Mayer Brown International LLP - True Picture

Firm profile 

Mayer Brown is an international law firm positioned to represent the world’s major corporations, funds, and financial institutions in their most important and complex transactions and disputes, with significant presence in the world’s five largest financial centres – New York, London, Singapore, Hong Kong and San Francisco – markets which are the backbone of the global economy.

We are recognised by our clients as strategic partners with deep commercial instincts and a commitment to creatively anticipating their needs and delivering excellence in everything we do. The firm’s ‘one-firm’ culture — seamless and integrated across all practices and regions — ensures that clients receive the best of our lawyers’ collective knowledge and experience.  

Main areas of work 

Our lawyers have expertise across a wide range of areas including corporate, finance, real estate, litigation (including dispute resolution, construction, antitrust and competition), employment, pensions, tax, financial services regulatory and intellectual property. 

Training opportunities 

Our training contract offers four six-month seats which you can tailor across a broad range of our main practice areas in London (as listed above), and client secondments. While Mayer Brown is a global law firm, our London office remains a tightly knit team with an open and inclusive culture. You will be given significant opportunities to assist on matters which may be multidisciplinary, cross-border, complex and high-profile in nature. We are looking for candidates who not only have a consistently strong academic record, but also who have a wide range of interests and achievements outside their academic career. Additionally, we would like to see innovative candidates who can demonstrate a drive for results, good verbal and written communication skills, and an ability to analyse, with good judgement and excellent interpersonal skills.  

Vacation schemes 

We run two two-week vacation schemes each year; one in the spring (March-April) and one in the summer (June). You will gain experience in two key practice areas and be involved in seminars, training sessions, and social events to help you get to know the firm in an informal and authentic environment. Our vacation schemes are the main pipeline for our training contracts each year; we welcome applications from penultimate and final year Law undergraduates, final year non-Law undergraduates and graduates too.   

Open days and first-year opportunities 

We offer a number of open days throughout the year. Please see our website or social media channels for dates and how to apply. 

Diversity, inclusion and wellbeing
At Mayer Brown, we aim to cultivate a work environment in which we embrace, respect and value inclusivity and diversity. By demonstrating respect, both within and beyond our workplace, we support and celebrate our differences, while strengthening the productivity, creativity and effectiveness of our firm. Creating and maintaining a more inclusive and diverse work environment is one of our key priorities, and this has spurred many of our Diversity & Inclusion initiatives. We drive these initiatives through our recruitment, training, mentoring, promotion, allocation of work and opportunities, expanding and developing our diversity networks and setting diversity targets.

In our London office we have five employee networks:
•Women’s Network (R.A.W), with a mission statement to ensure that no woman at Mayer Brown experiences obstacles to her position at Mayer Brown because she is a woman, which is open to everyone (regardless of role or gender);
•Enable Network aiming to enable all at the firm regardless of disabilities, physical and mental health conditions, medical diagnoses, personal difficulties or challenges;
•Fusion Network to represent those from diverse ethnic minority backgrounds;
•Work & Me Network as a forum for all individuals with caring responsibilities outside of work; and
•LGBT+ Network for all LGBTQ+ staff and allies to meet, support and interact with one another, and for diverse role models to be visible.

We also have a working group dedicated to social mobility.

Our networks regularly hold events, and previous highlights include a talk and panel discussion on colour blindness vs colour braveness, an evening discussion and Q&A with Jake Graf, an award-winning actor, film-maker, transgender rights activist and co-author of Becoming Us: A Story of Transgender Love, Joy and Family, a women’s health event, and a speaker discussing life with Asperger’s.

We have launched several initiatives focused on employee mental and physical wellbeing, which is vital to create an inclusive culture. These include a global wellbeing month and a global mental health week. We have an on-site counsellor to support mental health. Recognising we can all help to eliminate the stigma associated with poor mental health, we have a team of mental health first aiders and we hold a range of events and seminars to promote mental health, such as an eight-week mindfulness course, suicide prevention training and talks on financial wellbeing, beating the winter blues, pushing past anxiety and on creating optimal sleep.

We work with Aspiring Solicitors (AS), Brightnetwork, Sponsors of Educational Opportunity (SEO), MyPlus Consulting and many other organisations to provide students from under-represented groups with training, mentoring, networking and work experience.