Interesting selling points

• Chambers and Partners has awarded the firm Band 1 rankings for its Life Sciences and Parliamentary & Public Affairs departments. 
• Notable clients include Amazon, Bing Crosby and Sanofi. 
• Offers a unique legal consulting service that provides specialised advice on corporate strategy and diplomacy, backed by innovative data insights.
• Dedicated public policy practice, enabling clients to navigate regulatory, political, and public affairs challenges across jurisdictions.
• Headquarters in Washington DC augments the public policy expertise of the firm.
• Strong commitment to public service demonstrated by multiple high-impact pro bono matters, including challenging the U.S. Administration’s ban on transgender military service members.
• Each trainee is allocated an associate mentor and a trainee buddy, who together provide mentorship, advice, and guidance throughout the training contract.
• Supplementary training is delivered through a mixture of workshops, talks, and presentations provided through the ‘Trainee Fundamentals Program’.
• Small trainee intake.

We cover these selling points in more detail below, alongside other relevant firm facts and characteristics.

Practice areas / services

Covington & Burling is a full-service law firm, with a broad range of practice areas including:

• Corporate
• Antitrust Transactions
• Content Creation and Distribution
• Life Sciences Transactions
• Capital Markets and Securities
• Finance
• Mergers and Acquisitions
• Private Equity
• Private Funds
• Project Development and Finance
• Real Estate
• Restructuring and Bankruptcy
• Tax
• Technology and IP Transactions
• Venture Capital and Emerging Companies
• Litigation and Investigations
• Employment
• Public Policy
• International Trade
• Global Compliance
• Environmental
• Business and Human Rights

Chambers and Partners, a leading analyst of the legal market, has awarded Covington & Burling its highest ‘Band 1’ ranking for the following departments: Life Sciences: Regulatory, Life Sciences: Transactional and Parliamentary & Public Affairs: Public Affairs. See here for more information

Key sectors / industries

Covington & Burling services a broad range of industries, with some of its highest-value clients operating in the following sectors:

• Life Sciences
• Financial Services
• Digital Health
• Consumer Brands

In addition, Covington & Burling services the following industries: aerospace, defence, and national security; artificial intelligence; communications and media; ESG; energy; gaming; global supply chain; internet of things; mining and metals; music; sports; technology; and transportation. 

Work

Covington & Burling consistently advises on high-profile, cross border matters. Some examples of its recent work include:

• Amazon: advising The Nature Conservancy in its partnership with Amazon, as they launched a major reforestation accelerator to support the restoration of native rainforests in Brazil. The project forms part of ‘The Accelerator’, Amazon’s effort to support global solutions to the climate crisis.
• Bing Crosby: advising the family of highly influential recording artist Bing Crosby on the sale of his music and film rights to Primary Wave Music, following a trend of similar sales by artists to distribution houses.
• Sanofi: representing Sanofi, a leading healthcare and pharmaceutical company, in connection with a major research collaboration and licensing agreement involving AI drug discovery firm Exscientia. This joint venture was reportedly worth up to $5.2 billion.

Offices / global footprint / expansion

Headquarters: Washington D.C.

Offices: Covington & Burling has a total of 13 offices across the world, with offices in locations including Johannesburg, Palo Alto and Shanghai.

Insights, internships and other opportunities

Covington & Burling offers a number of opportunities for individuals wishing to gain experience in the legal industry and learn more about life at the firm. Opportunities for interested applicants include: ‘Insight Days’, which are aimed at individuals still researching legal careers; the firm’s ‘Mentoring Programme’, which is open to underrepresented groups and provides skills sessions and expert advice on launching a career in City law; and the firm’s vacation schemes, which run in the winter and summer and are open to penultimate and final year law students, final year non-law students, and graduates.

Training contract

Covington & Burling offers a four-seat training contract, with each seat lasting six months. One of these seats must be in corporate, and another in dispute resolution. When it comes to elective seats, trainees have to chance to choose two seats from five areas: employment; life sciences regulatory; technology regulatory; project development and finance; and life sciences transactional. 

Each trainee is allocated an associate mentor and a trainee buddy, who together provide mentorship, advice, and guidance throughout the training contract. More formal training is delivered through a mixture of workshops, talks, and presentations provided through the ‘Trainee Fundamentals Program’, ensuring that all trainees develop both general legal skills and practice-specific knowledge.

Secondments

Covington & Burling offers trainees the chance to undertake an international secondment in either Brussels or Dubai or a six-month client secondment (usually during the second year of their training contract).

Corporate social responsibility

Covington & Burling has ‘demonstrated a strong commitment to public service’ since its founding. With a focus on both meeting local needs and serving important causes across the world, the firm has completed a wide range of pro bono matters. Some recent examples include: 

• Kurt Wimmer Media Freedom Pro Bono Initiative: Through this initiative, the firm undertakes a broad range of pro bono matters aimed at protecting and advancing media freedom. 
• Coalition for Rainforest Nations: Convington provides advice to the Coalition for Rainforest Nations, which is an intergovernmental organisation providing diplomatic leadership to address the complex environmental sustainability issues specific to tropical rainforests. 
• Kids in Need of Defense: The London office has been partnered with Kids in Need of Defense since 2017 and has successfully secured leave to remain in the UK on behalf of dozens of children, helping them take steps towards greater family stability. 

Diversity and inclusion

Covington & Burling asserts that it views the ‘differences among us as an asset and a source of strength’. To that end, the firm has launched a number of initiatives aimed at increasing employee diversity, including: 

• Women’s Forum: This is a firm-wide initiative designed to foster greater interaction among women lawyers at all levels of the firm. It runs regular scheduled programmes and initiatives. 
• Firm Resource Groups: Convington has a variety of Firm Resource Groups which support colleagues who are from backgrounds which are historically underrepresented, excluded and/or marginalised in the legal profession. 
• Work-Life Balance: The firm has a number of initiatives looked at encouraging a work-life balance, including alternative work schedules, emergency childcare and various benefits offered to attorneys and professional staff.