Meet Michael

I came into law from an atypical background, having worked in the hospitality sector for nearly a decade, with most of my experience coming in the speciality coffee and luxury wine industries. When the pandemic hit, I decided to challenge myself in a different way, and set my sights on pursuing and obtaining a law degree, which I eventually was awarded from UCL in London.

During my studies, I was particularly drawn to the more business-focused law modules, for example, company law, commercial law, and property law. This led me to the path of applying for a training contract at a commercial law firm in my second year, which was particularly challenging alongside balancing academic studies.

Given my prior experience, I felt more attracted to a US firm training contract model, as the leaner trainee intakes generally tend to result in being given more responsibility at an early stage in your career, and that has certainly been the case here at Covington.

I attended the Winter Vacation Scheme at the firm, sitting in the Life Sciences Transactions practice area, whilst being assessed in parallel on a range of engaging and challenging tasks. It was clear to me from the scheme, both from the Covington team that I met and from the other scheme attendees, that Covington had a very unique culture, and would be an excellent firm for me to develop in. I was fortunate enough to convert to a Training Contract, which was swiftly accepted.

After finishing my studies at UCL, I studied for the SQE 1 and 2, alongside my cohort and those from other firms, and then continued with an "Essentials for Practice" course at BPP Law School, which gave a more practical insight into what we were likely to encounter when we started as trainees.

My first seat at Covington was in Project Development and Finance, which presented a great opportunity to hit the ground running in my training contract. This practice area is fast-paced and requires strong organisational skills and the ability to constantly consider the most effective ways of solving clients' problems as they arise. I assisted on a range of workstreams, including working on closing the Project Finance International Global "Power Deal of the Year", advising on a complex data centre infrastructure acquisition, and preparing bid submissions for prestigious syndicates. Throughout the seat, I was given considerable responsibility to liaise with clients and take ownership of specific workstreams and processes, which helped me develop into a confident and resilient lawyer.

I then moved to my disputes seat, where I was specifically advising on competition class action litigations before the Competition Appeal Tribunal. These are some of the most high-profile cases in the country, defending prestigious clients in factually and procedurally complex litigations. This practice area requires strong attention to detail, an ability to organise and balance competing workstreams, and a particular calmness under pressure (especially with tight deadlines). The level of responsibility that I was given increased over time as I become more confident, experienced and trusted in the running of each litigation. This seat specifically gave me excellent opportunities to develop in areas which weren’t necessarily my strongest to begin with.

My advice for students, vacation schemers and future trainees would be to consider how best you can develop the skills that I mention above and demonstrate evidence of those in your applications and vacation schemes. These skills are essential across legal practice, regardless of your preferred practice areas or law firms, and there's always room for improvement. As I move into my third seat, on secondment to our Dubai office to assist on a range of transactional matters, I look forward to further developing these too.