Avoid the nutters and look out for number one

Dominic Webb recalls the strategies that got him through his training contract

Forget the recruitment brochures and student law fairs. Want to find out what life as a trainee in a big City law firm is really like? Read on...

One feature of many training contracts is the first year being harder than the second. That's partly because you pick up things along the way to make your life easier, but in truth it's mainly because you're more likely to be placed into a sweatshop department in your first two seats.

This is a recurring theme, virtually unspoken by the recruiters because of the hugely complex jigsaw puzzle called the seat allocation process. Throw in a hundred plus pushy young trainees who all know exactly what they want, a wealth of departmental heads saying how many trainees they do or don't need - and you have an administrative nightmare.

The unfortunate consequences are twofold. First, the vast majority of trainees have to make serious compromises about the seats they do. Second, the more junior trainees - namely, first and second seaters - get put into the departments that the more senior ones don't want. Those departments tend to have the worst hours or the most boring work, and both in some cases.

Prospective trainees may have heard about ‘transaction management' - which is what the majority of trainee work is in big corporate and finance departments. Essentially it involves organising the massive number of documents on whatever deals you are working on. It's purely administrative and doesn't give you much chance to put into practice the law you've spent several years learning. But it does help familiarise you with the many complex documents of a transaction, so it's a good way to learn the ropes. It just isn't much fun at the time. Proof-reading and putting through your supervisor's amendments to documents will probably make up much of the rest of what you do. The litigation equivalent is producing bundles and huge-scale document review.

Having said all that, the experience you have as a trainee varies massively depending on what departments you get and what supervisor you sit with. Some supervisors will do everything they can to shelter you from uninteresting work and long hours; others will quite happily dump both on you in spades (and sit by and watch their colleagues do the same). Whether you spend a fantastic six months getting involved in interesting work and having a life outside the office, or live week after week in utter misery, all too often comes down to the luck of the draw.

Canny trainees soon realise that there are ways of helping yourself. While there's always a prospect of being given the unreasonable supervisor from hell who doesn't have a life and is determined that you won't either, you can minimise the possibility. For example, it's only sensible to ask your peers about the best and worst supervisors before you move seats. I was amazed at the number of trainees during my time that didn't put in requests for certain supervisors in their next department.

Similarly, once you are in your department, it shouldn't take long to work out which of your new colleagues are nice and normal, and which simply aren't. The overly keen trainee who goes round offering help to everyone will probably come to regret it. Far more sensible is to offer your services to the reasonable folk who won't be afraid to tell others that you're too busy working for them when the nutters come knocking.

Don't get me wrong, your two years shouldn't be one long battle to avoid hard graft. But a little bit of common sense goes a long way. Look out for number one - because, as time goes by, you can be sure that's what everyone else will be doing.

Dominic Webb (name changed) is a solicitor at a private client firm, having trained with a magic circle firm.

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