Trainee Solicitor

I am a first seat trainee in the Construction subgroup of Real Estate at Ashurst and it's been a great team to start in. Construction, like most corporate law, is contracts-based work, but I really enjoy that there's a tangible product at the end of the project, whether that's a data centre, a commercial building, or a life sciences facility. A lot of my time is spent supporting the appointment of architects, engineers, or any other specialist a project may require, but generally I can do anything spanning the lifecycle of a building including any subsequent sale, lease, or re-financing of a project. I love the substance of my work and a lot of it is very novel, for example, my work for Great British Nuclear. I also enjoy the autonomy of having been trusted to run my own workstream with light touch supervision and to liaise with clients and counterparties directly a lot, especially this early in my training. In terms of challenges, Construction has been quite unique in that I am working on many different matters at once and developing my project management skills has been a steep learning curve!

My advice to anyone who would like to become a trainee solicitor is to try and enjoy the process. My most successful interviews were those where I left feeling like I had a pleasant and positive conversation with my interviewers – it showed that the culture of the firm was as much a fit for me as I was for it. It is important to remember recruitment is mutual!