Clifford Chance

Trainees in the capital net £56,000 in the first year and £61,000 in the second year — a figure which rises to a whopping £150,000 on qualification. In other pay-related news, the firm has recently switched to a US-esque system which sees individual bonuses tied to billable hours in its London office and the hub is also under new leadership in the form of employment expert Chinwe Odimba-Chapman. CC reported an 86% retention rate in its latest qualification round.

The “truly exceptional” training offered by the firm comes in a “great variety” of forms, including lecture-style sessions, workshops and presentations. One insider even reports that “in corporate you do a case study for a full week to stimulate negotiation”. The exact style and level of department-specific training appears to vary, with some trainees reporting an on-the-job approach to learning, split over the first three months of the seat, whilst others mentioning a “classroom-based” experience upon induction to the team.

What is clear is that, formal or informal, the training at CC is “second-to-none”. Rookies are known to get involved in all aspects of transactions and are “given a great deal of responsibility”, including taking leading roles in client calls. There is also frequent feedback and advice from partners, who are “extremely approachable” in the main. As one humble trainee summarises: “It is obvious when working opposite trainees and junior associates from other firms that the support and training given by CC gives trainees an edge and increased sophistication.”

Another CC rookie offers this inside take: “First week of each seat is dedicated to training, tailored to the different core practice areas at the firm (disputes, corporate, finance, etc), then there’s usually training sessions and workshops throughout. Can’t fault any of it, and so far I’ve found it’s prepared me really well for the type of work I end up doing in each seat.”

Rave reviews about CC having the “perfect balance between guidance and independence” doesn’t mean you’ll always be doing thrilling work. “Dull admin tasks” are unavoidable, especially in larger teams like finance and litigation. But this is par for the course when it comes to City law and the best work seems to be earned rather than given. One junior told Legal Cheek that the day-to-day “oscillates wildly from mind-numbingly mundane, to market-leading ‘I can’t believe I get to do this’ work with literally some of the cleverest people I’ve ever met.” They went on to add that the quality of work “definitely gets better as you get further into the training contract and build up a bit of trust” or, as another trainee puts it: “if you prove yourself to be capable you are quickly promoted out of doing the document-monkey work.” Not that good work is in short supply. As another trainee boasts, “naturally, we represent a lot of ‘headline’ type clients or banks on deals, which leads to interesting work”.

A great help in this area are the firm’s ‘Delivery Centres’ in Newcastle, Delhi, and Warsaw, where much of the “particularly laborious” administrative work traditionally given to trainees is now sent. This frees trainees up to complete more “challenging and stimulating work such as drafting and research tasks” — as long as the department does outsource effectively (we’re told take-up of this support resource seems to be hit-and-miss at times).

When it comes to tech, the firm appears to be bolstering its arsenal, with AI tool CC Assist receiving lots of plaudits from the trainees we spoke with. There are still “some issues with the software at times” but these are quickly smoothed out by the “multiple IT teams on hand to assist”. Clifford Chance also hosts IT Tech Hub sessions for its lawyers to learn more about the gizmos at their disposal, though uptake of this by the firm’s more senior members seems to be lagging, as one trainee notes “the more senior people are the less likely are they to want to use any new tech — DocuSign is the bane of most associates’ lives, always gets dumped onto trainees.” Another spy summarises the legal tech scene like so: “The firm covers the basics really well — we are given good laptops and iPhones, IT training is regularly available to opt in to and excellent IT support is just a phone call away.”

In terms of a wider approach to innovation, things seem rosy at the firm. Aside from opening its various support centres, Clifford Chance has continued to invest in its tech offering with a Research and Development Hub tasked with finding fresh digital solutions for the firm and its clients. Indeed, the firm’s approach to innovation is felt right down to its roots, with the IGNITE programme acting as a training contract route with a twist — it has a unique focus on technology, offering trainees the option of taking an entire seat with the legal tech team.

CC also provides a generous tech budget for home-working, providing a £350 budget each year to buy anything you need to work from home (except for AirPods apparently). Rookies had no complaints on this front, praising the firm’s flexible 50/50 policy when it came to WFH. Just make sure you’re coming in when you should, as the firm keeps tabs on lawyer attendance and is said to be “cracking down on the 50:50 enforcement.”

The 50% of the time not spent in your office-bed, you’ll be working away in a “huge skyscraper in Canary Wharf” with “masses of glass in the offices, incredible views and light-up-in-different-colour escalators!” But don’t get too comfy just yet, as Clifford Chance have recently announced major plans to move out of its Canary Wharf HQ and back into the City with a “more modern” HQ on Aldermanbury Square. The switch, which is set for 2028, looks to be a welcome one amongst current juniors, who are “looking forward” to the new digs — even if some are “dreading the move to open plan!” Personally, we’d be more concerned about losing access to CC’s famous 20 x 8 metre swimming pool. That’s right, if the on-site GP, shopping centre, dry cleaner, hairdresser, gym, squash courts, dance studio, and use of the firm’s box at the O2 Arena aren’t enough, trainees can famously swim away their troubles while gazing into the Canary Wharf night. They sometimes need it. The firm is among the poorer performers for work/life balance, with the hours notoriously long during busy spells.

Described as being “unpredictable” and “challenging at times”, your work/ life balance — or lack of it — is the price many CC trainees have to pay, as is the case with most top-tier firms. One current recruit offered this insight: “It’s not great and I don’t make mid-week evening plans. However, there really isn’t a culture of working for the sake of working, if you’re done at 5pm, your deal team will make sure you leave at 5pm!! My current team also seems to care a lot about protecting trainees’ weekends. I’ve only worked one weekend in my current seat so far. It certainly has peaks and troughs in transactional seats. I had a few weeks of not leaving the office before 3am for multiple days on the run, to then having pretty much no work to do for an entire week after closing. The time to rest and recover was much appreciated…” However, this is an aspect which “massively varies by department”, and flexible working has further benefited the life of trainees in this aspect. As one rookie tells Legal Cheek: “I have had to work on a Sunday and late on Friday nights. But this is interspersed with quieter times when I can leave at 6. Flexible working makes the work/life balance easier to manage, as you can leave the office and log back on from home”. Whilst weekends are “usually safe”, several trainees cited a feeling of needing to be “on call 24/7”.

The good news is you can count on feeling well-supported when you are on a late-night grind. The firm takes on approximately 110 trainees across two cohorts each year, with the group described as “a very fun and collegiate bunch, who know how to work hard and play hard too”. And CC juniors start to build these bonds early on: “You can really find good friends within your cohort, which is helped by the fact that you all complete your legal training together. When you join the firm, the pastoral care is really strong within the cohort also and you will definitely find people who you can turn to”, one junior tells Legal Cheek. In short, “those who suffer together, stay together”.

The points-based seat allocation system can apparently create an air of competition, especially around qualification, but this is usually balanced out with stories of wholesome interactions between trainees, like this one from a current recruit: “Other trainees are extremely supportive and helpful, often taking the time to show newer trainees how to do things, even if they don’t know you personally. A 3rd seat trainee spent 45 minutes talking me through the complexities of my first signing, and was nothing but lovely”. Another noted that: “One of the major perks of having a big intake is there is literally always another trainee there to answer the silly questions you don’t want to ask the associates and to help with your printer problems at 2am.”

Not that insiders feel much need to shy away from their higher-ups as the trainees we spoke to were overwhelmingly positive about their superiors. The firm’s partnership described as “extremely approachable” and happy to “give advice if you seek it out” and one suspicious trainee has even questioned “if they’re hiding the bad ones from us until we qualify” as “every associate and partner I’ve worked with to date has been really approachable.” Whilst some mention this aspect as again being “department dependent”, this appears to be down to the workload, not lack of willingness, of the partners. As one rookie puts it, “some partners are happy to take you out for coffee and will encourage reaching out to them directly, while some supervisors are too busy to get to know their own trainees”. With revenues of over £2 billion, it’s no surprise that sometimes the partners are a bit on the busy side!

Data from the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey shows that around a third of rookies typically enjoy an international secondment. Far-flung destinations include Singapore, Sao Paulo, Sydney, New York and Tokyo, whilst others opted for shorter-haul flights to Munich, Dublin, Luxembourg and Madrid amongst others. Alright for some! For those who prefer to stay on Blighty’s shores, there are a wide variety of client destinations to top clients like Amazon and HSBC, as well as charities such as Liberty, Reprieve and LifeScape. And getting one of these is not as cut throat as you may imagine, as the firm tells us that the vast majority of trainees who request a secondment are successful. A number of the trainees surveyed also praised the opportunity to do a split-seat at CC, with three months spent seconded to a client and the other half back at the firm.

Perks-wise, expect the full Magic Circle shelling of private healthcare, dental, a daily £25 Deliveroo and taxi allowance past a certain hour, the occasional free personal training session and discounts on certain theatre tickets (alongside all the eclectic perks that CC’s office brings on its own). The firm also shares a canteen with Deutsche Bank, offering “heavily subsidised” food which is simply described as being “yum” by one satiated recruit. “It’s not gourmet but there is always more than one option that I fancy” was the review of another. Some feel their £2.70 daily stipend doesn’t quite knock enough off the £12 canteen chicken curry to make it worthwhile, but luckily the office also has a direct escalator into Canary Wharf mall, so you’re never short of variety.

As the City collectively strives to become more green-minded, one trainee notes that the firm’s environmental impact is “clearly a priority” and “a main concern amongst the management”. In this regard, another junior noted that the firm is increasingly digital: “I see less and less paper (unless it’s time to bundle)”. What’s more, the impact of the fast-paced, high-stakes CC life on its employees is also being examined from an ESG standpoint by the firm. The firm implemented Charles Alberts as its first global head of wellbeing and employee experience and tasked him with creating a global wellbeing strategy. On the client side, CC have worked to establish a dedicated Global ESG Board, led by former global senior partner Jeroen Ouwehand with a team of over 400 lawyers and senior business personnel who work to ensure clients can get advice on issues ranging from energy transition to preventing human rights abuses and sustainability-linked finance.