Day in My Life as a CORPORATE LAWYER in London - 14 Hour Day

good morning you wonderful people and it's a beautiful thursday morning here in london and i am really really pumped today to get to share a full day in my life as a trainee corporate lawyer working in the mergers and acquisitions department of one of the world's top law firms and this time i'm going to be spending a full day in the office so yeah i generally wake up anywhere between 6 45 and 8 and i'm now very excitingly going into the office around three or four times a week and that's out of choice like there's no obligation to go in but i'm trying really hard as much as possible to keep up the really good habits i built into my morning routine when i was working from home every single day for me because the rest of my day is so busy and i'm gonna be really busy today my priority is always putting on a podcast audio book or blink and going on a run walk or workout this morning it's a run day and i get in a pretty sweaty because it's pretty hot by london standards 20 minute three and a half kilometer run in the company of tim ferriss when i get back i dive into the fridge and grab some fruit and cereal for breakfast which is my current kind of breakfast of choice i went through a period of having eggs regularly but i'm now on a lighter fruity breakfast over summer with just a little bit of cereal for crunch and a quick check of my work emails alongside this fruity delight to see what came in overnight and make sure i'm not needed for any early calls i then have a quick peruse of the financial times if you're interested in going into a corporate career i strongly recommend you kind of regularly build in some form of looking at financial related and company related stories on a morning just a quick flick through the headlines is enough other days i might spend a bit longer reading more detailed articles or watching videos but i'm in a bit of a rush this morning as i need to get to the office for 7 50 which is way earlier than i would normally get in to help our graduate recruitment team film an office tour that's going to be releasing soon i believe i jump in for a very quick shower finishing with a cold blast i'm still on the cold shower trend and then suit up i generally wear a shirt and either chinos or suit trousers but as it's warm in the uk at the moment at least by english standards there's no need for a jacket and tie or anything like that [Music] i live literally a two minute walk from the station regardless still managed to miss the train i was hoping to get but uh yeah it's gonna be hopefully fairly busy productive um but also good day meeting up with lucy and lorraine this morning to do an office tour and then um a full day of work and hopefully maybe even you know some socializing given it's a glorious day in london town on my way into work i then put on my bose noise cancelling headphones and either listen to blinkist or audible or if i can't really be bothered to kind of consume information i'll listen to nothing and just think or potentially get my pump on some 80s tunes it just depends how i'm feeling [Music] when i arrive at the office in canary wharf it's super quiet because most people generally get to the office between 8 45 and 9 30 so i'm here way earlier than that you know i'm doing this filming today to help out with graduate recruitment and i think whatever job you do it's really nice to get involved with helping out with kind of recruiting people i love meeting new people i find it really helps me to feel more motivated about my job when you just meet people who are really excited to be where you are and it's also great for building your personal brand and making other people aware of you so this is what an office looks like masked up and yeah this is the 23rd floor where i sit at the moment in my second c in m a with my name [Music] on the name tag pretty cool and yeah this right here is my desk [Music] to confirm probably wouldn't do spin classes in these suit trousers on the regular [Music] on my way back to my desk it's now 9am i've just finished filming the office tour shots with lucy and lorraine and now for some real work so it is time to get to work and my first task for the day is basically just to go through all of the emails that have come in overnight because i clocked off relatively early yesterday at like 5 30 which is amazing um and just make sure that kind of i haven't missed any tasks that i need to do make sure i've got everything written down in my filofax go through trello and pick up the other tasks that i need to do urgently from there nothing urgent came in last night so i didn't feel the need to kind of reply and get on to work last night i enjoyed the evening off but now i need to get to it i'm then going to give one of the associates i'm working with closely on the biggest deal i'm on at the moment a quick call just to run through a couple of questions i have on a document i'm putting together a corporate summary of how the transaction is working which is really cool like it's basically describing testing my own understanding and describing exactly how the whole of this transaction is working for the benefit of the directors who are going to be implementing it and then i'm going to get on with once i've called him actually doing some kind of drafting of this corporate summary putting in some comments from the partner who's working on that deal and also then actually getting to draft a few of the ancillary documents basically in private m a because there are tons of documents involved in a transaction quite a few of those are ancillary documents they're called and that basically means that even as a relatively junior person you're able to have a go at drafting at least first drafts of those so yeah let's get to it [Music] so it's 11 30 and i have just finished kind of this first period of getting everything sorted for the day running through all my emails getting my tasks in order and then doing the first kind of big bit of drafting on the summary that i've been working on that has been awesome i've basically been in this department for three and a half months now and so i'm really familiar at least much more familiar than i was when i first started with exactly how kind of these transactions work in an m a context the documents involved and so that's meant that yeah i've basically been able to get involved in this kind of drafting first draft of a corporate summary of the whole transaction is quite a big kind of bit of work to be given at this early stage and you know i got loads of comments back from the associate they had loads of kind of tweaks and and comments of how it could be improved but you know that's all part of the learning experience and you know kind of learning that whenever you have a first draft of anything chances are people are probably going to pull it apart but kind of just got to get used to that in the job so yeah that was kind of almost like free drafting not drafting contractually but just writing a summary um and something i really enjoyed on the actual like legal drafting side i have just begun and i'm going to continue now until probably lunchtime actually getting on with drafting kind of legal ancillary documents i think one of the big questions i'd have had if i were kind of like potentially going into this job or just looking from the outsiders like what does that actually mean when you say like drafting drafting essentially means you know taking templates that we have on our systems and precedent documents from past transactions and looking at those so at the moment to give you a concrete example i have taken a template that i have then turned to make it specific to the transaction we're currently working on and putting the parties and there are tons of like options within these templates so you have to choose for example how is this company going to be paid for is it going to be paid for in cash is it going to be paid for with a loan is it going to be paid for through the subscription of shares by the buyer you know there are tons of options and you're essentially as the kind of first drafter going through and picking out okay which options can i select what do i know from my knowledge of this transaction is going to happen and then what kind of can i exclude or or do i definitely know isn't going to happen so i can delete those bits so that's the kind of thing you're doing when people say drafting and there will then also be a little bit of free drafting into the document where there's particularly bespoke or you know unusual things happening so for example where the company that's being bought not using cash but with a loan but there are certain features of that loan so it might be alone and you might need to add in you know bearing interest of x percent those kinds of additions or um modifications templates which you know templates can't cater for every single possible scenario so you're having a best first go at you know what you think the document should look like and i then send that off for review by my supervisor or by an associate that i'm working with who's much more experienced than i am who will then be able to say okay we need to add this in we need to do a little bit more bespoke drafting here and maybe we'll come back to me saying can you have another go at this or we'll just do it themselves and i'll then input their comments i just four half 12 after another hour of work i suddenly realized i'm about to miss the deadline to order lunch for 1 p.m when i'm gonna meet up with some friends one huge perk of being in the office is that you get to order lunch through an app it's subsidized by the firm and the food is really great so it is 1pm and after another hour of drafting yeah i'm ready for some lunch now i'm going to head downstairs ordered it earlier just about in time and yeah me lorraine lucy and my friend sophie i'm just going to grab from down the corridor in this team are gonna pop out to the park for a spot of lunch so i'm gonna head in and go and grab some lunch go and pick up my order from the budgie bar which normally it's a hub of activity but at the moment the office is pretty quiet so not too many people here yeah pick up lunch and then head outside to the lovely park thank you so much [Music] lucy's got to go back to work i've only just arrived we've had a lovely lunch so lorraine's willing to be on camera with me but sophie's refusing so you know you're gonna have to uh go without seeing sophie's beautiful face and you're stuck with me this is honestly to die for look at that bad boy here i am with my measly wrap because us paupers over here can only afford i'm just joking i had this yesterday um [Music] so i've just got back from a quick spot of lunch and for the afternoon i'm basically working on the same transaction that i was working on this morning and that's a definite feature of this department when you're working on big m a transactions chances are you're probably going to be working on one maybe two deals at a time and then a couple of other bits and pieces but generally most of your time will be spent on one or two things and that is very different to other departments within law firms and in other departments you might be on you know six seven eight matters at a time so yeah most of my time is pretty much spent between drafting and kind of transaction management emailing clients but that second bucket is huge like you get so much responsibility to email clients really get involved in that side of things and that is one of the things i have really really loved about my time in this m a department so yeah gonna get on now with sending a couple of emails that i need to get out then uh continuing to draft and i think i'm also gonna have a quick call on the associates in my team who has another task on this same transaction for me to do something have a call with her find out exactly what she wants me to do and probably do that later plus in around an hour at three o'clock we have our weekly trainee business articles discussion and this is something that one of the partners in our team runs for the trainees each week we have to present to practice our presentation skills on a call with all the trainees subject to kind of scrutiny from other people on the call a business article that we found interesting some point of interest and come up with kind of its relevance to the department it's really an opportunity for us to kind of practice presenting in a formal setting on calls and yeah that's something i really enjoy doing it's non-billable it's a training exercise and something yeah i really do enjoy howdy peeps so just had the business articles discussion call and i'm going to get up go for a little wander around office just to stand up and uh yeah i'm going to call it four in quarter of an hour so uh that's gonna be an hour-long call and then i've still got quite a bit to do this evening drafting these documents still haven't managed to get through everything and had a call earlier with the associate i mentioned and have another task to do off the back of that so yeah pretty much just drafting again today one of the big tasks i've got to do a little bit later is drafting some board minutes and ball minutes are basically documents that a board of directors of a company um kind of produce and they'll go to a board meeting where they'll make decisions on behalf of a company and the board minutes are the things that record all of the decisions that were made and they have kind of a standard form just so the company moving forward can always show yes the directors decided that the company was authorized to do these things and so that therefore there's no argument in future oh well the company like wasn't authorized to enter into these documents no it was because we have board minutes showing that the board of directors approved the transaction and all of the documents so yeah that's why i'm going to be drafting straight after this call wish me luck so i've just got off a two-hour call um going through kind of key outstanding points on the transaction that i've been working on pretty much all day and there was a really productive and useful call and i think one of the things i really enjoy in this department is being involved on client calls and really getting to understand the rationale and the logic behind kind of the give and take between different parties the buyer and the seller in deals so that is really cool getting to that kind of commercial side now it's going to be a bit of a late one this evening i feel it's already nearly 6 p.m and i've just ordered dinner which will be delivered to my desk another huge benefit at the moment of being in the office um we get free dinner if we stay working late fill up my water bottle and have a little wander around get stretch my legs and then get back to really focus for a couple of hours hopefully this evening i've got another very quick team catch-up call following this call in a few minutes i'm going to join that and then after that i will be cracking on with kind of my own work again all on this deal drafting and then a couple of other transaction management bits sending emails that kind of thing oh and also just add i mentioned sending emails um one thing i've really been trying to work on because this department we get tons of emails coming into our inbox all day so if you are in a similar position maybe try this i've basically been trying to always ask myself like does this email need to be replied to kind of instantly or at least you know within a few hours often the answer is actually no and so i'm really trying to prioritize kind of focusing on my own work that i need to get done and then kind of answering emails that aren't super urgent when i'm in a slightly less focused state of mind so today i've had loads of work that's been kind of deep focused work that i've needed to get done and so i've really tried to avoid just getting bogged down in emails that frankly like aren't super urgent and just don't need to be replied to even today but i will probably reply to them just later this evening so while i was on my last team catch-up call dinner was delivered and it is a very good day to be alive when you are delivered to your desk this wonderful salmon teriyaki delicious and sophie down the corridor who was camera shy earlier today does often comment that i may turn into a salmon because i eat it so regularly it is my favorite thing on the menu for the dinner service here yeah it's free big perk and uh yeah i'm gonna eat that while just reading through some bits and hopefully not be here for more than another hour or so i reckon so it's 9pm and yeah my plan to leave the office in about an hour hasn't quite worked but i'm nearly done with the task i'm currently working on um should have it done in the next kind of hopefully half an hour and then i'm definitely gonna go home for the evening have a good chill out it's been a long old day but a really productive one i've got tons done i really enjoyed the office tour this morning and yeah the work i've been doing drafting has actually been like really enjoyable i've had kind of good amount to think about when doing it really kind of get my teeth into some of the issues on this deal um that basically came out of the call that i was on this afternoon all afternoon so yeah feeling feeling good feeling happy about the work i've been doing um and yeah ready for a bit of a chill out this evening all righty so half past nine and i am done for the day so time to pack my stuff up and try and rush to not miss the next dlr home i feel like i've taken an awful lot of video in this lift today been going up and down a lot i guess anyway home time now so here we are in canary wharf of the nighttime and i obviously haven't managed to go out for drinks after work today because i was working until too late but i did want to say that you know generally on a thursday or friday i do try and get out like maybe once every two or three weeks with friends and make sure we go for drinks just been particularly busy today so i haven't had a chance but hey there are tons of cool places to go in canary wharf and um yeah this is what i sort of probably would have done if i'd finished at a reasonable time so just to add i hope that you guys have been appreciating all of the lovely shots i've been getting for you over the last half an hour just very much missed the dlr so i have to wait 10 minutes for the next one you know i was going to run but then thought hey a few people are worth it to get the sexy shots of canary wharf so i hope you've enjoyed you know seeing what my day is really like um i'm gonna stand at the station on my own waiting for the train um if you've enjoyed this video please do give it a like subscribe ask me any questions you have in the comments and i look forward to seeing you again very soon you can also watch another day in the life of a corporate lawyer when i was working from home if you are interested in that and i will speak to you again very soon

Channel: Liam Porritt

Views: 982,533

Keywords: corporate lawyer, day in the life of a corporate lawyer, lawyer day in the life, corporate lawyer day in the life, should I become a lawyer, law, lawyer, how to become a lawyer, corporate lawyer job description, what do lawyers do, should I be a lawyer, life as a lawyer, working as a lawyer, what is it like being a lawyer, law student, training contract, Clifford Chance, Clifford Chance training contract, trainee lawyer, day in the life of a trainee, magic circle

Id: LcUwDyTfbaA

Length: 18min 38sec (1118 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 26 2021