Jessica Booker
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- Aug 1, 2019
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The firm is more likely to offer 3 instead of 6 month seats for more competitive/in demand departments, but there is no guarantee of that. Some departments know that six months is really needed for trainees to get involved and if they say they want trainees for six months instead of three, that could happen no matter what the demand is. The eight-seat training contract is a bit of a marketing ploy by Freshfields to differentiate itself. Reality is most trainees end up doing 4-6 seats.What would you say in relation to competition for certain seats (e.g., international arbitration) at Freshfields, given the firm has an eight-seat trainee associate programme. If each intake has 40-50 trainees (two cohorts per year) and for each seat rotation, a vast majority of trainees expressed interest in wanting to do a seat in international arbitration, how would the firm navigate this? If the firm prioritised those in their second year of the TC (5th - 8th seat), would it be possible that by the time a 1st seat trainee goes through their entire training contract, the vast majority of trainees in their cohort will have experienced at least 3 months (one seat) in the international arbitration practice? To my understanding, Freshfields allows people to double up on a seat (6 months), so would this give those people an advantage over those that only did 3 months?
When it comes to qualification, would it be possible that there would be a significant number of trainees (out of 40-50) who were interested in qualifying into international arbitration (given they’d probably experienced it at least once during their TC)? Would this then mean it’s more competitive at a firm like Freshfields to enter a practice like international arbitration compared to a firm like Debevoise which has a standard four seat TC rotation and one trainee intake/qualifying period, with a smaller intake of around 10 trainees? Im just wondering that if I were to apply for the WVS at a firm like Freshfields next application cycle, would I find it harder to experience seats of interest and qualify into a practice area of interest compared to a US firm with a smaller cohort of trainees.
I must stress the vast majority of trainees would want to do IA at a firm like Freshfields. The firm would be tactical in recruiting people with broad interests. It was fairly common for trainees to never do a contentious seat and go on a contentious course instead (under the old qualification system), and that's not even taking into account trainees who have other "competitive" seat preferences like competition or IP. Unlike a IA focused firm, a lot of trainees will have no interest in that area of work. Given this, there would never be a huge number of people gunning for an IA seat - as I mentioned earlier, at best I would bet this is less than 10 people per intake, and could easily be less than five. And obviously there could be more than one IA NQ role, especially if there are opportunities outside of London too (e.g. I saw Paris take on an English NQ at least once).
There are too many variables to even try and calculate which firm would have the better chances. The only data really worthwhile looking at is historic number of seats per rotation and how many NQ roles there have been each year. If both of those numbers are fairly stable over a period of 5-6 years then you can get a reasonable gauge of what your chances might be. But for many firms they will fluctuate so much it would be very difficult to know what would happen during your TC, let alone when it comes to your qualification. By the time you get to that point, you also may have no interest in IA at all anyway.
Performance will always win out over experience when it comes to qualification chances. Someone with a exceptional rating in a three month seat is far more likely to secure a NQ role than someone who has done well over a six month seat.