Macfarlanes LLP - True Picture

Macfarlanes training contract review 2025

The Firm

Life in the heart of the capital is very much in the fast lane, especially in amongst the clambering crowd of competing law firms. Macfarlanes, meanwhile, offers a change of pace: “It’s unique as it’s the only law firm at its level where private client stands toe-to-toe with its corporate and litigation practices,” insiders proudly claimed. As a signal of its market strength, the London home office and Brussels base have together brought in £296 million in revenue.

Indeed, Macfarlanes bags national, top-tier Chambers UK recognition for its private equity and investment funds work. In London, it scoops up equally shiny accolades for its corporate/M&A, banking & finance and tax expertise, the latter of which also gets a shoutout from Chambers Global. The firm continues to collect merits for litigation, real estate, fund finance and mid-market lenderworkas well. Keeping true to its private client roots, Macfarlanes is one of the best of the best in private wealth law, private wealth disputes, private client tax and family office & funds structuring, according to the Chambers High Net Worth guide.

“No matter what you’re doing, you’ll be in safe hands.”

The quality of training was also a massive standout appeal for newbies, one of whom emphasised, “I didn’t want to drown in an enormous firm with hundreds of trainees. I was looking for somewhere with a focus on training, where they would push me and teach me an awful lot.” Many praised the level of support on offer as well, highlighting how “no matter what you’re doing, you’ll be in safe hands. People are attentive and quickly pick you up.” As one ambitious trainee reminded, “I’m building the foundations of my career here, and it’s a place where they’re keen for you to stay on.”

The Seats

Incoming trainees pick their top three choices from two groups (so that’s six in total) ahead of each seat, and catch up with early legal careers to discuss their goals: “About a month before the next rotation we meet so they can ask how we found our previous seat, and if we have any ideas as to where we’d like to qualify before formally submitting our options.” A word to the wise, according to our top-secret sources, is “if you want something really popular like employment, you should put that at number one from the start.”

Corporate and private client may be the practices that have built the firm but, today, litigation is a key player at Macfarlanes. It is the biggest practice in terms of revenue and headcount, and takes on cases that match this scale. Do you recall the headline-catching Bitcoin Identity Case? Well, the team at Macfarlanes successfully represented the 13 Bitcoin developers who were sued by Dr Craig Wright (who claimed to be Bitcoin’s founder) over the alleged breach of his supposedly hundreds of billions of pounds’ worth of intellectual property. More broadly, the team also tackles a whole host of disputes, including fraud, white-collar investigations, international arbitration, construction litigation and corporate crime. “The stakes are high, so there’s a lot more oversight in litigation,” trainees flagged, “It’s not to say that you don’t get any responsibility, though, as you do the work that’s needed.” Despite the high stakes, some trainees were able to “make an initial draft of letters and emails.” Keeping on top of deadlines is a key task, however, with bundling, reviewing and legal research shaping a large portion of trainees’ workloads. Sources also noted that, on the research side, “there’s been a lot coming in around the Economic Crime and Transparency Bill, as corporates are ensuring they have the right policies and procedures in place.”

On the other side of the coin, the firm’s corporate practice encompasses private and public M&A, private equity, and corporate advisory work. As a “fast-paced” team, there are opportunities to explore multiple areas of the practice. Project management is a central part of the rookie experience, alongside due diligence, liaising with local counsel and drafting ancillary documents. Insiders agreed, “you have lots of responsibility – it’s the beauty of the corporate seat!” In one recent deal, the team advised luxury group Rocco Forte Hotels in connection to the sale of its £1.3 billion minority stake to the Public Investment Fund of Saudi Arabia. Beyond this, the team works with a bunch of familiar names, including Capital One and Superdry.

“You feel like an integral part of the team.”

The banking & finance team handles both the borrower and lender sides of deals. As a broad practice, it spans the likes of structured and leveraged finance, fund finance, real estate finance and restructuring & insolvency. It works across sectors too, and the team recently took the wheel on the acquisition financing for Epiris’s carve-out acquisition of automotive parts supplier, GSF Car Parts. Trainees in this seat also handle project management, but explained that “you feel like an integral part of the team, managing the conditions precedent checklist and pushing the deal along.” Newbies here are responsible for drafting ancillary documents such as corporate authorities and board minutes but, “as the seat progresses, it gets more complex. I’ve drafted short-form Issuing and Purchase Agreements and security agreements.” Aside from this, trainees get to attend client calls to gain a better insight into how negotiations play out.

In the firm’s renowned private client practice, “we advise high-net-worth individuals and family offices on wealth and succession planning, and it can involve anything.” Such as? According to one source, it could be “pre-arrival and pre-departure planning, administrative estate planning, charity work, private, tax, or even company reorganisation at the shareholder level.” With a mix of disputes, corporate and advisory work, there’s certainly plenty for newbies to get stuck into. Despite specific client names understandably remaining under lock and key, trainees in the group are often in front of clients: “The meetings are a bit more face-to-face, so you can learn soft skills from watching how partners interact with them.” Back at their desks, trainees will typically be responsible for legal research and “taking the first draft of domicile planning notes, wills and trusts. You’re responsible for getting those trusts signed, too.”

“In private funds, we operate at the mid-market level, and get involved in all stages of fund formations,” a trainee outlined. Vanguard, Jupiter and Legal & General are just a sample of the private equity manager clients on the books here. The team also continues to advise abrdn on a variety of matters, including the recognition of an Irish fund range for marketing to investors post-Brexit. “It’s varied, and trainees take responsibility of the funds checklist, legal research and regulatory analysis,” a source detailed, “You get the chance to draft subscription agreements and side letters for investors, and sometimes parts of the Limited Partnership Agreements that govern the funds.”

A stint in financial services and products exposes its trainees to regulated funds and general regulatory financial work. The contentious side of the practice comes with regulatory disputes, enforcement actions and investigations. The team continues to defend NatWest in a series of high-profile (think £2 to 3 billion!) claims arising from allegations that a group of world-leading investment banks breached competition law. On the non-contentious side, “most of the work is focused on regulated funds. We draft disclosure documents for ESG funds so that investors can verify that their funds are indeed sustainable.” Insiders explained that, as a trainee, “you’re not doing all the legal work, but you’re still doing legal research for clients. A decent amount of that work is ESG-related.”

“They want you to be the best you can be.”

Trainee Life

Macfarlanes is based in not one, but four buildings, right off Chancery Lane.According to interviewees, “it feels like a university campus. It’s not intense like Liverpool Street, so it’s nice and quiet when you arrive in the morning.” Trainees are expected to be in the office four days a week, where they sit with their primary supervisor and have their secondary supervisor to hand. According to an insider, “the firm is conscious about making sure that senior associates and partners are suited to the role and are accepting of people who don’t know what they are doing.”Training offers further support for trainees and “varies. Some departments front load it while others spread it out – either way, it’s thorough. You’re also invited to departmental sessions, too, and it’s nice to feel part of the group.” This meant that insiders felt supported as they progressed, noting that “they want you to be the best you can be.”

“There’s unlimited free coffee, which is great for feeding my burgeoning caffeine addiction,” insiders joked. Though we can’t promise any health benefits, it certainly does some moral good - 50p is donated to the firm’s charity of the year (currently Dementia UK) for each cup. Of course, this provides the perfect social setting as “the open-plan kitchen is set up for us to grab coffees with our peers.” There’s space for firmwide social events on the calendar as well as department socials and dedicated trainee events: “They make them as inclusive as possible, so they’re not focused on drinking. We’ve done a cooking class, bingo evening, and a family-style sharing meal.”

Diversity, equity and inclusion was also on the minds of our interviewees, who commented, “Macs might not have the best stats, but it makes up for it with inclusivity. There’s always a real effort.” With a variety of networks to join, the firm hosts an array of events for religious and cultural festivals, such as Lunar New Year, Diwali and Ramadan. For one trainee, “my personal favourite is Burns Night. Two Scottish partners read the poem, there’s a bagpipe player, and we eat haggis and have a ceilidh!” Sources were also optimistic about representation improving among the junior ranks, noting how “lots of senior associates went to private schools or Oxbridge, but I’ve never felt out of place amongst my trainee and junior associate colleagues.” What’s more, Macfarlanes offers a dedicated Brunel Scholarship, which covers university fees and comes with work experience at the firm. Sources were also keen to highlight the firm’s upReach programme, which is “a mini vac scheme for people from lower socio-economic and diverse backgrounds. They get a trainee supervisor, and we help with mock assessment scenarios and networking.”

It's fair to say that the legal profession doesn’t exactly come with your average nine to five. Although there’s no ‘average day’ according to trainees at Macfarlanes, they indicated that “you can be comfortably done by 7pm if you crack on.” There’s also a careful effort to make sure trainees aren’t overworked as some practices have a centralised work allocation system in place as a safety net. As a general guide, hours vary depending on the week and seat, and the peaks and troughs of transactional work mean “you can be working through the night, but it’s not constant.” So, insiders felt that their compensation is not only reflective of their hard work, but “much greater than what we applied for. It’s pretty generous.” The NQ salary in particular has shot up, jumping from £115k to £140k.

“… the cheesy saying about recruiting partners for the future rings true!”

Qualification doesn’t just spring up out of nowhere as trainees “have lots of catch-ups with early legal careers about what we’re thinking ahead of time.” The process formally kicks off six weeks into the fourth seat, when all trainees including second years are invited to a presentation outlining the jobs list and key dates and details. Some departments, such as private funds and litigation, always interview, but this isn’t the case for all NQ roles. Oversubscribed departments may carry out both interviews and assessments, which are technical in nature. On the whole, sources agreed that “the process works. They invest a lot in our training, and the cheesy saying about recruiting partners for the future rings true!” In 2024, Macfarlanes retained 26 out of 32 qualifiers.

How to get a training contract at Macfarlanes

• Vacation scheme deadline (2025): Friday 3 January 2025
• First-year insight scheme deadline (2025): Friday 24 January 2025
• Training programme deadline (2027): Friday 27 June 2025 

Vacation scheme

Macfarlanes hosts a number of networking events, in-house presentations, as well as its flagship events, including a virtual practice area open day, which allows students to explore each of the various practice areas, a Q&A with their senior partner and a dinner with their senior partner. In addition, the firm organises skills sessions and workshops at universities around the country, so we recommend keeping a close eye on the firm's website to find out when a Macfarlanes representative may be stopping by.  

 “We want students to have the opportunity to meet everyone from the senior partner to our future trainees,” says senior manager, early legal careers Catherine Morgan-Guest.  

50% of trainees will have completed a vacation scheme with the firm. There are three schemes – one in spring and two over the summer – and each lasts two weeks. There are around 65 places in total across the three schemes, with pay that matches the London living wage.  

Typical vacation scheme tasks include research, drafting and sitting in on meetings with clients or counsel. “We want students to feel what it's like to be a trainee,” say early legal careers. Students sit in two different practice areas but also complete a mock transaction alongside other training sessions. Recent social highlights include crazy golf, flight club, a lunch and networking with the partners and a dinner on the penultimate night.  

Vacation scheme hopefuls can apply online. The firm typically receives over 2,000 applications each year. Macfarlanes looks for a predicted 2:1 degree result or above, but doesn’t have a minimum A level requirement. If you have extenuating circumstances which mean that you do not meet these requirements, you can still apply and detail these circumstances in your application form. You can also arrange a call with the early legal careers team to discuss further. The firm advises applicants to “make sure you can talk about us and what we do – in order to stand out you need to show a detailed and specific interest in Macfarlanes.”  

Vacation scheme students have the chance to be assessed for a training programme during their vacation scheme. Those who opt to do this attend an application interview and undertake ‘application blind’ assessments, which include a written exercise and a business case study exercise. With diversity and inclusion an important priority, the firm partners with several organisations to support this.

Applications  

“I’ve been told that our application process is tougher than other firms,” revealed training principal Jat Bains. To impress during the application process, Bains said it’s important to demonstrate certain traits: “Obviously we’re looking for brain power, but we also want people who work well with others and who are resilient to the demands of clients. Applicants need to demonstrate commerciality, practicality, ambition and a desire to work within the firm.”  

Macfarlanes receives another 1,700 applications from candidates gunning directly for its training programme; the application form is the same one that is used for the vac scheme.  

Around 15% of direct training programme applicants are invited in for an assessment day, which lasts from 9am until 2pm. The day involves a partner interview, plus two ‘application blind’ assessments, which include a written exercise and a business case study exercise.  

The interview covers the applicant’s motivation for a career in law at Macfarlanes and a discussion around their application. One of the assessments requires applicants to talk through two different business case studies (which have been designed to test their commercial awareness) with a partner and senior solicitor who won’t have seen their application.  

The day also includes a written exercise which often takes the form of drafting a letter. “Just like their application form, we're looking at how a candidate analyses and communicates their findings, and how they're able to tailor their voice and style to the needs of the imagined audience. It's a great way to test their spelling and grammar too,” says Catherine Morgan-Guest.   Candidates have a chance to speak with trainees and early legal careers over lunch.  

It's worth noting that Macfarlanes doesn't recruit on a rolling basis and waits until the application deadline has passed to review applications. Those who are concerned about a lack of legal experience can be reassured that the firm sees the value in all types of work experience. “Our application process isn’t a case of who you know or how many internships you’ve done, it’s about personal attributes,” says Jat Bains.