Secondments are temporary placements away from your primary place of work (e.g. away from your firm’s London office). Secondments can be great fun, provide invaluable learning and networking opportunities and give you a unique insight into different working environments and/or areas of law.
Different secondment opportunities
A majority of large firms offer a range of secondment opportunities, from 6-month stints in overseas offices, to secondments to the legal teams of large clients, or pro bono placements. Whether you should go for an international secondment, client secondment or pro bono secondment is really a matter of personal preference. However, this section offers some general points that you may want to consider.
International secondments
International secondments are usually 6-month placements in one of a firm’s international offices. New York, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai and Paris are particularly popular choices. These tend to be a lot of fun, especially if you are going to a city where lots of other UK firms send their trainees on secondment. Trainees tend to make the most of their new locations by frequently going on long-weekend trips and you may never again receive a better opportunity to live in a new city, rent-free, for a prolonged period. However, depending on the office you are seconded to, you may not experience a particularly different working environment, gain a new perspective or enjoy new exposure, which could reduce your opportunities to learn.
Client secondments
Client secondments are usually 3 or 6-month placements in the legal team of one of a firm’s clients. These clients could be, for example, investment banks, private equity firms, public bodies or large corporations. Depending on the client, these usually give a great insight into life as an in-house lawyer, which could be invaluable if you can see yourself moving in-house later on in your career. On that note, spending 6 months at a well-known corporate can look great on your CV, which can help you to secure that first in-house role further down the line.
In addition, you will likely enjoy more stable working hours and may receive greater responsibility and additional opportunities to learn and develop. Moreover, working for a client can help to give you a unique perspective that enables you to better understand how clients think and operate, whilst also offering the opportunity to develop a strong working relationship with that client’s legal team (this can be beneficial if you end up working on matters for that client once you re-join your firm).
However, some client secondments may not offer particularly structured supervision and/or may be geared towards a narrow range of work (e.g. primarily negotiating NDAs and engagement letters). This can reduce the opportunities to learn and develop and has resulted in some trainees getting bored over time.
Pro bono secondments
Pro bono secondments are usually 3 or 6-month placements in the legal team of one of a firm’s pro bono partners’ offices. Placements at pro bono clients can offer fantastic opportunities to learn and develop, whilst also potentially offering exposure to brand new areas of law and letting you take on ample responsibility. For example, depending on the organisation to which you are seconded, you may gain a practical insight into housing law, public law, charity law, refugee law etc. and may be allocated your own clients (whose matters you could be primarily responsible for).
You could find yourself advocating in court, interviewing clients and witnesses, negotiating directly with government bodies/local authorities, drafting entire documents from scratch and more. Essentially, pro bono secondments may give you access to matters that afford you the opportunity to take a far more substantive role.
However, the working environment within pro bono clients may be a little more (/a lot more) chaotic than the slick corporate environment that you will probably be used to. Don’t hold your breath for expert IT support, round-the-clock supervision, fully-working wi-fi and printers or a plush basement gym, but you can hopefully expect a collegiate, friendly atmosphere full of people that are genuinely grateful for your time and happy to help you learn.
Secondment selection process
The process for securing secondments differs widely between firms, so it is worth finding out as early as possible the range of secondments available and the basis on which these are allocated by your firm. For example:
Note that some secondments (e.g. secondments to a firm’s New York or Hong Kong office) may also be far more competitive than others. If applying for a particularly competitive secondment, consider including a range of options on your secondment selection form if you can (otherwise you risk missing out altogether).
When reading this section, ex-Freshfields partner Ben Staveley offered the following sage advice, which I would strongly advise you to keep in mind:
“Secondments are, as you say, a lot of fun. So much fun that some trainees or prospective trainees are tempted to over-prioritise them, whether in applications and interviews or (more worryingly) when they've arrived at the firm and decide to embark on strategic manoeuvres to try and bag a plum posting. That gets noticed, and strikes those labouring at the London coalface as evidence that the trainee is not really in the job for the right reasons. A bit of humility/restraint is advisable I think”.