Plain sailing
Three Norton Rose partners left to set up Watson, Farley & Williams in 1982. The firm was founded on shipping and finance and these are still the firm’s strengths – indeed, it claims to have the largest team of dedicated ship finance partners and associates in the world, and Chambers UK puts it in the top tier globally for shipping. However, in December 2010 the firm hired a specialist aviation team and soon after rebranded its shipping finance department as ‘asset finance’, indicating a strategy to be recognised for its expertise in this broader field. The firm’s other key sectors mostly have a connection to asset finance: they are energy, natural resources, transport, real estate and technology. “We’re certainly not just a shipping firm any more,” one trainee assured us.
The firm has 11 non-UK branches. London is the head office and still the largest, but its foreign branches are probably one of the reasons it has weathered the recession so well. WFW experienced a 9% increase in revenue in 2009/10, and it jumped a further 11% in 2010/11, to £88.8m.
Dancing on deck
WFW trainees see six four-month seats. “It’s good, because you never get too comfortable or bored. Just when you feel like you know what you’re doing, you have to move. It keeps you on your toes!” All this pirouetting gives trainees a wide range of experience. All will undertake seats in litigation, corporate and at least one finance team, as well as going overseas for four months. For those who want to specialise, it is usually possible to complete a second seat in the area they hope to qualify into. Before seats are allocated, each trainee has a meeting with a member of the HR team, who “elicits as many options as she can from you,” but also gives trainees the opportunity to make their case for the seats they want. The allocation process tends to accommodate most people, with the majority getting their first or second choices.
The asset finance seat deals largely with shipping, although this year the aviation team took a trainee for the first time. Clients are mainly financial institutions and owners of ships ranging from tankers to cruise liners. Most of WFW’s departments handle a lot of international work, and this is particularly true of asset finance given that a ship, the office it is registered with and the company that owns it are often in different countries. Equally, examination of the financial institutions on the firm’s client list provides an idea of the international scope of its work: Credit Suisse, Swedbank, China Exim Bank, Deutsche Bank, Royal Bank of Scotland, Bank of Nova Scotia and Korea Export-Import Bank are just a few. Typical deals include vessel sales, mortgages and restructuring of loans taken out to buy ships. Trainees are involved in getting documents ready for banks to facilitate loans, liaising with foreign lawyers, attending delivery meetings and dealing with shipping registries. “By the end of the seat, trainees are encouraged to handle ship deliveries basically by themselves.”
Project, commodities and export finance is “a really technical department,” meaning that “second-years get a lot more work than first-years,” although there is always “a fair bit of exposure to clients and other technical advisers.” As well as shipping deals, the department advises on the restructuring of big bank loans, and the financing of projects such as the Belwind wind farm, which is apparently the largest offshore wind farm project financing in the world to date.
The corporate seat offers “a real range of interesting work, and it’s never dull because it tends not to be too repetitive.” Our sources were particularly enthusiastic about the supervision they had in this department. “Everyone likes corporate. They really get you involved, and I got some terrific work from a range of people in the department.” As well as shipping clients (natch), the firm has a good number of AIM-listed clients. There is also a focus on energy: the firm worked for Bayerngas UK on acquisitions relating to gas development projects, and has advised oil companies on their admission to the London AIM market, for example. Standard junior tasks included drafting, minute taking and research. Trainees may be the first point of call for some clients, and can expect a few late nights or weekends in the office. It’s a busy department and it has been known to keep trainees in all weekend.
New waters
There is a “more cerebral” seat available in the tax department. The job of the tax lawyers is to take on particularly difficult queries from the firm’s other departments, which means the work is mainly in-depth research and analysis. “It uses real law and genuine analysis, and you have to come up with your own ideas. Trainees do most of the initial research, and what we come up with is absolutely used.”
Given the nature of the firm, WFW trainees don’t tend to be aspiring litigators, but still enjoy the contentious seat. “We get to act for a lot of clients who can’t go to big firms because of conflicts of interest. Since we don’t act for the huge players, we can act for the smaller person in the case and we are often against magic circle firms in court. We’re working against the real big players in the market.” Of course there is shipping-related work, such as contract disputes regarding the delivery of ships and issues arising from enforcing security on vessels. However, the department has also recently worked on finance, fraud and real estate cases, as well as IT matters that saw trainees “applying thousand-year-old tort laws to the internet.” Trainees carry out a lot of research, draft witness statements and assist partners analysing documents. “It was very hands-on: I was more or less sharing the work with my supervisor,” one told us. There are also seats available in areas including property and employment.
All our interviewees said guaranteed time abroad in Singapore, Bangkok, Piraeus or Paris was a reason they had applied here. These smaller overseas offices are more specialised, so the type of work depends on the location. Piraeus, for instance, is a shipping seat. Several firms send trainees to Greece, so there is “a ready-made group of people to hang out with.” The flat is ten minutes from the office, near the port where the ancient Greeks used to keep their warships. The Paris office is right on the Champs-Élysées, and there is a flat provided a few metro stops away in the historic Le Marais district. The seat in Bangkok mainly covers litigation and arbitration. This is “mainly from a shipping perspective, but we do get all kinds of stuff.” Trainees stay in a modern flat with good transport links and a pool on the roof. The staff are very welcoming and “always make sure you’re doing things at the weekend.” Two trainees at a time go to Singapore, one to litigation and arbitration and the other to shipping finance. The relatively “chilled” lawyers out there are a mixture of expats and Singaporean lawyers trained in British law. The spacious flat has a pool and is situated in the quieter, green area outside the somewhat chaotic centre. If this all sounds quite luxurious, it doesn’t mean trainees don’t work hard. “You’re not really a trainee out there, you’re an assistant. It’s sink or swim, and so far everyone’s swum and come back a lawyer, not a trainee.” It’s worth noting that both the firm and our interviewees advised that trainees complete a seat in the equivalent London department before doing a seat overseas, given that often “the work is very similar but you have a lot more responsibility.”
Ancient mariners?
For such a young firm, it was surprising the number of times we heard it described as “traditional,” or “old school.” Trainees felt that there were modern mechanisms in place – they are entitled to a taxi and meals billed to the client if they stay late – but that “you find out about these things by osmosis, and you get a feeling you’re not supposed to do it.” The firm says it is putting together a handbook to clear up this sort of confusion. A number of our sources also said they would have preferred more structured training. “I think a modern, progressive firm would have a structure where you learn things before you have to deal with them, rather than just learning as you go along,” claimed one. The overall consensus was that the firm “wants to have a modern approach and is bringing in some good things, but there’s a bit of an old-school feel about the place at times.”
On the plus side, little touches like receiving thank-you e-mails make trainees feel their hard work is noticed and appreciated. Our sources described WFW as a friendly place. “I’m on speaking terms with at least half of the 150 lawyers here in London,” one trainee told us. “There are lots of partners and support staff on my corridor, and I chat to them all. There are only a few characters you’d never talk to!” The atmosphere is “relaxed,” with trainees coming to work in open-necked shirts and jumpers rather than suits (we know this thanks to one interviewee and former Student Guide reader who volunteered to describe his outfit to us over the phone, saying he knew we liked to give you these kinds of details).
Several trainees also described WFW as a place where “you can be yourself.” “I didn’t try to make my application sound like anything but me, and they invited me for an interview,” one said. So what kind of person will appeal to the firm? “Ambitious and bright, but human. Someone who is very aware of their standing in organisations, works well in groups, and can go along with the way things are done perfectly happily,” we were told. “I’d say we’re mostly confident, straightforward, quite pragmatic, and up for a laugh,” was one person’s description of the current trainee group. Graduate manager Louise Turgoose says that the firm "looks for people who are committed to the sort of work that happens in the City, but who haven't necessarily made a choice beyond that. We have various practice areas we need people to qualify into, so we like that flexibility towards going down a different road." Many of the intake have international backgrounds or had spent time travelling or learning a foreign language. We hear there are a fair few Durham graduates at the moment, but not many Oxbridgers.
Substance over form
Trainees usually share an office with the partner who acts as their supervisor for the seat. All of our interviewees had worked some late nights, Sundays or bank holidays, but “it’s no worse than any firm of our size, and it’s appreciated when you work hard.” Salaries are comparable with those offered by similar firms, with the added perk of discretionary bonuses once or twice a year.
Out of hours “you won’t find great groups of WFW people anywhere,” but the office is next door to All Bar One and trainees tend to go there or to the nearby Piccolino’s for after-work drinks on Fridays. There are currently teams training for the Three Peaks Challenge and the 10k Legal Walk. The firm sponsors cricket and rugby teams, and several trainees went to Hamburg this year to compete in a football tournament against the other offices. Other highlights of the WFW calendar are the fee earners’ dinner and the Christmas party. Although these events have been scaled down recently to cut costs, the quality of the catering never suffers thanks to in-house French chef Philippe, who also makes the canteen lunches every day and has recently put on cooking classes for staff.
WFW’s home, an inconspicuous brick building near Liverpool Street, “isn’t Slaughter and May’s offices,” but has been recently refurbished in light blues, whites and greys (with the odd orange cupboard). “It’s functional, like the firm,” one trainee told us. “It’s not about image, it’s about what you deliver.”
And finally...
The job list had just been released when we conducted our interviews, and trainees were hopeful about the possibilities of staying on. In the end, ten of 13 qualifiers stayed with the firm in 2011.