Large international law firms

Training at a large, international commercial law firm is the best way to start your career if you want to work in the City and have an aspiration to handle very high value commercial transactions. In addition, you will be given fantastic opportunities to develop your soft skills and technical abilities (not to mention the boost it can provide to your CV). However, try not to lose sight of the fact that the legal profession offers a broad range of opportunities for employment. 

If you went to a Russell Group university, you will have been exposed predominantly to large, international commercial law firms, as these are the firms that offer the greatest number of training opportunities (and can afford the fees charged by your universities to host large events!). Some top barristers’ chambers may also promote themselves to students. This might have given you the impression that failing to secure a training contract or pupillage at a top-ranking firm means that your legal career is over before it has even started, or that your only option will be to train at a firm where the work is far less interesting, challenging and/or fulfilling. This is simply not the case. In fact, there are often benefits to training at smaller firms. 

Regional firms

Regional firms, boutique firms and high street firms may not offer the same opportunities to work on transactions/disputes that are worth hundreds of millions (or billions) of pounds and span dozens of jurisdictions. However, smaller transactions/disputes may offer you the opportunity to get far more involved at a more junior stage. This is because there is less at stake financially, which typically means such deals are likely to involve fewer documents and parties (e.g. foreign legal counsel, external advisers etc.). 

If you’re the kind of person that really gets a kick out of seeing a deal on the front page of The Financial Times, then perhaps smaller firms aren’t for you. However, if having more control and (potentially) a greater overall impact on a deal gives you a greater sense of job satisfaction, then certainly consider all the options that are available. After all, you can experience plenty of academic challenge on matters that are not worth millions or billions.

Working in-house

Post-training, there are ample opportunities to work “in-house”. This simply means working for a company rather than a law firm. For example, corporations (e.g. Apple), banks (e.g. J.P. Morgan) and private equity firms (e.g. Cinven) all have their own legal teams. These legal teams tend to carry out the company’s day-to-day legal work, then bring in and co-ordinate/work alongside external “private practice” legal advisers (e.g. Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer) on larger transactions or disputes. 

Your work/life balance tends to be a little better working in-house, although the pay is typically lower (especially at a more junior level). In addition, you will generally only carry out your company’s legal work, which may not appeal as much if you are the type of person that wants to work for dozens of different companies throughout the year (as would usually be the case at a large commercial law firm).

Working abroad

There are also a number of opportunities to work abroad. For instance, there are many firms based in tax-efficient jurisdictions (e.g. the Cayman Islands) that look to recruit English-qualified lawyers, although these firms usually require you to have accumulated a few years of post-qualification experience first. Some firms also offer opportunities to qualify into (or go on an extended secondment to) one of their international offices (and doing so doesn’t always require you to take an additional legal qualification). 

Key takeaways

The key takeaways from all this are to keep an open mind, remain open to opportunities to gain insights into a wide range of career opportunities, and try to use your research, internships and training contract to really think about which area of law suits you best and the type of firm you want to work for in the long-term.

If you are unsure of the type of law you want to practice, then look to train at a firm that has a wide range of practice areas; the more areas you try, the more likely it is that you will find the best fit for you. You might find that a firm that offers private client work as well as commercial work gives you the widest opportunity to explore different kinds of legal work and make an informed decision on your future. Sometimes people find when they start work that the practice area they always thought would be for them just doesn’t suit and they end up (happily) doing something completely different.