Meet Dan

• Graduate’s name: Dan Matthams
• Graduate’s job title: Trainee Solicitor
• University attended: Durham University
• Degree qualification and year of graduation: Law LLB (2023)

 

Place of employment?

Travers Smith. 

What degree/qualifications did you study and where?

I studied for a Bachelor of Laws at Durham University between 2020 and 2023, before undertaking a year of study at BPP University, during which I completed the SQE and a Master of Laws.

Why did you decide on a career in law?

For my A-levels, I studied Politics, Economics and History, so they certainly pointed me towards a humanities degree. While I particularly enjoyed History, I ultimately wanted to study something with a more vocational dimension, and I had also been involved with the legal and debating societies at school, and so by the time I came to choose a degree, law was already firmly on my radar.

My decision to pursue law as a career followed naturally from the vacation scheme I attended at Travers in the summer between my second and third year of university. I was fortunate enough to receive a training contract offer following that scheme and, accordingly, began my LLM and SQE studies directly after graduating from Durham.

Why did you choose to train with X firm?

I initially joined Travers because of the firm's strong reputation as a leading City firm and its commitment to providing outstanding training to junior lawyers. Having now worked at the firm for two years, I can attest to the fact that this reputation reflects reality. In every seat I have received excellent training from exceptional lawyers, including, in some cases, the very lawyers who wrote the rules I was being told about. Additionally, as a trainee, you can take on as much responsibility as you are willing to take, which means getting to engage in the type of work that is not normally available to trainees. Ultimately, I have found it to be a firm that rewards hard work, which is exactly what I think should be the organising principle of a law firm.

Tell us about your training contract. What did/does this involve?

I am currently in my fourth seat and have experienced a broad range of legal work across my training contract to date, spanning corporate, tax, finance and financial regulation.

In my first seat in the Corporate M&A and Equity Capital Markets team, I worked across multiple private M&A transactions carrying out corporate due diligence, drafting and reviewing transaction documents, and liaising with specialist teams and overseas counsel. 

My second seat was in our Tax team, split between transactional and asset management tax, where I undertook a mix of research tasks, drafted and amended key deal documents, and contributed to internal projects across a broad range of areas including stamp duty, VAT, withholding tax, employment-related securities and fund structures. 

In our Finance team, for my third seat, I worked across leverage finance, real estate finance and infrastructure finance deals on both the borrower and lender sides, gaining experience in drafting key finance and security documents, running CP and signing processes, and coordinating with overseas counsel across multiple jurisdictions. 

In my fourth and final seat in our Financial Services and Markets team, I have been working across a range of regulatory matters including marketing notifications, change in control applications, fund deregistrations and general compliance advice, regularly coordinating with counsel across European jurisdictions and drafting regulatory and compliance documentation across a number of clients and regulatory regimes.

What kind of tasks do you complete on a typical day?

The day-to-day tasks vary significantly depending on which team you are sitting in. To give an example, a typical day in my finance seat might look like the following:

The morning would usually begin by reviewing emails and getting across any updates from overseas counsel in different time zones, before turning to the most pressing matter on the desk - often progressing a CP checklist by chasing outstanding items or reviewing and providing comments on corporate approvals such as board minutes or director's certificates. The middle part of the day might involve drafting ancillary documents such as accession deeds or notices of assignment or coordinating the signing process for a deal approaching completion, including managing DocuSign and ensuring all documents are in agreed form. Alongside this, there would typically be various administrative tasks running in the background, such as making filings at Companies House or updating the documents list for a deal. The afternoon might then involve picking up a more substantive drafting task (for example, working on a supplemental debenture or amendment letter) before closing out the day by updating fee quotes or sending a round of chaser emails to foreign counsel on outstanding items.

Of course, no two days are the same, and the above would shift considerably depending on whether a deal was approaching signing or completion, or whether an urgent matter came in during the day.

What do you enjoy about being a trainee solicitor?

There are a few points that stand out to me. First, the intellectual challenge. Whether it is working through a complex research question, getting to grips with an unfamiliar area of law or understanding the commercial rationale for a particular deal structure, the work requires careful thought throughout.

Secondly, I enjoy the collegiate aspect of working in a team under pressure. There is something rewarding about the dynamic that develops when a group of people are working together to get a deal over the line.

Additionally, I value the opportunity to work alongside people who are both driven and technically excellent, of whom there are numerous examples at Travers. 

Finally, I have enjoyed getting exposure to a broad range of sectors. Across my seats to date, I have worked on matters touching on real estate, financial services, fund management, infrastructure and more. In my view, that commercial breadth is a large part of what makes the work interesting.

What are the challenges?

The most obvious challenge is the hours, particularly in transactional seats where the pace of a deal is not always within your control. That said, I think the answer to that is largely organisational; if you have a clear sense of what needs to happen and when across your matters, you can manage your time more effectively and protect space for a life outside of work. And, ultimately, the demanding periods are the flip side of doing interesting work for interesting clients. 

How do you strike a healthy work/life balance?

When I think about work-life balance, I find myself coming back to advice given by Jim Donovan, a Vice Chairman at Goldman Sachs, who suggested identifying one thing that is important to you and making it a daily non-negotiable. For me, that is going to the gym before work. As long as you can consistently protect the thing that matters most to you, I think that goes a long way towards maintaining a healthy balance. 

What three qualities are important for a career in law?

If I am honest, I would almost be tempted to list adaptability three times. Across a training contract, and a legal career more broadly, you will encounter a wide range of people with different working styles and different ideas about how things should be done, and you have to be able to find ways to get things done in various ways and through various means. It is not something that can really be taught - it is something you develop as you go.

Beyond that, I would say a genuine willingness to work hard. There is no escaping the fact that this career involves a lot of knuckling down and doing the hard yards to get things over the line, and you have to be prepared for that.

Third, intellectual curiosity. Whatever area of law you are working in, you will regularly need to get to grips with unfamiliar concepts in a relatively short space of time. A natural inclination to engage with and understand the areas you encounter is essential. 

Can you debunk a myth about working as a trainee solicitor?

Trainees do not often qualify into the first seat they undertook on their training contract. I will shortly be doing exactly that, qualifying into the Corporate M&A and Equity Capital Markets team at Travers.

What are your views on diversity in the legal sector. How can it better reflect the society it serves? 

One of the things I have always appreciated about law is its meritocratic nature. Once you have your foot in the door at a firm, I genuinely believe that your success is determined by the opportunities you take to impress and the effort you put into developing as a lawyer. The challenge, however, is ensuring that people have an equal opportunity to reach that point in the first place, where they can demonstrate their talents on a level playing field. In particular, that initial opportunity should not be determined by the type of school a person attended or the wealth of their family. Statistics show that progress has been made in this area, and I hope that those who have not necessarily experienced significant advantages at the start of their lives continue to feel that a career in law is something that is achievable for them; the profession will be the better for it.

Tell us about an issue that is currently affecting the law sector/your firm.

Without wishing to sound like a cliché, AI poses significant challenges and opportunities for law firms, touching on long-standing billing practices, the types of work clients are willing to pay for and much more. Additionally, the increasing proliferation of AI means that proficiency with these tools is a skill that will become ever more relevant to hiring decisions. In that context, the best thing aspiring solicitors can do is keep up their AI and general technical literacy. 

What are your career ambitions?

It is difficult to answer this question at the start of my career. I like to think on a shorter-term basis: I currently love what I am doing and intend to continue in law for as long as that remains true.

What advice can you give to other aspiring solicitors?

Ultimately, you are responsible for making the most of the opportunities which you are afforded. Think carefully about how you can differentiate yourself and constantly look for ways to upskill in areas that will make you an asset to the teams and firms you join. Something as simple as taking time to properly reflect on feedback, and then attempting the same task again unprompted, can make a real difference. These are the sorts of habits that will set you apart.