Travers Smith

Legal Cheek has been told the major perk of working for Travers is the food –– Braithwaite’s, “the best in the City”, named after a lawyer who joined what then became Travers Smith Braithwaite in 1873. Otherwise known as “the holy grail”, here you’ll find “tasty meals (for breakfast, lunch and dinner) and amazing matcha lattes all for free served with a smile and encouragement from the amazing kitchen team!” One gushing lawyer told us that “everyday at 3pm they produce 3 new things filling the cookie jars –– energy balls, vegan oat cookies, blondies, banana bread. In the last few months they put out trays of freshly baked pastel del natas! Dinner is healthy too, lots of variety including salads and pudding. If you don’t like dinner, you can spend £150 on Deliveroo per person, per evening. It’s incredible! On top of this, they celebrate EVERYTHING. Pancake day, Eid, Pride, world book day, national chocolate day, national breakfast day –– if there is something to celebrate, we will celebrate it at Travers. In the summer months so far we’ve had a noodle station, poke bowls, burger day and celebrating different home grown summer veg –– so far they’ve put on displays with all [food] made from beetroot and then courgettes. As you can tell, I think Braithwaite’s is incredible.” It’s hard not to be convinced, too! This, coupled with the firm’s tie-less “business casual” clothing policy (when lawyers are not meeting with clients, of course), brings an air of relaxed professionalism to the shiny corridors. And if you want to find out more about life at Travers, why not check out the firm’s TikTok account?

It’s hardly surprising, then, that Travers continues to be a happy place to work –– and the Legal Cheek Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey 2025-26 shows that the cheerful mood continues to permeate the lower ranks of the firm. “It’s a really happy environment and some fellow trainees are now some of my closest friends,” remarks one survey respondent. Another new recruit had this to say: “Overall I’ve found everyone to be highly approachable –– it’s generally pretty unusual to get someone who is unapproachable across the firm, and the small population of people who are unpleasant/unapproachable are generally well-known among the trainee population.”

The “friendly” senior lawyers who are said to be always on hand to answer questions, coupled with the regular catch-ups with supervisors, go some way to explaining the firm’s consistently high scores for partner approachability. The partners are greatly appreciated by trainees we spoke to: “I’ve had partners sit on one-on-one calls with me for a couple of hours just to take me through things and make sure I understand them. People are friendly and supportive and want to help trainees both in work contexts and in a more general pastoral type role.”

Another says: “Everyone I have worked with from Partners down through to junior associates is very invested in making sure you understand the tasks that you are given and why they are relevant to a matter. There is a genuine desire to see me improve and open discussions with supervisors about what work I can be given to challenge myself and push myself to become a better lawyer.”

This is further supported by the firm’s cross-generational set-up that sees rooms shared by one partner, one associate and one trainee, with “real effort” to recreate the system when working from home. “This really helps you develop a good relationship with your superiors,” one source explains, with another adding that it “does not feel like a hierarchy”. Bonds are further deepened through regular social events, including visits to the Globe to see Shakespeare, ‘decathlon day outs’, and drinks at the Bishops Finger most Thursdays.

Unsurprisingly, given all this, Travers also scores top marks for its training, which is among the best in the City. Central firm-wide training is provided for all newbies upon arrival, which takes you from “tech through to diary etiquette”. This is followed by a good mix of formal seat specific training and on the job training leaving rookies feeling “well supported” but also with a sense that their supervisors trust them and listen when they want to take on more responsibility.

One recruit offered this detailed insight: “There is a combination of formal and informal (on the job) training. Personally I find that I usually take the most away from informal/on the job learning because it’s usually the most practical and focussed on how to do the best job in a given situation. Formal training can be a mixed bag –– generally when it’s department-led by fee earners or our knowledge lawyers, it’s very good and pretty useful.”

Speaking of work, whilst all trainees have “a broad diet of tasks”, there is “a conscious effort to give good quality work to trainees”. One rookie shares: “my supervisors have always happily discussed with me what other types of work I want to experience in a department so that they can channel it my way if it comes up.” The highlights, insiders tell us, are “working directly with partners, drafting agreements and running my own small-scale transactions.” Another has this to say: “The work is highly varied and stimulating –– you are challenged on a daily basis. Certain departments offer more responsibility to trainees than others but generally, a lot of trust is put into trainees to undertake complex, challenging and valuable tasks.”

This year has been as strong as any other in showcasing Travers Smith’s work. Matters include supporting pension giant Nest in seeding a €530 million infrastructure debt fund, guiding NeXtWind on the English law aspects of a €1.4 billion renewable energy product financing project, plus advising Lifezone Metals on acquiring BHP’s 17% stake in a Tanzanian metals company. The firm also prizes its pro bono work and, for example, won £50,000 compensation for two survivors of domestic abuse and human trafficking.

The hours are at the more reasonable end for such a profitable firm, with an average finish time of around 7:30pm. Although “the hours can be long” and “very much depend on the department,”’ insiders generally feel that the situation at Travers is “well balanced” with the firm adopting a flexible approach as long as the work gets done: “no-one bats an eye if I relocate to home for the evening work”, one trainee tells us. Another notes that: “With certain exceptions, late night (post-9pm)/weekend working isn’t at all the default and generally seniors are decent about avoiding trainees having to do that unless it’s necessary (again, not without exception).”

Insiders told Legal Cheek that “advisory departments can have fairly civilised hours whereas corporate and disputes can be tough, hours-wise”. Another source explains: “The nature of e.g. corporate work is that you’ll have some late nights but they try to avoid them where they can and I’ve never felt that trainees are asked to hang around unnecessarily. Some departments have a good policy on days-in-lieu if you’ve had a rough time (other departments could be better in that regard).” In short, transactional departments have “less work-life balance”.

As with some other smaller City firms that put an emphasis on quality of training, Travers likes to keep its newbies close during their TCs. It tends to reserve secondments for associates, who regularly spend time with its ‘best friend’ law firms in other countries and UK and international clients. But each year a handful of trainees do a six-month stint in Travers’ Paris office and, with the launch of an international secondment programme (which saw secondees from Denmark, France, and the US arrive to the firm’s London office), more international opportunities may be on the way soon.

The IT at Travers apparently underwent a major overhaul in 2019, which set the firm up well for WFH. Since then, however, the reviews come in a little mixed. One irked spy told us, “We have access to various legal tech tools and an AI platform which is supposedly good, but our baseline tech (Outlook, Word, iManage and so on) is extremely unreliable and plagued by issues. I think most people would prefer the focus to be on making the essentials work as they are meant to work.” Others, however, are more positive, with one insider describing the firm’s IT support as “outstanding”, while another tells us they’re “always contactable and great at getting things fixed”.

The initial benefits the IT overhaul had for working from home has seen diminished returns as office policy has shifted post-lockdown. Today, every member of staff is still supplied with screens, a keyboard, headset and mouse, we’re told, but the firm draws the line at expensing furniture like office desks or chairs. Trainees, however, will only be able to use this set-up one day a week as the firm’s new agile working policy requires them to be in the office for the other four. With this increasing to two days a week from home at associate level, one disgruntled rookie said that “In practice that means there’s at least one day a week where trainees have no company in rooms, which undermines the whole purpose.”

Meanwhile, in-office tech now includes the all-new TSBot which is designed to assist with more mundane tasks using the same state-of-the-art AI software as ChatGPT. The firm has also launched an AI spin-off ‘Jylo’ headed up by previous director of legal technology Shawn Curran, which has since taken off in as far-flung spaces as the Council of Europe.

Travers’ perks include access to a private box at the Royal Albert Hall, an “incredible” in-house physio, an onsite massage therapist on Tuesdays and Thursdays, free music lessons, late night taxis and a huge Deliveroo allowance for anyone working after 7pm, though not if you’re working from home. This is also a great firm for foodies, with the aforementioned Braithwaite’s offering free breakfast and lunch until 3pm and free dinner if you work past 7pm. Intriguingly, one spy also reveals that trainees are presented with a briefcase at their first firm Christmas party. Looking further ahead, rookies who stick around get to enjoy a six-week paid sabbatical at five years post qualification.