Diwankar - Trainee solicitor

Why did you apply to Slaughter and May ?

I immensely enjoyed studying law at university and was largely set on pursuing a career in the field. After attending a few recruitment events, I found myself increasingly drawn to commercial law. Slaughter and May stood out to me because of its multi-specialist approach, which enables the firm to offer more telling advice built around a deeper understanding of the client’s long-term objectives.

How did you find the application process ?

Overall, I found the application process refreshingly straightforward: I didn’t feel like I needed to jump through a dozen hoops. The simplicity of the CV and cover letter gave me the flexibility to shape my application to best reflect my journey and personality. The interview, too, was unlike any other I had experienced. It was clear the partners conducting the interview were not working through a list of questions. Instead, it felt more like a conversation with two people who were genuinely interested to get to know me and understand my motivations.

What’s a typical day like as a trainee solicitor in your current seat? What are typical trainee tasks ?

My daily routine has varied considerably across seats. However, broadly speaking, and in keeping with the role and responsibilities of trainees generally, I spend most of my time supporting a team of partners and associates prepare, finalise and execute transactions and ancillary documents. On a day-to-day level, my tasks range from proofing key documents and searching for helpful precedents, to preparing first drafts of ancillary documents and researching focused legal questions.

One particularly interesting task involved poring through the UEFA rules to determine the various permutations where two football clubs could end up in the same UEFA competition, and designing a chart to illustrate this information!

What part of your job do you enjoy the most ?

My favourite part of the job is the variety of work to which I am exposed. While in Disputes, for instance, it was not uncommon for me to begin the week by drafting a letter for an arbitration, then move on to assist a team with document review for a High Court case, and end the week by researching procedural points on greenwashing investigations. The breadth of work keeps my days engaging and challenging.

What has been a highlight of your training contract so far ?

One of the first transactions I worked on was the acquisition of a pub group. The nature of the target’s business added a degree of complexity to the deal and, we were asked to deliver to a relatively intense timetable, so there were a number of long evenings as we negotiated and finalised the various transaction documents. The night before the announcement of the takeover was undoubtedly the longest and most exhilarating to date and culminated with an early morning ‘go/no-go’ meeting before the market opened. As I journeyed home a few hours later, I couldn’t help but beam at having experienced an episode that rivalled the very best of legal dramas. And reading about the transaction in the FT later that day made the satisfaction ever sweeter – undeniably the highlight of my training contract so far!