Watch this space, London
Covington & Burling’s profile is still not as high here in the UK as it is elsewhere. “In the US, we are well known – it’s a top ten ‘white shoe’ firm – but here it’s not the same story,” said one trainee. “When I told people I was going to be training at Covington & Burling, the response I often got was ‘Covington and Who?’” However, to ignore this firm would be a mistake. As our trainee source said, it’s big in America, and although it has just three offices outside the USA (in London, Brussels and Beijing), Chambers Global rates it as among the best in the world in two areas in particular – data protection and life sciences.
HR manager Philippa Crompton tells us: “We are so much more than just life sciences.” Indeed, the 60-lawyer London office secures Chambers UK rankings in a number of other areas, notably insurance, international arbitration, private equity and product liability. It must be said that much of the work does focus on the life sciences and the technology and media sectors, but clients are also drawn from many other areas, notably the branded and consumer goods, financial services, manufacturing, media and sports industries. When asked about the future of the London office, life sciences partner Grant Castle invited us to “watch this space” and stated that it would develop in “a big way” in the next few years. In 2008 the strategic plan was to grow 60% by 2012, with an aim to employ 80 lawyers by that point. “We will do that this year [2011] actually – we’re early – so expect us to increase to 100 lawyers in a few years’ time,” said Castle.
All this growth bodes well for future trainees, as Castle confirmed that the plan for expansion revolves around cultivating lawyers from the graduate programme, a point proved by the recent increase in the annual trainee intake, from four to seven. “Technically we have permission to go up to eight, but I think for the foreseeable future we will level out at six new trainees every year.”
Merging entities
Trainees must spend time in both corporate and litigation, but choices for their remaining seats include patent IP, technology and media, life sciences, tax and employment. Tax and employment can constitute separate seats or be combined into one. It can be quite a flexible system, and after each seat trainees will have a biannual “de-briefing” coffee with the training partner in order to “check that you’re still on route” with regards to upcoming seat preferences.
The corporate group is the office's largest. The team includes UK and US-trained lawyers, and most of the work is international in nature. Trainees had gained experience assisting on the integration of pharma giant Merck after its mega-merger with Schering-Plough, which involved “merging the entities one by one in different countries.” Our sources had also analysed asset transfer agreements, drafted shareholder resolutions and written memorandums of advice to clients. The structure of the corporate group means that “you never sit within a discrete department in corporate – you work on it all,” and come away with a breadth of knowledge regarding the various issues that arise in the group.
Covington’s dispute resolution team has acted for Samsung against Nokia and Tom Tom in a spat about alleged cartel activity in certain electronics markets. The team also assists on product liability cases for pharmaceutical manufacturing clients, and there are lawyers who focus on international commercial and treaty arbitrations. Trainees found this seat provided them with a “wide and varied workload,” and were heavily involved in cases ranging from white-collar investigations to advising the animal health arm of a large pharmaceutical client on a dispute concerning a vaccine. Interviewees praised the amount of responsibility bestowed upon them and in some cases were the client’s primary contact.
Drug disputes
The IP/IT department is very popular with trainees. It helps multinational clients on issues surrounding trademarks, copyrights and patents, but also assists on data privacy issues and works closely with the firm’s Washington office. One trainee gave an account of the vast number of clients encountered during this seat, including “telecom companies, large banks, individuals, charities, independent inventors and Microsoft,” and stated that there was a “huge amount of both contentious and transactional IP work.” Expect a lot of drafting and research of data policies in different countries in this “very busy” group. There are two IP/IT seats, one covering the more 'hard' patent IP, the other focusing on 'softer' technology and media IP matters.
Life sciences seats are either regulatory or transactional in nature. In regulatory, our sources described working alongside “every major pharmaceutical company in the top twenty” and found that a lot of the work consisted of one-off questions from clients that required a drafted response. Typical enquiries centred on marketing clinical trials, advertising medicine and advising on manufacturing practice. Regulatory also presents opportunities to work on contentious issues, and trainees helped to co-ordinate an appeal to acquire NHS funding for a new cancer drug. The transactional seat allows trainees to experience the more commercial side of the group – with an increased influx of M&A – and they will often “spend time looking at commercial agreements between parties.” One case concerned the manufacture and supply of a vaccine to a large pharmaceutical company, and enabled trainees to get to grips with “the details of transactions in depth. Tasks include researching points of contract law, writing memos and assisting with drafting, and our contacts had "learnt a lot about the pharmaceutical industry.” Speaking of which: client secondments are increasingly available at big pharma, biotech and medical tech companies, and sources saw this experience as “a real highlight of the training contract.”
Happy as a dog with two tails
“People assume that US firms are all the same, they think it must have that ‘kill-or-be-killed’ mentality, but Covington is not like that at all.” Our interviewees repeatedly stated that the firm has a “personal culture” that is “friendly, warm and engaged.” They felt they were listened to and “treated as equals,” one commenting that partners had listened to their opinion and “ended up researching a transaction differently as a result, which made me feel great and valued as a member of the team.” As one trainee put it: “I’m a lucky dog.”
The type of work carried out at Covington does mean that trainees have to be “happy to be put into challenging situations” straight away. There is a “slightly academic side” to matters and trainees emphasised that they needed to be “creative and think outside the box” regularly, especially in relation to IP policy work. In past years we’ve said that the type of people who go to Covington might traditionally have gone to the Bar – check out the bonus feature on our website for more on this.
Located on the Strand, half of the office’s rooms overlook the Royal Courts of Justice, and one source was especially happy to hear the bells of St Clement Danes’ church ringing ‘Oranges and Lemons’ each morning from just across the street. Trainees enjoy “having the best of all worlds,” as they are close to the City and the RCJ, but also within a short walk of touristy Covent Garden and Theatreland. The office is modern, filled with “lots of sunlight” and some arresting art displays, including a stylishly positioned mattress pinned up on the reception area wall. Trainees hang out in the numerous pubs and wine bars in the area, including Daly’s and The George across the street.
Retention rates are generally good, and the firm always tries to let trainees know about NQ job availability “as early as possible.” In 2011, six of the seven qualifiers stayed on with the firm and when we spoke to trainees in April: “It was the high point of the training contract – my Sally Fields moment” said one source, referring to the actress’s gushing Oscars speech: ‘I can’t deny the fact that you like me, right now, you like me!’
And finally...
Science grads in particular would do well to take a closer look at Covington, but the firm likes to recruit a varied intake, and among those starting in September 2011 were “a vet, a classical linguist, a mathematician and a bio-technician.”