ABOUT

Tell us who you are!

Brindha Deb, 24, Trainee Lawyer.

So what do you actually do?

I am completing my training contract at a corporate law firm called Travers Smith. The training contract lasts for two years and you rotate between departments throughout the firm, these are known as 'seats'.

As trainees, we have to get exposure to both transactional work (so deal work like M&A stuff), and also contentious work (for example, when your client has an issue in court). As a trainee therefore, your two years are very varied and you have time to really figure out what type of work you like and don't like.

In terms of where I am within that two year process, I am in my third 'seat' having done my first two in transactional departments (corporate M&A and funds). I am currently sat in a department called 'Dispute Resolution' where I am working on a large case that has lasted for a fairly long time, largely focused on competition economics.

As it is such a big case, people will be on different workstreams and the stuff I am working on involves witness statements! So far, this has involved me learning about the role of important people within large organisations and understanding how we can use their experiences to further our case in front of a judge.

The work has been very different to my transactional seats and has allowed me to get involved in more research tasks looking at what the law says on different subject matters.

What has your career path been?

Getting here definitely wasn't easy, to say the least.

Corporate law is a very competitive industry and I had been applying since my first year of uni. I remember I thought all the hard work paid off when i did an internship at a law firm (we call it vacation schemes in law) and in the end I didn't get the training contract. That basically meant I had to start from scratch when I was in my third year, and that was one of the worst years of my life because I just remember receiving rejection e-mail after rejection e-mail.

I spoke to one of my mentors at the time (at SEO London) and I remember him giving me a pep talk and he told me, if you really want it and you're doing everything you can to make it happen, just trust the process and it will happen. From then I stopped worrying.

What is the best part of your job?

Probably walking in everyday and being challenged.

As I am so junior, everyday I am learning new things and being pushed to understand more about the world of work and what it means to be a lawyer in a tech-driven age, a post-pandemic age and a cultural-shifting age.

The legal industry is going through a lot of change, and I feel proud to be a part of that.

One piece of advice for someone starting in your role?

I said in a recent panel event that if I could go back and tell myself one piece of advice, I would tell myself 'be brave, you are more powerful than you think'.

I stand by that. I was terrified of entering, what seemed like, a very exclusive space but then I realised that according to the trajectory society had planned for me based on my race, where I grew up, gender and learning difficulties, I am not meant to be here, but here I am.

No-one can take those credentials away from me and various other minorities who I continue to be inspired by every single day.

So, if i can overcome barriers that are mostly invisible and hard to decipher, why can't i conquer this one too?

DAY IN THE LIFE

Now that we are entering a hybrid world of work, sometimes I'm logging in from home or in the office. I personally love the balance and think it makes the most sense going forward.

You can't undermine the importance of learning from other lawyers, which is most effective when you are in the office. You also can't undermine the work-life balance that inevitably comes with being able to work from home. Because of this change, my physical setting will look very different sometimes and therefore my day varies, so no one day is really the same!

I normally check my e-mails and sometimes the only thing I will do is that (when things are quiet, which is very rare!). On a busy day, I am in and out of client meetings.

As trainees, we will have to take a note of calls which can be hard especially if multiple different law firms are on the call and all speaking very fast! I then may turn to a task set to me by my supervisor and depending on the deadline it could take up the bulk of my day.

For example, tomorrow, my day will start off by proof-reading the note that I have made and then sending it out to the team, in partnership with the paralegal that I am working with. This could take me up to ten minutes as the attendance note had to be split in half given how long the call was.

Following that, I am then working on setting out a time-line of the commercial relationship between two parties. This involves me looking through historic documents and also commercial deals done between the two parties.

I then will turn to the note that I took of the call to create a table summarising different positions, this will then be sent out to the client. This is a relatively busy day for me and means I will finish around 8pm – 9pm.

On the social side of things, the department I currently work in are a very sociable bunch so I will regularly have partner breakfasts, lunches and dinners.

I also have opportunities to attend loads of interesting events like the UK legal diversity awards, where firms are recognised for different things such as Diversity and Inclusion.