Trainee - Restructuring and Insolvency - Karen Robinson

Careers in Law can be very different depending on the type you practice and the size of the firm you join. Solicitors tend to be the first port of call for legal matters whether personal or corporate and they liaise with clients to try and resolve their problems or provide a legal framework for something they want to achieve.

Barristers are called in by solicitors for their expertise in a particular area of the law or to argue a case in court. That said, the distinction between the two is narrowing slightly due to the increasing scope for solicitors to conduct their own litigation.

Like many of the professions, law offers a great deal of flexibility in terms of where you practice so you don’t have to be in the centre of a large city to have a successful career. You can practice in large firms servicing business, within the businesses themselves as an in-house lawyer or at a high street practice overseeing the matters of private individuals.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the type of firm and specialty of law you practice will have a huge impact on what your daily life is like. A private equity solicitor in a magic circle firm is going to be spending a lot more time in the office than a high street solicitor. Commercial barristers were one of the biggest shocks to us. We hadn’t quite grasped just how individual the job is and the huge hours it demands. A 6 day working week appears very standard.

Law is well known as a lucrative industry and many firms seem to have coped with the credit crunch well. As a guide, if you’re a solicitor in a top 50 city firm then on your first rotation expect a salary in the £35-40,000 range. Newly qualified's will be in the sixties and three year post qualified can be anywhere from £80-110K. Salaries in the smaller high-street firms are quite a bit lower. Barristers are self-employed so their income can vary hugely but the industry stars could give David Beckham a run for his money.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name is Karen Robinson. I’m a trainee solicitor at a London city firm called Freshfield Bruckhaus Deringer. I’m 24 years old and I originally come from Yorkshire.

What attracted you to this career?

I actually did a law degree at university – I was at Cambridge for three years and whilst at Cambridge University I looked into different careers and because I was doing law working for a law firm seemed like the obvious choice so I then did a vacation placement with a few different firms within the city to decide whether or not that was going to be the right decision for me.

What does your job involve?

I’m currently a trainee solicitor and this means that I’m not currently specialising in any particular area of law. As a trainee solicitor I spend 2 years doing a trainee contract so the firm I work for at the moment, FBD, I move into different departments basically to see which areas of law I enjoy and which would suit me as a career so from day to day my work can involve lots of different things to drafting documents, researching areas of law or even commercial issues. It’s a really varied job with lots of different opportunities but it all depends on the area of law you are in so currently I have spent 6 months in our corporate department, I then went into finance where I spent 6 months doing banking work and then for a further 3 months I went to our employment, pensions and benefits department and now currently I am sat in restructuring and insolvency.

How did you decide between becoming a solicitor or barrister?

At university I was asked quite early on by my tutors whether I thought I wanted to be a solicitor or a barrister and I went off and researched the points and tried to work out what characteristics of each of those you would need to have in order to be successful and I concluded quite quickly that I wanted to be a solicitor. I wanted to be involved in a firm that wasn’t necessarily self-employed. I wanted to work for quite a big firm as well and the work that I wanted to be involved in didn’t necessarily involve working in a court environment so as a result of that I decided it would probably be a better choice to be a solicitor.

What do you do on a typical day?

How my day pans out differs all of the time. I can come in between 8.30 and 9.30 depending on what work I have to do for the day and for the rest of the time that I’m in there I can be with a head in my book, with my head in documents analysing those or I can be on calls with clients, or meetings with clients. It completely differs. At other times of the day I can be writing emails, there are just so many different things to do, lots of different documents to look at.

Describe the process of your work?

Some of the current work that I’m involved in has involved the restructuring of a lot of existing debt for certain big companies and what’s happening at the moment with the markets is that there’s been a credit crunch which means that there’s not as much finance or debt in the market enabling to finance new acquisitions of businesses. This has often led to a lot of problems with the financial status of a lot of companies and therefore a lot of them are looking to change the nature of their debt. I know it sounds complicated but the tasks that I’m involved on in this a lot of the time it’s looking at the existing documents and working out the ways in which we can amend the financial arrangements that are currently in place so the client will come to us with a particular issue or problem then I’ll look through the documents and often write a note of advice to them, or even an email or often it’s through a conference call and we’ll go through the particular elements of their problem and how we can go about solving that and what are the options.

Why did you choose to work for a large Law practice?

What I really liked about a firm like Freshfields is that is has an international focus. There are over 2500 lawyers that work for the firm and they work in over 16 jurisdictions so because I’m quite interested in travel and I want to work in different places I knew that I would have the opportunity somewhere like this to go to different countries, work in different offices and also work with clients that weren’t always necessarily based in the UK.

What are the specialisms within your industry?

There are different departments that you can go into at Freshfields. There are corporate departments and they are split up into lots of different sub-divisions. There is the finance department and again this is split up with areas such as banking, restructuring and insolvency and another department called structured asset finance which is a bit complicated. There are also other departments – quite a large litigation department and employment department which is actually employment, benefit and pensions here.

What are the best bits about your job?

I love the fact that when I walk through the door in the morning I never know what’s going to happen with my never. I never know when the phone is going to ring, what the client is going to ask for, what emails are going to come into my inbox so I like the fact that every day is a different challenge. The work that I get quite a lot of the time, especially as a trainee, I don’t know the answer outright, I have to talk to different people, I have to do research so all the time it’s a constant learning curve and I’m always picking up new skills. I like the fact that every day I’m kept on my toes, and it’s really interesting. I could never say it’s mundane.

What are the worst bits about your job?

The most challenging and difficult parts when I first started was time-management. When you first start as a trainee you work for lots of different people, associates and partners within the team and you often get given a lot of work and then it’s up to you to time-manage that work and prioritise according to the deadlines you have been given. I think that’s often quite difficult and can be quite stressful if you don’t deal with it well so I think when I first started it’s quite a shock to the system when you’re faced with the challenge of thinking, I’ve got all this to do but I’ve got to get it done for this time.

What has been your greatest achievement?

I think I’m pretty lucky pretty recently in that I’ve actually been offered a placement to go out our Hong Kong office on secondment and it’s often quite difficult to get these placements as it’s very competitive so that’s been quite an achievement for me so far and I’m looking forward to it.

Any regrets?

I think I was quite lucky in that I knew I wanted to do a law degree at university but the best piece of advice I can think to give to people in a similar situation at 18yrs old when starting university is from the very beginning to look into what career you want to have at the end of your time at university because although you’re only there for three years it goes so quickly and then suddenly a lot of people are faced at the end of not knowing what career they want to go into. I was quite lucky in that I studied law at university and then it kind of seemed the obvious choice to do summer schemes with law firms but a lot of people aren’t organised enough to make sure that they ensure that they apply for those jobs as soon as they can so that’s something to always keep in mind.

What is the pay like and are there any perks?

The pay in law especially at a city firm is reasonably good, I’m not going to say that you’re badly paid but you do work hard for your money. We’re not all high-rollers, we do work really hard. As far as how the pay increases as you move through your career, the move from being a trainee to an associate is quite a large jump as far as pay is concerned and then also what a lot of city firms offer is the opportunity to receive bonuses based on performance so that is a nice little top-up to your salary if you’re lucky enough to get that. Throughout your career pay generally reflects your experience and how long you’ve been with a firm and if you’re lucky and able enough you may be asked to become a partner and as equity partner you could have a share of the profits which could in theory be very lucrative.

How long is a working day and do you have to work out of hours?

As far as my working hours are concerned I can start at maybe 8.30 to 9.30 depending on how much work I have done and on a really good day I could be out of the office at 6.00 but then on other days, at it depends on the work I’m involved in, I can be here a lot later or even at weekends. It sounds like a lot of time spent at work but quite often when I’m working late or out of hours it’s usually on something that’s quite interesting or and the work’s challenging so although it sometimes would be nicer to be down the pub with my friends it is good for my career that I’m doing that kind of challenging work.

Is there much in the way of travel?

I’m lucky being in a firm like Freshfields that it does have an international focus so I’m lucky enough to be able to travel with my job. I’m going to Hong Kong on secondment in a few months time for 6 months so I will be working and based in our office out there but other than that because the firm has an international focus and a lot of our clients are based in other jurisdictions then at the drop of a hat one minute I could be in the London office and then a few hours later I could be on a flight heading somewhere, Moscow, Europe, even wider. One experience I had was on a transaction that I was on in corporate and we were trying to get documents signed to close the transaction and we had to get documents signed in Cyprus & Jersey and then we had to get all of those original documents with all the original signature pages then in one place to be sent to Moscow for the following morning for a meeting at 9.00. It was a challenge and I had to organise for people to go to all different places and then meet back in the London office for a half-hour turnaround for them to get to the airport to get to the Moscow flight in time. So it can be interesting.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

Freshfields is a firm that only have an office in London and that’s because we have offices throughout the rest of Europe and globally as well so we don’t have offices in regional firms. A lot of the other city firms do actually have offices in other cities in England such as Manchester, Newcastle, and Leeds, all of those places so there is still the opportunity to do commercial work in other places.

What is the working environment like?

I currently share an office with one other associate who is a senior associate, I think he is 5 years qualified. The purpose of putting a trainee with someone more qualified than themselves is so that you can get experience from them as well as your dedicated tasks from them as well. But I don’t necessarily just work for the same person that I sit with. The way that the office works is that we have an open door policy so this means as well as getting work from other people, if I have a problem or a query or there’s a question of law that I’d like to speak to someone else about people are generally quite hospitable and you can go into their office – it’s all glass throughout so you can see into everyone’s offices – and just ask them a question. Generally everyone at Freshfields is friendly, approachable and easy to get along with so it’s not really too daunting if you go into a partners office and have to speak to them so most of them are accommodating and willing to give you their time.

How did you get into your job?

I currently share an office with one other associate who is a senior associate, I think he is 5 years qualified. The purpose of putting a trainee with someone more qualified than themselves is so that you can get experience from them as well as your dedicated tasks from them as well. But I don’t necessarily just work for the same person that I sit with. The way that the office works is that we have an open door policy so this means as well as getting work from other people, if I have a problem or a query or there’s a question of law that I’d like to speak to someone else about people are generally quite hospitable and you can go into their office – it’s all glass throughout so you can see into everyone’s offices – and just ask them a question. Generally everyone at Freshfields is friendly, approachable and easy to get along with so it’s not really too daunting if you go into a partners office and have to speak to them so most of them are accommodating and willing to give you their time.

What's the application process like?

The application process, if I remember correctly, is 4 stages. Initially you write your application form which is a written application with a covering letter and this is basically giving details about yourself, why you are interested in a career in law, and in particular, why at this particular firm, so in my case, at Freshfields. I then sent my application in. This was reviewed by the graduate recruitment team and then they decide if you move onto the second stage which is the interview stage. I was lucky enough that I was invited back for interview which was a two stage interview. The first stage I was given a pack of reading material and I was given maybe half an hour to go through that material and I was then interviewed by 2/3 associates or partners within the firm and they just asked me questions about that information, testing my analytical skills and whether or not I could assess the information that I’d been given and from the other side of that come out with some advice for the client about how I would approach the problem. The second interview that I had was again with a partner within the firm and also a member of graduate recruitment and the purpose of that interview was more to find out information about myself, my personal interests, why I wanted to be a laywer and why this particular firm. I think the interview was about finding out whether or not I had more about me than just the academic side of it and my university results and to find out if I was personable and had other interests outside of law.

How did you choose your seats?

When you are choosing your seat choices when you are a trainee solicitor I think it’s one of the most difficult decisions that you make because at the end of the day, once you’ve made that decision, you are going to spend at least three months at Freshfields anyway, in that department. So you need to do a bit of research first and make sure the work involved in that department is something you are going to be interested in. I started off in a corporate seat and I came to a firm like Freshfields because I was interested in the fact that they did a lot of corporate work so I was quite happy to do that first, really enjoyed the type of work that was involved which was a lot of transactional work and thought, ok, this seems to suit me, I like the type of work that’s involved. So I made my career choices for the next 18 months around that. I’m quite lucky at Freshfields in that you only really need to pick the next seat that you’re going to as opposed to all of your seats for the next two years so I went from corporate after 6 months to then doing a finance seat which was banking, and there were a lot of skills that crossed over that I used in both of those seats and again I knew that I enjoyed it so though, ok, as far as career goes I know that I’m interested in these areas. I then to kind of mix it up a bit and did a seat in employment, pensions and benefits and the type of work involved in that department is slightly different and so there is a lot more, what’s called, non-transactional work and also contentious work. Contentious work is when there may be a dispute between two parties that could possibly go to court and although I enjoyed that work I didn’t have the same buzz in that department as I did working in finance and corporate. So I think how people decide which area they are going to go into as a career they just kind of go on how they feel in those departments and if you enjoy that work then just go with your heart and go with that decision.

What are the key skills required for your job?

I think in order to be a successful lawyer you need to be confident and you need to be pretty intelligent. You need to have good results from university as a starting point and foundation but other than that it’s important that you have an analytical mind, you can analyse problems and you can think commercially. For example, I studied law at university and that was quite an academic subject but then putting it into practice is very different so you need to be able to look at the problem, see what law is relevant and how it’s applicable but also see how you can meet the expectations of the client as well.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

I think my top tip for getting a job at a city law firm is to make sure you have work experience. I did a work placement at Freshfields while I was at university and I think most of the city firms offer work placements in the Summer, Easter and Christmas holidays so my best advice for someone who’s thinking about a career in law is to fill in the application forms, go for some interviews and spend some time working in a law office.

Why do a work placement?

The benefit of doing a work placement, I actually did three work placements at different firms in the city, is that it gave me a true insight into what it is to be a city solicitor and I think until you do that you can’t really know if it is a career for you. I was lucky enough in that I was given very good work on all of my placements, I enjoyed doing that work and I thought it could definitely be a career for me, I liked the people that I worked with, I thought that everyone was friendly and approachable and I could basically just see myself in that working environment.

Are people who have done a work placement fast tracked?

Regardless of whether or not someone has done a work placement at Freshfields over the summer, you still have to go through the whole process of applying for a training contract, but I would say the whole benefit of doing a work placement is people will know you in the firm, people will see how you interact with people and that will stand you in good stead when you go for your interview.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

The career progression as a solicitor is that you start as a trainee solicitor and this is a 2-year programme in which you move round different departments within the firm and then you make a decision, at Freshfields it’s about 4 months before qualification and you decide which are of law you would like to specialise in. Then after 2 years on qualification you then become a qualified solicitor and then for the next how ever many years, you are an associate and then hopefully a senior associate and if you’re very good at your job and the cream of the crop you may be invited to be a partner of that firm.

Where do you see the industry going?

I think one of the biggest changes in the industry that I work in which is commercial law is the fact of the emerging markets and there’s a lot more emphasis and a lot more deals that are happening out in China and the East and also places like Russia and Kazakhstan and because there’s a lot of economic growth out there this impacts on the work that we do, even based in the London office. We’ve currently extended our office in Eastern Europe so we have offices in Dubai, Abu Dhabi and we also have offices now in Beijing, Shanghai and Hong Kong so it’s becoming more important to integrate our links with the Far East because that’s where a lot of the work is coming from.

Is there scope for movement during or after this career?

I think as a solicitor you pick up a lot of skills on the way which could be transferred into other industries. There are a lot of opportunities once you’ve been with a firm for a few years and especially if you’ve worked in corporate or finance to go and work in-house say for example at one of the big banks or big corporations. Also as a solicitor in a firm like Freshfields or one of the other big city firms there are a lot of opportunities to go and work in-house as a legal representative so we have secondment opportunities to places like Tescos, BAE and a lot of the big banks such as Barclays and Goldmann Sachs which means that although you would still be working in a legal capacity you would also have a greater role in the work that was actually undertaken there as well.

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

As a trainee solicitor and because I’m quite keen to work in a finance department I think it’s very important to keep on top of what’s going on in the world of economics and finance so one of the best things to read, if you’re looking to apply for a job, especially at a city firm, is to peruse the Financial Times. I know it can be a bit daunting to look at this big salmon-coloured paper with all this small print and lots of jargon, but believe me it gets easier the more you read it. Before I went for interviews I made sure I knew what was on the front pages of the financial press and also I knew a few stories of what was ongoing in the financial markets.

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

I’d be a scuba diving instructor and I’d be living by the sea.