As a Freshfields trainee, you could be helping industry leaders develop cutting-edge tech and responding to the disruption of COVID-19. Or you might be involved in landmark multi-billion-pound litigation or a high-profile transaction involving household names.
Many of these matters are complicated, crossing multiple geographical borders and practice groups, so teamwork is at the core of our culture.
The work you’ll do at Freshfields tends to fall into three broad categories, which we like to think of as grow, strengthen and defend.
1. Grow: transactional
Transactional work primarily relates to the divestment and acquisition of companies or critical corporate assets. The transactions we structure and support range from stock market flotations to big-ticket mergers and acquisitions (M&A).
2. Strengthen: regulatory
By strengthen we mean regulatory work – making sure our clients don’t fall foul of complex laws and rules – from financial services regulation to combating bribery and corruption.
3. Defend: risk and disputes
Risk management and disputes work helps protect businesses (and reputations) through litigation, arbitration and investigations.
You’ll get to experience all of these types of work during your training contract, as well as pro bono opportunities. All trainees spend one three-month seat in dispute resolution, as well as at least two seats in our global transactions group (with a choice of corporate, finance and real estate). You can choose other seats in: antitrust, competition and trade; people and reward; and tax.
Our unique eight-seat training contract means you’ll experience different areas of commercial law and know what you enjoy most when you qualify. For a taster, apply to join one of our workshops or vacation schemes.
Cross-border deals worth over $1tn over the past five years
over 84,000 pro bono hours
150
Jurisdictionsmandates covering over 150 jurisdictions in the last three years