TRAVERS SMITH 

 "...a firm that carries the hallmark of quality."

 Chambers Guide to the UK Legal Profession

Address:
10 Snow Hill, London, EC1A 2AL
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Website: www.traverssmith.com

Company Description

FIRM FACTS

Type of practice: Leading City firm, predominantly corporate/commercial work

Recent work: Examples include: Acquisition of Aston Villa plc, Merger of Saga and AA, The investment by 3i in leading architect firm Foster & Partners

Travers Smith is a City firm with a major corporate/commercial practice. A high proportion of the firm's work has an international dimension - this is dealt with through the firm's Paris office. The firm attracts high quality work, but still offers a professional yet relaxed working environment providing the best of both worlds.

The main areas of our practice are corporate law (including takeovers and mergers, financial services and regulatory laws), commercial law (which includes competition and intellectual property), litigation, corporate recovery/insolvency, tax, employment, pensions, banking and real estate.

TRAINING

The firm has earned a phenomenal reputation in relation to its size. The work we undertake is exciting, intellectually demanding and top quality involving blue chip clients and big numbers. This means that our trainees gain great experience right from the outset.

The firm has a comprehensive training programme which ensures that trainees experience a broad range of work. All trainee solicitors sit in rooms with partners and assistants, receive an individual and extensive training from experienced lawyers and enjoy client contact and the responsibility that goes with it from the beginning of their training contract. The firm operates an exchange programme for assistant solicitors with US and European law firms.

PRO BONO

The firm is heavily involved in a range of pro bono activities. Through the LawWorks initiative, the firm has formed a partnership with the Paddington Law Centre. Forty of our fee-earners work as volunteer advisors at the Centre and we have initiated a range of fund raising activities to benefit the Law Centre. Last year the firm also co-founded the Inns of Court School of Law Advice Centre where volunteer solicitors join with law students from ICSL to advise local Holborn residents on their legal problems. For our work on the ICSL project, we received a nomination for an award at the 2003 Solicitors Pro Bono Awards. The firm is an active member of the Caribbean Capital Cases Committee and has a long history of acting for prisoners on death-row. The firm also takes on a constant stream of cases from the Bar Pro Bono Unit.

We look for people who combine academic excellence with plain common sense; who are articulate, who think on their feet, who are determined and self motivated and who take their work but not themselves seriously. Applications are welcome from law and non-law graduates.

Vital Information

Summer Vacation Scheme

Students spend two weeks with the firm; each week in a different department, sharing an office with partners, assistants and trainee solicitors and sharing their workload to include attending meetings, drafting documents and letters and carrying out research. They have access to a secretary and the back-up of our computerised Information Centre. We extend our internal seminar programme to include a number of talks, case studies and negotiating exercises specifically for students to give an authentic taste of a City lawyer's work. We arrange tours to selected City institutions. The timetable includes plenty of sporting and social activities, such as softball and mixed hockey as well as 'working' lunches and informal evening events.