Heron’s home 

Chicago-founded McDermott Will & Emery hopped across the pond to London as recently as 1998. Since then, it has added a further six offices to its European portfolio, with a Parisian outpost the most recent arrival on the scene. A shake-up at the top of the firm in 2009, combined with the global recession, resulted in the departure from the London office of partners from competition, litigation and structured finance, causing those departments to vanish entirely.

There has been a 'refocusing' of the office, “on what we do best rather than being everything to everybody.” The new core areas are corporate, energy, employment, intellectual property, international private client and tax. But, as one trainee explained, “corporate deals will remain an emphasis, as they pull in work for other departments.”

Physical proof that London is still vital to McDermott came early in 2011 when it took up residence in the City’s tallest skyscraper. “The atmosphere has certainly changed,” a source told us. “Before, departments were split across several floors and you’d go weeks without seeing other people. Now, there's a conscious effort to bring the office together.” Another enthused: “It’s amazing what effect a new space can have on the workplace environment. We don’t feel embarrassed by our offices any more.” Optimism is in the air, to the extent that there's talk of expanding on to the currently empty tenth floor of Heron Tower. There's also “talk of bringing litigation back,” revealed one source, “but we’ll have to wait for the right time to expand.”

Shell suits 

The petite trainee intake still has a petite choice of seats (corporate, energy, employment, IP, private client and tax), but despite this restriction we were hard pressed to prise any words of negativity from the cheerful bunch we encountered. Allocation is “really informal” and trainees generally get their seat preferences in the order they want them.

McDermott’s staple service is in mid-market M&A. Trainees confirmed that with smaller corporate clients, “we get more exposure.” Some had even been invited out to meals with clients post-completion. “It was interesting to see deals from start to finish,” one informant told us, “and I also enjoyed liaising directly with the client.” The arrival of a new European head of M&A from White & Case has brought the team some A-lister clients. One is Shell, which it advised on the $640m disposal of part of its business – including over 500 service stations and a refinery – in Sweden and Finland. A trainee in the department got to “lead the disclosure exercise and talked to the clients throughout the deal.” Other organisations instructing the department include sportswear manufacturer Fila, the (unsurprisingly Russian) Sputnik Group, and the German company Intersnack, which makes such treats as Mr Mash, Pom-Bear crisps and Your Nuts. We're not joking.

As the Shell deal indicates, McDermott’s energy focus is on transactions in which major companies “buy and sell assets,” but the work could also encompass things like the monitoring of regulatory developments, advising on power plant and oil regulation, or advising on tax issues related to the energy trade sector. Clients are typically large energy groups, private equity funds or investment banks. Trainees undertake many research-based tasks, but also have the chance to get some drafting under their belts.

Absolut-ly fabulous 

McDermott recently acted for the defendant in the BGC v Tullett Prebron case. Google it if you’re in the dark, as it was a major brawl between City brokers with more drama than a Jacobean tragedy. Love turning to vengeance, thousands of text messages and the ‘missing’ BlackBerrys from which they were sent – all serving to cast a light on the high-end labour market and the more hazy areas of employment law. Trainees lucky enough to work on the BGC case reported “lots of bundling,” but “balanced with more positive stuff – attending witness meetings and drafting letters of advice.” Rather than being overloaded with grunt work into the early hours, one source explained it was “both me and my supervisor doing it,” and confirmed employment as a dynamic seat: “I was jumping around all over the place – getting taxis to court, clients and barristers' chambers.” Another trainee worked on a “gritty and involved” sex discrimination matter “where we acted for the employer. We took 14 witness statements, so there was a lot of client contact. The team were fantastic in letting me come along to meetings, listen in on calls and ask lots of questions.”

The IP team acted for Absolut (makers of the vodka) in a press-friendly suit against the newly rebranded Absolute Radio (makers of Virgin Radio). It's anticipated that the launch of McDermott Paris, led by former Herbert Smith corporate and competition partner Jacques Buhart, “is going to be a big deal for us in London. There should be patent litigation coming our way, as well as the opportunity for associates to go over.” Overseas opportunities currently only arise post-qualification, although there is the chance for trainees to go on secondments to clients such as JPMorgan.

The private client group was undergoing a lull when we did our research and the seat had been merged with tax, but sources said: “They may look at getting a dedicated private client seat back.” For the moment, trainees in the combined tax/private client seat divide their time between acting for “high net worth individuals,” including sportspeople and businessmen and women, and companies – often from overseas, who need to be advised on their UK tax structure.

All our sources agreed that although the general standard was high, supervisors vary: “No one’s had a bad person as supervisor, but some are better at teaching than others. There isn’t the infrastructure in place at the firm for training.” Our sources were keen to convey that feedback on this subject, and other issues, are being taken seriously and addressed by newly appointed recruitment and training officer Katharine Greenfield.

The humane society 

A breakout area encourages people to meet for lunch – “partners and associates just plonk themselves down together” – while regular Friday firm-sponsored drinks also help employees put aside the “intensity of work that would discourage office banter.” McDermott trainees say the firm doesn't have “the people power of magic circle firms” to be able to put together lots of sports teams, but the boys do play football, while some female staff members are contemplating setting up a softball team, and they also attend yoga and pilates classes on one of Heron Tower’s empty floors, making it feel “like a massive dance studio.” Trainees are also starting a “culture society,” with a visit to the Globe to see Much Ado About Nothing planned, “partly because one of our associates is doing his PhD on Shakespeare.” As for the personalities and backgrounds of the trainee group, most had attended leading universities and we understand that a number of them had paralegalled at some point. They were keen on leading relatively normal lives, even midweek. As one put it, “the balance is available,” even taking “the uncertainty of when you will finish work” into account. Our sources said they had mostly been working a “pretty humane” 45 to 50 hours per week.

And finally...

Four out of five qualifiers of 2011 stayed on with McDermott as NQs.