London Careers

7:15am: I wake up and walk to the gym (my gym is, conveniently, between my flat and the office). I listen to the latest FT News Briefing podcast on my walk (the podcasts are only 10 minutes long and quite interesting – would recommend).

9:20am: I get into the office, grab some breakfast and most importantly a coffee! I will usually have checked my emails on my phone by this time and know what needs urgent (or not so urgent) attention. Once at my desk, I filter through and reply to any new emails and make a note of everything I need to deal with on a given day (and over the next couple of days) – who doesn’t love a nice list of things they need to do that they can then (hopefully) tick off as the day progresses? If more things come up that I need to work on/address, I add them to my list throughout the day so I don’t accidentally forget anything.

10am: We often have training sessions/team meetings at this time, so I walk downstairs to one of our meeting rooms and catch up with my colleagues. If there are any topics that have particularly grabbed my attention from the team meeting, I make a note of them to research them further or to catch up on them with someone else from my team.

11am: I’m back at my desk after our team meeting. I catch up with my supervisor as we are working on a deal together at the moment – we discuss what needs to be done and I crack on with my work for the day! I’m liaising with our clients to gather certain missing corporate information which will need to be sent to a notary in Luxembourg. The work undertaken by the Financial Restructuring team is very multi-jurisdictional, so you are always working with legal counsel from different countries. It’s exciting as you get to see how legal systems work across different jurisdictions.

12:00pm: I go to the atrium and grab lunch with my friends (the other trainees).

1:30pm: I join a client call with my colleagues as we are discussing the next steps in the restructuring process of the deal that we’re working on. Closing is coming up at the end of the week so we need to get things finalised, especially as we hold the pen on a number of documents (and so need to manage the signing process). I take some notes on the call for my personal understanding as I learn the most when I write things down.

2:30pm: I catch up with one of my colleagues on another deal that I’m working on – I’m helping with the transactional/document management side of that deal. As I’ve only started helping out on this deal recently, I ask him a couple of questions that I have on the overall structure of the deal and the latest updates – I love knowing what the bigger picture of anything I’m working on is as it helps give colour to what I’m contributing towards in my work.

3:30pm: I grab a quick coffee with one of my colleagues from my previous seat – now that we’re in the office it’s so nice to catch up with people in person!

4:00pm: I return to my desk and work on a pro bono project that I have been involved in over the last couple of months – I am currently drafting board resolutions that will be used by the company. The firm is very good at encouraging pro bono work and I have been enjoying helping out on a couple of different pro bono matters since joining Milbank last year.

5:00pm: We have another call – this time with the client’s financial advisers. After the call, I quickly catch up with our deal team (there are four of us working on this deal – myself, my supervisor, a senior associate and a partner). We discuss our next steps.

6:00pm: I send out a couple of emails and prepare a draft invoice email for a deal I’m working on – we send these out every two weeks. I forward my draft to my supervisor so she can take a look at it before we share it with the partner on the deal.

6:30pm: We have team dinner & drinks today so I leave the office with my colleagues to grab something to eat!