for various jurisdictions in varying capacities. For example, whilst sitting in corporate I have worked on a Russian IPO and an IPO for a Bermudan insurance fund.
Exposure to clients
There is a misconception that at a big law firm you won’t get any client contact as a trainee but I found it to be the exact opposite. Depending on the transaction or the deal you’re working on, you will get responsibility for small aspects of the deal. Equally, you will get invited to client meetings. I have also been asked to go client functions for business development purposes.