HFW Training Contract – Jake Rickman

We caught up with Jake, a fourth seat trainee at HFW to hear their thoughts on securing a Training Contract.

I come from a different background compared to many City trainee solicitors, so I am keen to share my experience with aspiring solicitors that may not fit the traditional mould.

For one, I was an international applicant, being originally from the United States. I went to a state-funded school and then a liberal arts university in New York, where I studied English and Philosophy. I then worked in a regional law firm in the US before obtaining a master's degree from the University of Oxford reading English.

Secondly, I am a career-changer. After I finished my master's at Oxford, I was recruited to work for a boutique consultancy firm in the City of London advising private capital funds primarily on investment professional recruitment strategies. However, I have always wanted to be a lawyer, and my experience working with financial services clients in London for three years crystalised my ambition to become a City solicitor.

Third, as career-changers often are, I am a bit older than most trainee applicants.

I am now a fourth seat trainee at HFW, sitting in the Insurance Litigation team. . My previous seats were Corporate & Commercial, Fraud & Insolvency and Shipping Litigation.

One of my consulting clients was a special situations investment team in Mayfair which sat in a large US-owned private capital investment house. Part of their investment strategy involved acquiring stakes in maritime assets owned by distressed companies. Compared to other investment strategies I was exposed to, I found this particularly interesting because there was something unique about using financial products and the law to obtain exposure to real, tangible assets like large vessels and offshore platforms. This sparked an interest in shipping and international trade. So, when I started researching law firms to apply to, it was clear who the leading law firm in these markets was (being of course HFW).

That said, it took me more than two years from when I made the conscious decision to become a solicitor in England to actually netting a training contract (TC) with HFW. I had made a couple rounds of TC applications for other firms while still working as a consultant, though I was wholly unsuccessful (having never made it past the first stage). Undeterred and following the widespread interruption caused by COVID, I was in a position to leave my job as a consultant to do the Graduate Diploma of Law (now the PGDL), after which I got a role as a paralegal in the restructuring team at a large US firm in London. Simultaneously, I started my own company producing marketing content for various law firms (which were my clients).

This experience in conjunction with my previous career helped me hone my applications, one of which was a direct TC application to HFW. While I was unsuccessful for the direct TC, HFW invited me to apply for their winter Vacation Scheme, which I ultimately converted to a TC.

HFW stands out among other City firms for being particularly accommodating, supportive, and collegial. As a trainee, I am made to feel like I am genuinely part of the team rather than a junior passing through for six months. Partners are generally approachable, friendly and you're just as likely to be working directly with a partner than you are an associate (which is not the case for many other firms).

My supervisors have broadly taken a keen interest in my development, and senior fee-earners are generally flexible when it comes to considerations like working from home, especially given I am a bit older and so may have things going on in my personal life. Of course, there is always a reason to be in the office when you can. Not least because there are regular social events such as diversity and inclusion initiatives (e.g. DEI Comedy Night), charity events (City Santa Run) and client socials (P&I Club [marine insurance organisations] Drinks).

One of the more remarkable features of HFW is the work-life balance. My average finishes are between 7 and 8pm. Where I need to work later, I can almost always do so from home if I am in the office that day. There are of course some late nights, but that's the nature of the profession. At the same time, HFW offers a competitive salary and remuneration package, especially at the trainee level.

Finally, it's not a marketing gimmick when HFW speaks about the importance of being a sector-focused law firm. HFW first and foremost positions itself in the legal market as being the go-to advisor for clients involved in international trade. This means that you are learning from partners and senior fee-earners who are embedded in the sectors we service. So not only do you learn how to be a good lawyer, you also learn about the sectors our clients work in – what the key industry drivers and operational / commercial considerations are. This sector-focus, combined with the international nature of our work, permeates all aspects of the culture.

I have been given comparatively more responsibility to work on higher-level tasks than what I understand is typical for peers at other law firms. That's not to say that as a trainee you won't be working on things like bundling, building transaction bibles, or managing the internal digital filing systems. But you have a real chance to push yourself from day one of your TC.

For instance, I was tasked with preparing expert witness instructions in the first week of my first seat, a task reserved for mid-level associates at other firms. This is not to say that you are thrown in the deep-end and expected to swim without support, nor are you expected to produce error-free work (my first attempt at drafting was completely rewritten by the partner, but not without an explanation as to why). The work is varied and for the most part intellectually stimulating precisely because as trainees we are given the chance to do associate-level work.

Hard question – lots to choose from. One that stands out was a shareholder dispute involving a number of disparate corporate groups operating in the commodities sectors. I got involved in from the matter's inception and because we acted for the claimant who was seeking emergency interim relief against the other shareholder (i.e. the defendant), the matter picked up speed quite quickly.

Because things were fast moving and I was involved from the outset, I was given ownership over a variety of the different simultaneous workstreams, including:

• liaising with a third-party asset tracing firm;
• creating structure charts to visualise how the corporate groups and the shareholding was organised;
• preparing chronologies and making sense of the factual background; and
• drafting client updates / strategy summaries.

The highlight was once we had gotten to the point where we were prepared to initiate action, we needed to formally instruct Counsel (in this case a team of two barristers). I was given the task of drafting instructions to Counsel, which is a detailed summary of the facts, issues in dispute, and what we needed Counsel to do, along with preparing a bundle of relevant documents. As this was a complex matter, it was a fairly lengthy set of instructions. I was therefore quite surprised when the matter partner told me he had no substantive comments and to send as I had prepared it.

First, know thyself.

My background working with investment funds gave me some insight into what I would call traditional City law firm practice areas: sector agnostic funds, finance, banking and corporate / M&A work. I found these areas interesting enough (and I still do), but it has never struck me as inherently cool as working specifically in the sectors of shipping, energy, and international trade. I struggled to articulate a genuine motivation to practice more vanilla City law during my first couple rounds of applications precisely because I had more interest in the sector-specific approach. It just took me a bit of time to figure that out.

But once it became clear to me what sort of firm I wanted to join, the application process became easier.

Second, know thy firm.

When you first start the process, it is difficult to identify what makes one firm different from another. This is because most firms tend to market themselves on their website and elsewhere as being excellent forerunners in every practice area under the sun. But in practice, different firms have different strengths. It is easy for firms to sift out candidates, especially at the interview stage, who do not appreciate what makes the firm they are interviewing at different. (Again, HFW stands out in this respect, because it is quite upfront about the kind of work it specialises in). But in whittling down the firms that excel in the areas that interest you, you are more easily able to signify to those firms that you (a) know what they do well; and (b) why you want to be there.

This is for those applicants who, like me, come from different backgrounds. Capitalise on what makes you different. For instance, I have come across prospective solicitors who are older than most university leavers and who perceive their age as a liability, when in fact, it is often an asset: they have more life experience and they often have previous career experience – these are factors which (in my view) good employers including City firms should value. As an applicant, the goal should be to make it clear why and how your distinctions are an asset.

Of course, in practice, it can be difficult to convince firms of why your candidacy merits particular consideration. For the vast majority of applicants, even those that are well-qualified, luck is an inescapable factor in the process. My view is that if you are determined to become a City solicitor, you will keep at it until you do. Good luck!