Riding the waves
Over the past forty years Bates Wells & Braithwaite has established itself as a leader working for the charity and social enterprise sector. It currently acts for over 1,000 charities, and has some impressive national and international names on its books, including the Eden Project, the RSPCA and WaterAid. In fact, work for charities and not-for-profit organisations constitutes 60% of BWB’s annual turnover, and you'll see a smattering of it in each of the firm’s departments, from employment to dispute resolution. Trainees bask in the loveliness of working alongside such organisations. “It is nice working with charities,” claimed one. “You get to act for really cool clients and keep your conscience clean.”
David Cameron’s 'Big Society' masterplan has had major consequences for the Third Sector (see our bonus feature), so how has BWB fared at a time when so many of its clients' wallets are feeling the pinch? “If organisations are cutting back, that tends to produce lots of turbulence. Organisations need to merge, cut down on staffing, or challenge local authorities, which all generates work for lawyers,” explained partnership executive officer Peter Bennett. With more secondary schools transforming into academies, and so many quangos becoming social enterprises, Bennett foresees a busy few years ahead for his firm's charity experts. “Our strategy is to ride the wave of those public policy changes, making sure we keep ourselves on top of that wave, able to engage with the opportunities that those changes open up.”
Another central element of BWB’s strategy is to expand its corporate and commercial team. This department has witnessed a big increase in M&A work, welcoming a raft of new corporate clients since 2010, spanning the media, fashion, finance and not-for-profit sectors. Bates Wells is also extremely well regarded for its immigration, public law and media departments, which are all highly ranked by Chambers UK.
Charitable trust
Trainees choose a ‘flight path’, through a five-seat training contract. Basically, training co-ordinators map out several flight paths in advance and trainees express their preferences for which path they want. In the past, if there has been an option that nobody wanted, these have been shuffled around. According to one trainee: “It’s good to know that you have a bit of an input." They also appreciated the opportunity to spend six months in each seat in the first year as they settled in, before experiencing three four-month seats in their second year. Every flight path includes stops in charity, dispute resolution and either employment or property, while the other options are corporate/commercial and immigration.
Charity is by far BWB’s biggest department and all trainees pass through the seat at some stage. As a leader in his field, department head Stephen Lloyd “has license to invent new and interesting solutions to things. That means that the work is really interesting on both a practical and an academic level.” In 2010, the team advised numerous government bodies, such as the Design Council, shift their status to independent charities. “Being part of the best charity department in the country is very exciting and fast paced. It was manic from the day I sat down until the day I left,” claimed one source. Despite the charity focus of its clients, the department is deeply rooted in commercial law. “Essentially, it is the bread and butter work you would do for companies, but for people that are more interesting.” Trainees are often involved with drafting contracts and constitutions, and are the first point of contact for numerous clients. “The work in charity is repetitive enough that someone junior can get on with it, but it’s not repeat work like property – you have to put your brain into gear.”
Gangsta Luv
The head of the immigration team, Philip Trott, has many commendations from legal directories on his web bio. A quote from Chambers UK 2011, for example, highlights his 'exceptional level of knowledge.' We can't understand why this glowing quote from last year's Student Guide isn't included: 'P.I.M.P. (Prime IMmigration Partner) Trott acted on Snoop Dizzle's immigrizzle bizzle.' Yes, Trott has a following among the rap community, advising 50 Cent, P Diddy and Busta Rhymes on their legal entry into the UK. The big man even reportedly accompanied Mr Dogg onto his private plane to ensure his smooth passage through immigration control, and followed him onto the stage at Glastonbury 2010. “Despite it being a small team, the experience is fantastic,” claimed one source. “If you have the capability and knowledge they let you get involved.” Trainees draft witness statements and liaise with clients and barristers. “The seat is very much about man-managing and people-handling. Although it’s corporate, it is a very personal issue. You have to be emotionally mature.”
BWB’s compulsory dispute resolution seat is a mixed bag. There are opportunities for trainees to gain exposure to public and regulatory law, working for clients such as the Advertising Standards Authority, and to smaller commercial disputes and sometimes even the odd contentious probate case. While the firm tries to avoid litigation when charities are involved, when this does occur trainees “get to experience some quite novel points of law.” On a daily basis, trainees are involved in drafting witness statements, filing court applications, liaising with clients and barristers, and have the occasional opportunity for advocacy.
The growing corporate department focuses on small to medium-sized enterprises from various sectors. “We can offer clients City expertise without being a corporate machine, churning them in and out,” claimed one source. Work tends to ebb and flow, but at busy times trainees can expect a more traditional corporate workload, with longer hours and extremely fast turnarounds. Clients include finnCap, Progressive Digital Media and nano-coatings technology company p2i.
When it comes to the property seat, charity clients have a very different focus to for-profit organisations, which “is really interesting. Sometimes they have a lot of supporters and you have to handle their emotional attachment to a property.” The same goes for the employment seat, where trainees work on quirky matters such as the status of volunteers, religious beliefs and cross-border issues. Trainees in this department draft letters of advice and witness statements, attend tribunals and take on their own advocacy. In every seat the consensus among BWB’s appreciative trainees is that “you are always closely supervised, but allowed to really run with things and take the lead.”
Lording it up
“We are a City firm: we belong in the City. But we’re not commercially mad and there’s no pound-of-flesh-seeking.” Trainees only very rarely stay in the office past 8pm. Furthermore, “we are treated well and respected. Partners don’t bark orders at you: it is much more collaborative than that.” This attitude is epitomised by BWB’s founder and Lib Dem peer, the “generally banterful” Andrew Phillips. He pops into the office every week to say hello and has even been known to give trainees and paralegals a tour of the House of Lords.
People tend to congregate in the Wine Tun, the pub underneath the “sophisticated but understated” offices, on Friday evenings. A social committee also organises more structured events, including the annual summer ‘away day’, which bizarrely always features a boat trip and a steel band: “We have no idea where that tradition came from.”
And finally...
The run up to qualification is structured and transparent, and BWB has a pretty good record for retaining its trainees. In 2011, three of four qualifiers took up jobs at the firm.