Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer: Benedikt Meyer

It might sound obvious, but working at a firm like Freshfields is a huge change from studying law at university. My professors never phoned me for clarification on what I’d written in an essay, but in my first week here I was already talking clients through the finer points of a document we’d sent over.

That relationship with our clients is at the heart of what we do. You need to understand why they want Freshfields on a project instead of handling it in-house. I spent time on client-side internships while I was studying, so I’ve got an idea of what a legal team will already have done and why they need the extra skills and resources we bring to a project.

I’m currently in a corporate team, where most of our work is in bonds. It’s really relevant at the moment because companies are looking at their financial situation in the prevailing market conditions and consider bond issues as an important means of finance. From the beginning, I was in at the deep end because I was working on the formation of a public company to be used subsequently as an issuer in a very large bond issue. I have also worked on various updates of programmes for issuing bonds on a frequent basis, known as Euro medium-term note programmes. It has been great being part of a team on high-profile transactions for global clients. As well as the client work, I’ve been doing pro bono work for the charity Crisis. It is entering into an alliance with SIFA Fireside to set up a training centre for homeless people in Birmingham. It’s a bit unusual for a trainee to be doing pro bono work so early in the training contract, but it’s something I really wanted to do. Freshfields was very encouraging and it’s great to mix different types of work – especially when the work is this rewarding.