Interesting selling points
We cover these selling points in more detail below, alongside other relevant firm facts and characteristics.
Practice areas / services
Freshfields is a full-service law firm, with a broad range of practice areas including:
Chambers and Partners, leading analyst of the legal market, has awarded Freshfields their highest ‘Band 1’ ranking for the following departments: Banking & Finance: Big-Ticket Borrowers; Banking Litigation; Capital Markets: Equity; Commercial and Corporate Litigation; Corporate/M&A: High-end Capability; Financial Crime: Corporates; Litigation; Private Equity: Buyouts; Product Liability: Defendants; Public Procurement; Restructuring/Insolvency; and Tax. See here for more information.
Key sectors / industries
Freshfields services a broad range of industries, with some of its highest-value clients operating in the following sectors:
In addition, Freshfields services the following industries: automotive; chemicals; family offices and closely held companies; infrastructure and transport; insurance; manufacturing; life sciences; professional and business services; real estate; retail and consumer goods; and sports.
Work
Freshfields has consistently advised on some of the most high profiles transactions and cases over the past few decades. Some notable examples of recent work include:
Offices / global footprint / expansion
Headquarters: London, 100 Bishopsgate (Freshfields recently moved into the newly completed 40 storey tower just outside Liverpool Street Station).
Offices: Freshfields has 30 offices around the world, in jurisdictions including in Paris, Tokyo and New York, as well as its newly opened office in Silicon Valley.
Insights, internships and other opportunities
Freshfields offers a variety of opportunities for students wishing to understand more about the firm and the work of a lawyer. These include workshops, in which the firm offers an inside look into Freshfields; vacation schemes, in which candidates get the opportunity to spend two to three weeks in a Freshfields office; and the training contract itself, open to all prospective applicants regardless of background.
Training contract
Freshfields offers a unique eight-seat training contract, with each seat spanning three months (but the option to extend certain seats to six months). Trainees as part of this program must take at least one seat in dispute resolution and two seats in global transactions, with further options including antitrust, real estate, and technology. On the scheme, trainees will be able to access mentoring and coaching from their assigned ‘trainee intake partner,’ alongside their main and secondary supervisor on each seat.
The firm also offers a ‘London-Asia’ training contract, which enables successful applicants (who must be native in an Asian language and fluent in English) to split their training between London and Hong Kong.
Secondments
Trainees can apply for a secondment during the final six months of their training contract. Secondments are available in certain international offices (previously including Paris, Silicon Valley, and Berlin), at various clients (previously including Goldman Sachs, BP and AstraZeneca), or at pro bono partners (previously including Save the Children, RCJ Advice, and ILGA Europe).
Corporate social responsibility
Providing free of charge advice for charities is a major part of Freshfields’ working culture, with lawyers contributing 80,000 hours of pro-bono work in 2020. This work has included:
Diversity and inclusion
In accordance with the firm’s values - ‘belong, engage, excel’ - Freshfields promotes a variety of initiatives designed to foster and support diversity and inclusion. To give a few examples:
·A number of inter-firm networks, including: the Black Affinity Network (BAN), the Champions network for LGBTQ+ staff and allies, and Freshfields Enabled for disabled colleagues and champions.