Francesca Gray, Associate, M&A
months at the firm. During these seats I would primarily work for the group in which I was sitting, which allowed me to immerse myself fully in the group’s work and to really get to know my colleagues. Throughout this time, I improved my work product and thought processes through both formal feedback at bi-annual reviews and an initial informal review after three months at the firm. I then moved into my third seat in the finance group. As this seat took place during the non-rotational part of the training contract, I was able to work closely with the finance group while seeking out additional work from the MACM group. I built up a solid grounding in finance knowledge learning from Emilie Stewart, with whom I shared an office (and who also trained at the firm), while being part of a MACM team acting for a leading private equity firm as it exited one of its most significant and successful infrastructure investments in Europe. I continued to be involved in deals for the MACM group as I moved into my fourth seat, in the energy, transactions and projects (ETP) team. The experience I had gained during the previous eighteen months was put to good use in assisting the ETP team with their M&A transactions. Due to the size of the trainee intake (now 6) and the size of the London office, responsibility finds you very quickly at V&E. In particular, during the second year of my training contract, I had to manage the expectations of working with different deal teams within the same group and working across different groups. As with most of the training at V&E, I learned to manage the sharp increase in responsibility that comes with learning “on the job”. Whilst challenging at first, I found it vastly more rewarding to go through difficult periods of hard work, managing competing expectations and “plate spinning”, as the experience has prepared me for the step up to junior associate. In reality, if you are up to the task, you will be given the same level of work and responsibility as a junior associate while still being a trainee. The culture in the London office of V&E is friendly and collegiate, which is reflective of the culture of the firm globally. I have witnessed the benefits of this positive culture first hand during the current working from home policy implemented during the Covid-19 pandemic. Deal teams regularly check on my progress and virtual Friday drinks and quizzes have been a welcome break in these uncertain times. It has been a pleasure to be a trainee at V&E, and I very much look forward to seeing what life as a junior associate at the firm has in store.
Vacation Scheme Summer 2015 Training Contract 2017 - 2019
I applied to V&E because I wanted to train at a firm with
a strong global presence and an international book of deals. As a trainee and as an associate, the international nature of my work has certainly lived up to expectations. To date, I have not worked on a single deal that does not have a foreign element to it. In fact, it is very common to be part of a deal team that is comprised of V&E lawyers from V&E offices around the world. I have also worked on a number of deals where we have teamed up with local expert counsel (in Gabon, Thailand and Puerto Rico for example) – so this should give you a flavour for the type of interesting markets we do work in! One particular deal of note involved a transfer of businesses, real estate sites and employees across 72 jurisdictions. For me, another selling point for V&E was the opportunity to spend time working abroad. I spent 6 months of my training contract in the Houston office, and there was no formal application process for my secondment. International secondments are definitely encouraged at V&E so once I made it known that this was something I wanted to do, the training partner worked closely with the team in Houston to make it happen. My secondment to Houston was an invaluable experience (not least because my secondment coincided with the Houston rodeo!) I was able to meet and build relationships with a number of lawyers in our Houston office, many of whom I continue to work with today. Working from the Houston office exposed me to different types of deals and markets that I would not have encountered in the London office. One example is an M&A transaction concerning oil and gas assets in Alaska. The smaller intake of trainees at V&E means that you are not just a cog in a wheel. Trainees are afforded a great deal of responsibility and are a genuine part of any deal team. This has been a steep learning curve, but ultimately has been key to my successful transition to practicing as a qualified junior lawyer.
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