GENOVEVA & AMRIK
AMRIK
The client base Eversheds has is very wide-ranging. They cover a large cross-section of corporate activity in the UK. Because of the size of Eversheds and the geographical location of all the offices, it means, effectively, that there are very few household names that Eversheds doesn’t actually act for.
GENOVEVA
At Eversheds, trainees are encouraged to form part of the client service teams, and when I was doing my first shift in the commercial department I was given the opportunity to be part of the client team for one of our major PLC clients in the entertainment and leisure sector. This allowed me to develop a strong relationship with in-house lawyers. There is also the social aspect, and trainees are encouraged to organise and participate in client social events, whether it is a golf match, football match, clay pigeon shooting, wine tasting or any of those other activities. It is not just the partners but also trainees, associates and support teams who are involved.
AMRIK
There is actually no doubt, and I think it’s quite important that as a trainee you are encouraged to get in front of the client at the earliest possible opportunity. There is no sense at Eversheds that as a trainee you are somehow kept apart from clients until such time as you have earned your spurs, as it were. Trainees from day one are encouraged as part of their day-to-day routine to engage with clients, interact with them, go to meetings and just get to know them.
GENOVEVA
On a daily basis I have plenty of opportunities to deal with clients, whether it is face-to-face meetings, on the phone, by email or by fax. That is to keep the clients updated on the progress of matters and on costs and deadlines. There’s plenty of client contact on a daily basis.
AMRIK
Yeah, I’d agree with that. I think most of our trainees will be in situations where they’re having daily, if not hourly, contact with their clients because that’s the nature of what we do. We’re on the phone all the time, there’s the occasional meeting, and certainly lots of email communication going on all the time.
GENOVEVA
All trainees have an allocated supervisor, but also trainees work for a team of people, and trainees get their work from different members of the team, so you get feedback on each piece of work that you do. I think that is of paramount importance for a trainee, in order to develop the skills that we need in this profession.
AMRIK
Yeah, I think that a really important point to emphasise, actually, is that as a trainee it’s not a one-to-one relationship with just one person and that’s your be all and end all. In most cases, if not in all cases, the trainees will have a number of people who they’re working for, and therefore accountable to, in terms of being available and being a resource to that team.
GENOVEVA
From my personal experience, I want to know from my mentor what kind of things I should be doing in order to enhance my career at Eversheds. So because she is a senior member of her team, I ask her what kinds of things I should be getting involved with, how to participate in business development activities, what meetings I should be attending and what extra training I should be doing. It’s great to get that advice from a person who has been where you have been as a junior member of the team.
AMRIK
Sometimes people will particularly use their mentors for advice in relation to: I want to approach a particular person, I want to talk about a particular issue, whether that might be promotion or the opportunity to maybe qualify in a particular team, and don’t quite know how to go about breaking the ice with that person; and just getting the view of somebody who is completely separate from you in terms of what you do on a day-to-day basis sometimes makes that conversation just a little bit easier.