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Trowers & Hamlins

Interesting selling points

  • Trowers & Hamlins is known for its local government/public sector work, with a client base that includes the NHS. 
  • Notable clients include the NHS, Portsmouth City Council and Domino’s Pizza Group.
  • Chambers and Partners has awarded the firm Band 1 rankings for its Healthcare: Private Sector, Local Government and Social Housing: Finance departments.
  • Trowers & Hamlins has built a strong presence in the Middle East, with offices in Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai and Oman. Trainees can apply for the opportunity to undertake a secondment at one of the Middle East offices. 
  • Works not only with large corporates and public bodies, but also wealthy families, individuals and family offices (in connection with the firm’s private wealth offering).
  • The firm is committed to innovation, as demonstrated by it running its ‘Race to Innovate’ initiative, which saw over 100 Trowers & Hamlins lawyers compete in teams to pitch a client-focused legal tech solution. 

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

Practice areas / services

Trowers & Hamlins provide a range of services, including: 

  • Affordable housing 
  • Commercial 
  • Construction 
  • Corporate 
  • Dispute resolution
  • Employment and pensions
  • Finance
  • India desk 
  • Korea desk 
  • Private wealth 
  • Real estate 
  • Responsible business 
  • Tax

Chambers and Partners, a leading analyst of the legal market, has awarded Trowers & Hamlins its highest ‘Band 1’ ranking for the following departments: Healthcare: Private Sector, Local Government and Social Housing: Finance. See here for more information.

Key sectors / industries

The firm services a broad range of industries, with its most profitable clients operate in the following sectors: 

In addition, the firm also services the following sectors: charities and social enterprise, construction, education, energy, health and social care, hospitality, tourism and travel, manufacturing, recruitment, technology, and transport and infrastructure. 

Work

Trowers & Hamlins works with a number of high-profile clients, including: 

  • Domino’s Pizza Group: The firm advised on the sale of multiple franchise operations to an existing large Domino’s Pizza Group operator in London and the south east. 
  • Portsmouth City Council: Trowers advised Portsmouth City Council on the acquisition of 740 social housing homes from Clarion Housing Group. The deal is believed to be the largest tenanted social housing transfer of its kind. 
  • NHS: the firm was re-appointed to the NHS Commercial Solutions Legal Framework, which sees law firms provide legal advice to the NHS on corporate and commercial, employment and property law matters, as well as the law relating to healthcare projects and public law.
Older examples
  • Selwood Housing: the firm advised Selwood Housing, a not-for-profit housing association with over 7,000 homes for rent at affordable prices in Wiltshire, Somerset and Bath, on a £55,000,000 financing from Lloyds Bank plc. 
  • Berkley Square Developments: Trowers & Hamlins advised Berkely Square Developments on its latest development of 310 Build-to-Rent homes in the Berol Quarter, Tottenham Hale. 

Offices / global footprint / expansion

Headquarters: London, 3 Bunhill Row. 

Offices: The firm has 9 offices worldwide, including 4 offices in the UK, 4 in the Middle East, and 1 office in Asia. 

Insights, internships and other opportunities

The firm runs summer vacation schemes each year, offering around 50 places across its Birmingham, Exeter, London and Manchester offices. Each scheme lasts for two weeks, and enables attendees to sit in a couple of departments and be teamed up with a trainee mentor as well as a supervisor. 

The firm also offers open days and coffee mornings in its UK offices, which provide insights into life as a trainee, a career in law, and the firm’s various practice areas, as well as workshops covering application skills and top tips for applying to Trowers & Hamlins. These opportunities also provide attendees with the chance to network. 

Training contract

Trowers & Hamlins recruits 25 trainees every year, split between March and September intakes. Trainees are based at either the firm’s Birmingham, Exeter, London or Manchester offices. The majority of trainees are recruited through the firm’s summer vacation scheme, but a small number are still recruited through a direct TC application process.

Trainees sit in four six-month seats, with seat options including real estate, banking and finance, corporate and commercial, dispute resolution and litigation, employment and pensions, planning and environmental, projects and construction, and tax and private wealth. Trainees also benefit from a structured training programme which helps equip trainees with the skills needed to perform to their best. The programme draws on a range of expertise from across the business as well as external experts. During each seat, trainees receive a mid-seat and end of seat appraisal. There is also a Trainee Solicitors’ Committee which meets regularly to discuss trainee-related issues and initiatives. 

Secondments

Trainees have the opportunity to apply to spend six months in one of the firm’s Middle East offices: Abu Dhabi, Bahrain, Dubai or Oman. 

Technology and innovation

The firm’s ‘client centred methodology’ is behind its technology and innovation initiatives, which include: 

  • Race to Innovate initiative: the firm launched its ‘Race to Innovate’ initiative, which saw over 100 Trowers & Hamlins lawyers pitch their ideas for client-facing technology solutions in a firm-wide competition. 
  • University of Law and BRYTER Legal Tech workshop: Trowers & Hamlins partnered with the University of Law and BRYTER to deliver a legal tech workshop for University of Law students to help students gain exposure to a range of alternative legal careers and learn more about legal tech. 
  • Apperio: the firm partnered with the cloud-based legal spend platform Apperio, which enables in-house lawyers to track and analyse legal spend across their panel law firms. The platform brings data visualisation to client portals and is connected directly to Trowers’ practice management system. 

Corporate social responsibility

The firm is keen to share its legal knowledge and expertise on a pro bono basis with its surrounding community. As such, its pro bono efforts include: 

  • A4ID: the firm has a partnership with A4ID, a global charity which works in partnership with the world’s leading law firms to provide free access to legal advice for NGOs. The firm’s fee earners in employment & pensions, real estate, banking & finance and corporate have all helped support A4ID clients in recent years. 
  • PRIME: Trowers & Hamlins was a founding signatory to PRIME, a profession-wide scheme aimed at improving social mobility amongst young people by providing valuable work experience opportunities. The firm works closely with an inner London secondary school, offering placements, delivering practical skills training, and providing insights into life at a City law firm.
  • City of London Law Society Social Welfare Solicitors’ Qualification Fund: Trowers & Hamlins provides funding to this venture between CLLS, Young Legal Aid Lawyers, Law Centres Network, BARBRI and the Legal Aid Practitioners Group, which aims to increase access to justice and widen access to the legal profession. 

Diversity and inclusion

The firm prides itself on its ‘natural commitment’ to diversity and inclusion. Examples of its work in this area includes: 

  • TrowersIncludes: this is the umbrella under which all six of the firm’s diversity and inclusion network groups fall. There are six sub-groups which are based on protected characteristics as defined in the Equality Act 2010. Each of these groups works on initiatives to help improve diversity and enable employees to network. 
  • Pride Month: the firm’s LGBTQ+ and Allies Network helps to run a number of events in celebration of Pride Month. Events have included signing canvases, group days out to join the Pride parade, visiting queer art exhibitions, volunteering at LGBTQ+ related events, and hosting staff ‘rainbow dress down’ days. 
  • The Trowers Podcast: a number of the firm’s podcast episodes have focused on issues relating to diversity and inclusion, including discussions on the impact of the murder of George Floyd.