‘Sitting on your computer in your bedroom all day isn’t culturally enriching. When we see how our junior lawyers operate now, you can tell they’ve been trained during the pandemic. They’ve missed out on the day-to-day, hearing the titbits of conversations, the lift discussions, the conversations on the way to and from meetings,’ laments Slaughter and May M&A partner Sally Wokes.
Wokes is far from alone in her assessment of the challenges firms currently face getting both trainees and junior associates up to speed.
Surging activity levels in 2021 mean junior lawyers certainly haven’t been lacking in billable hours or exposure to good work, as this year’s positive financial results and soaring NQ salaries testify. But the flipside has been the well-documented mental health impact of the work-from-home grind, as well as issues around career development and training.
‘As an associate, you can’t learn the pitch or gravitas parts of the job by yourself. That experience of being in a big set-piece meeting is something you can’t really replicate online.’
Lauren Honeyben, Freshfields
As Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer insurance M&A partner Lauren Honeyben comments: ‘As an associate, you can’t learn the pitch or gravitas parts of the job by yourself. You need the opportunities to go to meetings regularly and get airtime with clients. It’s one of the things our associates have had less opportunity to do during the pandemic. That experience of being in a big set-piece meeting is something you can’t really replicate online.
‘Those experiences of being in a meeting room in the lead-up to signing an M&A deal are how you learn how transactions are done – you get to observe the dynamics and practicalities. It’s also how you create the stories. You look back and say: “Remember the time this happened?” There are all sorts of moments that aren’t the same on Teams,’ Honeyben adds.
Where firms are now trying to make up for lost time on the career development front is twofold. On the one hand it’s the basics of the professional aspects of the job, from how to speak to clients on the phone to the in-person meeting experience. On the other, it’s the human side around how you manage to balance long hours with living a life around and outside of law, something junior lawyers didn’t get to see while their managers were working remotely.
Learning the ropes
On the first point, Ashurst London projects partner Cameron Smith points out just how basic – but crucial – some of those missed office interactions really are: ‘As much as you may interact with people day-to-day, one of the things you pick up by sitting in an office with a partner is the informal conversation. After ending a call with a difficult or aggressive person, for example, you can discuss with the trainee the best ways of handling different personality types. At a more basic level, the trainee also gets to hear how to deal with people in a business environment; how to address people, how to interact. Do you call them sir, madam or by their first name? It gives you something you don’t otherwise get.’
‘When working remotely, it’s often difficult to invite trainees to all conference calls in your diary, but when I was a trainee, I learnt so much from listening to them all.’
Lucy Chambers, Slaughter and May
Charlotte Goosey, a trainee who has shared an office with Smith during her training contract, elaborates: ‘It’s the learning by osmosis that you don’t get otherwise; how to build rapport in a professional way. [Being able to share an office with a partner] gives you more client exposure and a lot more opportunity. Having a partner as a supervisor also gives you a broader experience of what’s happening in the firm.’
Ashurst, like Slaughters, has moved to assign co-supervisors to trainees in some practices as part of its attempt to speed up learning for those who have joined remotely. With hybrid working patterns meaning three-day weeks in the office are unlikely to perfectly align, the firms have been allocating trainees an additional supervisor to ensure they don’t find themselves alone in the office.
‘My view is that sitting in with a partner or senior lawyer is an essential part of training,’ advocates Wokes. ‘You probably learn more from that than anything else. Every time I have a conference call the trainee is listening into it. Having someone there to talk to throughout the day is really important – you develop much quicker. It can also be hard to work out what to prioritise. We tell people to call us to ask a question but that requires a lot more confidence.’
Lucy Chambers, a senior associate in the competition team at Slaughters who has previously been mentored by Wokes as part of the firm’s Connect scheme, adds: ‘When working remotely, it’s often difficult to invite trainees to all conference calls in your diary, but when I was a trainee, I learnt so much from listening to them all – how you deal with different questions, situations, etc. Learning from those situations by sitting in my supervisors’ offices was something that really helped me in my career – and that arrangement also helps to build a good bond between trainees and supervisors.’
The human touch
The second missed element – the human aspects of missed office interactions are every bit as vital. Without them, junior lawyers haven’t been able to see how partners cope with difficult calls, how they attempt to fit in a personal life around law or, at a more functional level, gain exposure to some of the other aspects of the job beyond the legal advice.
As Wokes continues: ‘During lockdown we found there was no sense of proportionality in how people were working. Partly because they were so busy and partly because there was not much else to do then. We’ve had to work to correct this. It’s healthy for partners to sit with a trainee – they can see how you’re working and how you’re balancing work with life – it’s a big part of coming back to the office.’
According to Smith, this can break down barriers between the firm’s most junior lawyers and the most senior. ‘They see us experiencing both the highs and lows of legal practice and getting frustrated and we get to see and understand the issues trainees face day-to-day,’ he explains.
‘Also, there’s a lot more to life as a partner than dealing with clients and performing legal work. There’s billing, negotiating fees, pitching for work, managing staff, dealing with conflicts. It’s good for juniors to see that there’s more to a practice than the legal work.’
‘Junior lawyers see us experiencing both the highs and lows of legal practice and getting frustrated and we get to see and understand the issues trainees face day-to-day.’
Cameron Smith, Ashurst
Over at Freshfields, the catch-up process is also ongoing. While London managing partner Claire Wills points out that well-chaired Teams meetings offer their own advantages, making it easier for everyone to join and get a chance to speak, she is under no illusions as to what has been missed. One of the things this means is ensuring that everyone not only gets a chance to make up for lost client meetings, but also to speak in them, even if for many, these will be the first in-person meetings they’ve ever attended.
Commenting on the process, Wills says: ‘We’ve always been a firm where there’s a really strong cultural glue, so how we go about keeping that connectivity and engagement remotely is something we’re having to work really hard at. We’re putting in extra work to catch up. It’s a blend of taking the benefits from agile working but also making sure that our lawyers understand the benefits of being together in person. If you’ve never experienced it, you don’t know what you’re missing.’
But despite the short-term challenges of remote and hybrid working, Wills is confident that the opportunities outweigh the difficulties: ‘Increased flexibility is already making this career more family-friendly. Over the years, a lot of talented people have left to go down a different career route because law firms like ours weren’t perceived to be flexible enough. This is an important opportunity for younger lawyers to fit more into their lives and to see that partners can also do this.’
‘It should be challenging’ – Sally Wokes and Lucy Chambers of Slaughter and May on their experiences of mentoring
Lucy Chambers, a senior associate in the competition team at Slaughters, has been mentored by Sally Wokes through the firm’s Connect scheme, which allows more junior lawyers to select a partner in another practice for mentoring. She now supervises trainees and junior lawyers herself, as well as playing a part in the firm’s mental health network, Thrive.
Sally Wokes joined Slaughters in 2005 and has been a partner in the M&A team since 2015. She is heavily involved in the firm’s mentoring schemes and has also been a mentor to some individuals outside the firm.
What Lucy has learnt from Sally as a mentor
‘Having Sally as a mentor has made an invaluable contribution to my career progression. In the firm’s Connect mentoring scheme, mentees are paired with mentors from different practice groups, which is very helpful in broadening your perspectives. Mentees can also request to be paired with a mentor with specific diversity characteristics (such as black and ethnic minority groups, LGBTQ+ or those who were the first in their family to go to university). I requested a junior female partner as a mentor because I wanted to gain insight from someone who has been through the journey from senior associate to partner more recently.
‘Sally has helped me challenge my thinking, explore my career and goals, and I’ve been able to take insights she has given me and implement them in my day-to-day working practices.’
Sally on mentoring
‘I was fortunate enough to be mentored by a former partner in my last two years as an associate. I found it incredibly helpful and wished I’d done it much earlier on in my career. He was someone I trusted to tell me the things others wouldn’t, to be my source for tips on improvement, and to also be the reassuring voice during those challenging years pre-partnership.
‘With Connect, the mentors and mentees are not in the same group as each other, which means you have a more independent, objective relationship than if you were working directly with each other on the day-to-day.
‘I’ve tried various different techniques over the years depending on the mentee and the circumstances, but generally I think mentoring works best if it happens relatively regularly – every six weeks or so – and is a bit more structured. So I encourage mentees to turn up with clear agendas, and to leave with clear action items that we then check in on the next time we meet. Undoubtedly it’s harder work and more challenging, but ultimately it’s much more rewarding. Given how busy lawyers’ lives are, personal development can slip down the “to-dos”, but structured mentoring really helps to refocus, to take a step back, think about things more holistically and make often small but meaningful changes. We are trialling reverse mentoring at the moment, and it’s being very well received – it really helps to bridge the gap between perception and reality.’
‘Watching her nail the pitch was just brilliant’ – Freshfields M&A partners Claire Wills and Lauren Honeyben on their mentoring relationship
Freshfields London head Claire Wills (pictured) and Lauren Honeyben are both corporate partners who focus primarily on financial institutions work, with Honeyben focusing particularly on the insurance market. Wills has mentored Honeyben throughout her career at the firm, with the pair working together on high-profile matters for clients including Equitable Life and Tesco.
Claire on Lauren and mentoring
‘It’s been interesting to go from being a partner on a deal that Lauren was an associate on to getting to the point where we’re building a practice together and winning work together. Now she’s our technical expert on complicated deals in the insurance space.
‘Pitching with Lauren to do some work for Equitable Life was great – being in the room and watching her nail the pitch was just brilliant. Seeing that smart associate evolve and develop the broader skillset, become a counsel and then have the technical expertise and confidence to become a partner is one of the best parts of the job. It’s been an exciting and fascinating time for the financial institutions group (FIG) because of Brexit and it’s been fabulous to watch Lauren grab that.
‘Most people who come in here are technically excellent, so it’s about seeing them develop the ability to start thinking about the client and what they need, rather than simply: “This is how Freshfields does things.” I remember doing a pitch with Lauren and another partner and coming away and thinking she was the best person in the room, even though she wasn’t a partner at the time. For me, that was a sign that she was definitely ready for partnership.
‘My own time as a junior lawyer was much more about informal mentoring. [Former corporate head] Barry O’Brien really backed me and sponsored me and I spent time in Hong Kong with [former Asia managing partner] Ruth Markland, who was really good at making me step back and think about what I wanted to do and what was the right path for me. Once you become a partner you still need mentoring – you’re still learning and looking out for those who can help you and give you a steer. When I become head of FIG, [global disputes head] Andy Hart was an amazing mentor for me.’
Lauren on her experience of working with Claire
‘I’ve worked with Claire for a number of clients, including on HSBC’s disposal of its Cayman businesses, and for Tesco. Growing up in the team meant that even if a particular deal wasn’t technically in my sweet spot – because say, it wasn’t a FIG deal – she knew I could do it, which is what happened with Tesco. Being able to bring a successful and positive end to Equitable Life was amazing. Being given the opportunity to play a leading role in that pitch gave me the confidence to run the transaction for the next three years.’
Lauren on other mentors
‘One senior partner who’s no longer with the firm helped me to see a different way to partnership that involved becoming a counsel first. From an M&A perspective my focus was the sector, rather than just doing all public M&A. This helped me gain that market presence and get to know advisers in the industry as well. It was really useful in helping me develop my skills and expertise and develop my USP. The counsel role is interesting; you have more autonomy and the sector focus means you get to know clients and develop the skills you need for their transactions. For me, it was important in developing my business case for partnership.’
What Lauren has learnt from Claire
‘The number one thing that stands out for me is the way Claire develops her client relationships and becomes the key go-to person for them. The way she does that and maintains those relationships through really getting to know them and their concerns, that’s always really shone through to me. In more recent years, her personal leadership style throughout the pandemic as London managing partner has really helped me think about my own leadership style.’