2012 Chambers Student Guide - True Picture

Find out more here

It was founded in Chicago in 1949, but don’t call it American – if ever a firm was international in nature, it’s this one.

Life begins at 50 

Baker & McKenzie's 69 offices in 41 countries make it a serious contender for the title of ‘world’s biggest law firm’. The way it is structured means that each office is semi-autonomous. “We don’t have our strings pulled from New York, nor would we in London ever try to pull the strings of other offices,” trainees informed us. Nevertheless, ‘multi-jurisdictional’ is the name of the game – virtually every deal B&M works on has an international element to it and calling a colleague in Hong Kong or Kazakhstan is as commonplace as shouting out to a mate down the hall.

The London office celebrated its 50th birthday in 2011: in fact, by our reckoning it was the very first US-founded firm to come to these shores, blazing a trail that many others have followed since. It has gained respect in London and elsewhere for its high-quality work in a wide variety of areas. Employment, IT, telecoms and outsourcing are just some of the practices that Chambers UK ranks as among the best in Britain.

However, it’s fair to say that while B&M would love to duke it out with the magic circle in those prestigious ‘mainstream’ fields of corporate and finance, it isn’t quite at that level yet. For example, in M&A Chambers UK ranks it at the same level of mid-sized City outfits like Berwin Leighton Paisner. With this in mind, trainees say the aim is “bigger deals, better clients and getting our name out as more of a higher tier firm.” Added one source: “We are trying to get some really big clients to use us for the full range of legal services, rather than having them come to us for one or two things they know we are good at. For example, we’ve just become lead global legal counsel to Carlsberg. It’s about building those relationships.”

Grim up North 

A stint in one of the corporate teams is compulsory for trainees, and they can express a wish for one “preference seat” which they are pretty much guaranteed to visit at some point. As for the remaining seats, trainees can list three preferences, which they talk through with a member of the HR department. There is “an understanding that there is a bit of give and take” in the process and that HR has a tough job, yet there were mixed opinions about the transparency of the system, with some sources saying that “some people feel a bit let down by the process: occasionally there doesn’t seem to be a good explanation why certain people get their choice over others.” In general, however, there was consensus that the seat allocation system, though flawed, is fair.

The corporate department is split into four main teams. Corporate North (located on the north side of the building, obvs) is known as “the dirty department” – not for any insalubrious reason, it’s simply the project finance and infrastructure group, and so sees lots of oil and gas work. It recently advised the China National Offshore Oil Company on a $3.1bn joint venture with Bridas Energy Holdings, for example. Corporate South is all about private equity and telecoms matters, West handles more general M&A deals and restructuring/insolvency, while East is a mish-mash of securitisations, financial services and private and public-listed companies work. As you can tell, most of these teams have at least a couple of different types of work going on, and trainees are “actively encouraged do a bit of everything.”

Trainees work on “really big interesting deals” such as the £20.5m disposal of high-street chain Paperchase by Borders, and a Canadian pension fund’s successful £389m bid for Camelot, the operator of the National Lottery. Other big-name clients include Sony, PepsiCo and Nike. Whether trainees get menial or substantive tasks can depend on at what point during the course of a deal they join the department. “I can envisage someone getting stuck on grunt work if they are unlucky,” said one source, but all our contacts said that “in corporate they try to give you as much responsibility as you can handle.” That can mean helping to draft some of the documents, research and helping out with business development. “I did one all-nighter,” a source revealed. “It had novelty value! There have been none since, although I’ve had a few 3am finishes.” Despite occasional long hours, trainees agreed that partners “are absolutely not slave drivers. Bakers doesn’t really have that hard-nosed corporate mentality. They don’t expect you to live in the office.” One trainee told us a nice little story about the time he scored last-minute tickets to a gig and asked to leave at 5pm on Friday. “The partner said, ‘You’ll never make it’ and told me to leave even earlier.”

Finance seats can be “quite bewildering” at first, but they are useful because “you find out why corporations do certain things rather then just how they do them.” Debt restructuring is currently a significant generator of work, and B&M helped restructure $16.7bn worth of the debt of BTA Bank, formerly the largest bank in Kazakhstan. Less client-facing than some other seats, trainee work involves “document handling,” proofreading and drafting small bank agreements. “The learning curve is quite steep” but a couple of weeks of “intensive” training is provided, “both general banking training and also stuff tailored to the specific practice.” Speaking of training, it’s “really comprehensive” right across the firm. “Often, I’m doing something and I think ‘Ooh, I’ve got that lovely PowerPoint presentation from that session to help me’,” said one source happily. Mid- and end of seat appraisals keep trainees informed of their progress.

Intellectual property is a perennially popular seat. There’s no getting away from it the work going on in this department is sexy. The negotiation of multimillion-pound sponsorship deals with Manchester United and Chelsea on behalf of a Thai beer company is just one example. Other clients come from the worlds of retail (American Apparel, Calvin Klein, The Body Shop, Tommy Hilfiger), telecoms (O2, Orange, Vodafone), pharma (AstraZeneca, Novartis, Pfizer), technology (Google, Hewlett-Packard, Sony), the auto industry (McLaren, Mitsubishi) and elsewhere. “Working for household names does make it all a bit more exciting!” trainees said. There are typical trainee jobs to complete, but ”you are not just making the bundles – you get to go to court and prep the witness, and give your opinions and thoughts in meetings with barristers.” Trainees also receive “great client exposure” and take first attempts at drafting.

Chambers and parties 

Baker & McKenzie’s IT group is one of the best in the country and it certainly gets some excellent instructions. Alas, most of these are confidential, but we can inform you that many of the clients overlap with the IP group. We can also tell you about a juicy pro bono case taken on by the team. You may remember the case of Paul Chambers, who jokingly threatened to blow up Robin Hood Airport on Twitter and was convicted for an offence under the 2003 Communications Act. B&M acted for Mr Chambers in his appeal. Trainees in the IT and commercial seat have “quite a lot of work reviewing and drafting contacts, and liaising with the client about what they want in the contract.” Often, a piece of work will come in involving UK advice on a multi-jurisdictional deal, which leads to lots of contact with other offices.

The dispute resolution department covers a huge range of matters, from fraud, to product recall, to general commercial disputes. In one recent matter, the group advised the BBC Trust after the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru complained about their exclusion from the Beeb’s leadership debates in the run-up to the 2010 general election. It successfully defended the Trust in the judicial review proceedings brought by the SNP in the Court of Session in Scotland. Trainees are “really encouraged to get involved in all aspects of work” and, if they qualify here, won’t start to specialise until after two or three more years of practice. Seats in disputes tend to be given to second years rather than first years, so “they expect a little bit more of you and you are given responsibility from an earlier stage.”

The pensions seat has a reputation for having “the nicest people in the whole firm” but is “a well-kept secret” in terms of work. Those who had experienced it said there’s “lots of hands-on drafting experience and client contact.” It’s one of the few departments at the firm that doesn’t see a lot of multi-jurisdictional work. Other seats include employment (a B&M speciality worldwide and a highly ranked department in Chambers UK), corporate tax (“research-based, technical”), real estate, competition and wealth management.

A big draw for students is the possibility of overseas secondments, and if you have your heart set on going abroad for three months you should be able to do so at B&M. However, trainees did note that that overseas seats “used to be really open to everyone, but for whatever reason the opportunities have been reduced.” The firm says that this is partly due to ensuring it complies with the SRA’s regulations on foreign secondments, and also because there is also an increasing demand from clients who want to take trainees in-house for six months. Client secondments are therefore numerous, and trainees who go off on them inevitably come back raving about the higher level of responsibility they got while working in-house. “I suppose they’re not really aware of the level of work that trainees usually get – they don’t have the same hesitation about throwing you in there,” one satisfied source enthused. As for overseas seats, stints in Brussels, Hong Kong and Moscow are still regularly available, and there are also postings in Singapore, Paris, Amsterdam and Sydney. Overseas opportunities don’t vanish after qualification: associates are “encouraged” to spend time in other offices.

Variety pack 

“I know it sounds cheesy but I really do love it here!” Trainees were positively glowing about the Baker & McKenzie experience. “There’s not a whiff of arrogance” here, they said, “no city-slicker mentality at all. Obviously you have to be interested in business, but it’s not dog-eat-dog.” London is the largest office in the B&M network, but with somewhere in the region of 400 lawyers it is nowhere near the size of the magic circle firms so “you’re not an identikit trainee.”

During the course of our research, we were happy to find ourselves taking an extensive tour of the regions when it came to our interviewees’ accents. No need to sound posh, or even blandly middle-class, here. Trainees praised the “broad variety” of their intake, who come from all over the country and from overseas. As you’d expect, Oxbridge and the Redbrick universities feature prominently in trainees’ backgrounds, but many other universities are represented and we weren’t surprised to learn that among its many pro bono and corporate responsibility groups is one that looks at increasing social mobility in the profession.

Trainees all study the B&M LPC together at the College of Law, so they all know each other well before they join the firm. The current group is “sociable but sensible,” apparently. “Other firms are a lot wilder, I think,” reported one source. “You hear the stories of how they go out all the time and get totally lashed!” B&M trainees don’t – or not with liver-pummelling regularity, anyway. Friday evening drinks in the canteen are well attended, and the managing partner usually sticks his head round the door to say hello. The canteen is an important social hub, and “from 12.30 to 1.30pm you can’t move for the flocks of trainees eating lunch together” in there. The summer party has been reinstated after a recessionary absence, and there’s a bash at Christmas too. Football, hockey, netball, cricket and rugby sevens teams are among the numerous sporting groups.

Our sources were generally happy with the qualification process and confident that they would be kept on, with the caveat that some people might not be offered positions in their first-choice department. Do remember that despite having plenty of niche departments, B&M is “trying to sell itself as a corporate firm” and it’s this department that usually offers most places come qualification. In all, 32 out of 40 second-year trainees stayed on in 2011.

And finally... 

B&M London offers global work in a mid-sized firm environment, and trainees can’t praise it enough.