My training contract at Speechly Bircham

Oliver studied English and French at Warwick University before completing the GDL and LPC at BPP Law School, London. He attended the summer vacation scheme in 2005 and joined the firm as a trainee solicitor in September 2007. Oliver completed seats in Family/Contentious Trusts, Financial Services, Construction & Engineering and Private Client before qualifying into the Financial Services group in September 2009. Below is Oliver's account of his first eight months at Speechly Bircham.

Now eight months into my training contract, I have completed my first seat with the family and contentious trusts and probate teams and I am currently halfway through my second seat in corporate.

Before joining the firm, I spent three weeks on the summer scheme and attended several Christmas and summer parties. I got to know a number of the Speechlys staff and fellow trainees, which helped to overcome much of the trepidation that usually precedes starting a new job, and so I felt quite at home from the start.

Family and contentious trusts and probate are two discrete teams that sit within the firm’s highly regarded private client department. They are both small in size but always very busy in terms of work and I don’t remember having an idle moment for the whole of the six months. My role was extremely varied. For the family team, I spent a lot of time getting to know family law procedure through liaising with the different court departments and attending hearings at the Principal Registry of the Family Division on High Holborn. I also attended several meetings with clients and drafted letters of advice and prenuptial agreements. But it was contentious trusts and probate which provided me with the most challenging experiences of the six months. I became closely involved in several cases and I enjoyed a fair degree of client contact, either in meetings, in conference with counsel or in correspondence. The matters included large tax tribunal cases, inheritance act claims and advising trustees and executors in relation to disputes. I conducted a lot of research and drafting, including letters, client guidance notes, witness statements and instructions to counsel. I received the guidance and encouragement I needed at all times and as my confidence grew, so did the level of responsibility that was entrusted to me.

My experiences so far in the corporate department have undoubtedly been equally rewarding. Based within the financial services team, I have gained exposure to a variety of areas of corporate work, including conducting routine company filings; assisting multi-million pound transactions; assisting setting up FSA regulated investment funds; as well as drafting corporate governance documents. I have also recently assisted redrafting the articles of association for a number of large PLCs so as to comply with the Companies Act 2006.

I also currently spend two days a week on secondment to the in-house legal department for an international telecommunications company. This has been an invaluable opportunity to get to know clients and to understand what they expect from solicitors. It has also given me exposure to a distinctly different working environment, while also dispelling the myth that all in-house lawyers only work 9 to 5. My role at the legal department has been, under supervision, to review large numbers of commercial contracts and engagement letters and to draft assignment and novation agreements and board minutes for the purposes of group restructuring and intercompany loan arrangements. It has been a fantastic opportunity to see first hand how an international group company operates in practice.

Speechlys demands the highest standard of work and provides high quality training, through both its training seminars and through its work. Despite the firm’s growth in recent years, Speechlys has also retained an extremely personable working environment, all of which has ensured that my training contract to date has been challenging, rewarding and a lot of fun.