Gibson Dunn’s Grace Atkinson reflects on her journey to qualification and shares her top tips for securing a training contract
Grace Atkinson recently qualified as a solicitor in Gibson Dunn’s London office, capping off what she describes as “a whirlwind six-year process” from university to qualification. A Cambridge law graduate, she secured a training contract with the US law firm via the firm’s summer vacation scheme during her second year of university. After completing her degree and LPC, she dived straight into the training contract, and is now qualifying as an associate in the firm’s busy disputes practice.
Sitting down with Atkinson to discuss her legal journey so far, we start back in her second year at uni when she began applying for law firm vacation schemes. Gibson Dunn was one of only a handful of firms Atkinson applied to. It came onto her radar when a friend who had spent time in the firm’s Hong Kong office recommended it to her. “My friend thought I would like it because he found it incredibly non-hierarchical and found that everybody was very friendly,” she tells me. Gibson Dunn’s relatively small trainee intake (the firm recruits around 15 trainees each year) was also a pull-factor for Atkinson: “Having enjoyed small group supervisions and being part of a smaller cohort at Cambridge, I knew I didn’t really want to go to a firm that took a large intake of trainees,” she says.
Atkinson’s experience of Gibson Dunn’s recruitment process reflected this emphasis on collegiality: “the process by which they form their training contracts is focused on making cohorts that work together,” she explains. The interviews themselves also felt refreshingly personal. Atkinson recalls that her initial interview with the firm’s graduate recruitment team “basically felt like a chat… I didn’t feel like I was being grilled.” Two further rounds with partners and associates were similarly encouraging. “It was never an interrogation to see what I didn’t know. The whole process was really positive,” she recalls.
I am keen to get Atkinson’s top tips for aspiring lawyers who are going through the application process as we speak. “I think I definitely fall into the category of students who didn’t know anything when they started applying,” she laughs. Her initial advice to today’s candidates is “plan it out a little bit earlier than I did.” The real secret to Atkinson’s success, however, was making good use of her support system at university and leaning on friends for help and advice. She describes being surrounded by other motivated students who kept each other in the loop on application strategies and upcoming deadlines. “I lived with somebody who wanted to go into banking and private equity work and he did a few mock interviews with me,” she says. This practice helped build up Atkinson’s confidence, particularly as a second-year undergrad. She reflects, “This was really helpful for developing a professional style as I felt very young for the process at that time.”
All this preparation paid off and Atkinson’s three-week summer vacation scheme at Gibson Dunn, held virtually due to the pandemic, confirmed that she was on the right path. She sat in a disputes seat and a finance seat during the scheme, and found everyone eager to involve her, despite the remote setting. “Everybody I spoke to was so happy to talk to vacation schemers. I emailed a few partners who were happy to have Zoom calls with me and all the associates were very helpful,” she remembers. Her supervisors gave her real, substantive work to do and were “very candid and transparent,” providing a real sense of life at Gibson Dunn. “It felt like the firm wanted you to be involved as much as you were trying to sell yourself to the firm,” Atkinson says.
Training contract offer secured, Atkinson completed her law degree and LPC before jumping straight into law firm life. Her first six months at Gibson Dunn were in real estate finance, which she found to be an ideal introduction. “It was a very friendly team and the partner was very approachable,” she says, describing it as “a good first seat” for a newbie. For her second seat, Atkinson moved into Gibson Dunn’s disputes team, where she has now qualified as an associate. A rewarding challenge, this seat thrust her into the world of high-stakes litigation. She describes her work on a large competition class action, in which she immersed herself for the entire six months. “It was all consuming but it was really cool,” she recalls with enthusiasm. “The team let me get very involved and I was across multiple workstreams working with loads of different associates and different partners. It was a fantastic experience.”
Continuing her foray into competition law, Atkinson then moved into a transactional seat in Gibson Dunn’s competition team. Here, again, she praises the benefits of the firm’s hands-on approach to training which saw her legal skills go rapidly from strength to strength:
“I had a very intense six months but it was absolutely wonderful,” she says. “I learned so much and feel like I completely changed as a lawyer from the September to the March of that year.”
This intensity was not without robust support, Atkinson makes clear, telling me, “My supervisor was absolutely brilliant and I really enjoyed sitting with her on what was definitely my most challenging seat.” For her final rotation, Atkinson has been on client secondment to an international bank, joining its in-house litigation team for six months. “I now have a much better idea of what clients find helpful,” she reflects – ideal preparation for her return to the disputes team.
Looking back on her training, Atkinson is full of praise for Gibson Dunn’s “lean” team structure and small intake. She reveals, “my cohort is not competitive at all. We’re all very much in it together and are each other’s main support system,” Atkinson says. She suspects such a bond is “not as feasible in bigger firms.”
Working in lean teams has also brought Atkinson into closer contact with senior lawyers. “The gap between you and a partner is so much smaller in a firm like this,” she explains. “Every single day you get feedback from them, you’re having chats with them in the office, often you share an office with senior lawyers.” This leads to an “all-encompassing training contract” but also to a culture of closeness and support: “You know everybody so you can go and ask for work and you’re very supported,” Atkinson adds.
She is keen to dispel the myth that trainees are ever “thrown in the deep end” without help. In fact, she emphasises that, “we had loads of training sessions throughout my training contract.” While it’s true that “People aren’t going to sit you down and teach you how to open your email,” Atkinson feels that “this is part of what makes you a better lawyer.” Being expected to figure out the small things independently can actually be a great confidence builder. “You get over that fear of getting something wrong,” she says.
As we wrap up our discussion, I am keen to get Atkinson’s advice on how to make the most of a training contract. “Get as stuck in as possible to every piece of work that you have the opportunity to do,” is her response. She also underscores the importance of completing this work to a high standard, recalling advice she received from one mentor: “If you’ve not reviewed your work three times before it’s going to a partner, then you haven’t reviewed your work.” This has stuck with Atkinson throughout her stint as a trainee and she would encourage new recruits to “do that second or third review, because there’s nothing worse than a supervisor correcting a random typo you didn’t see!”
Finally, Atkinson encourages new trainees to build a strong support network. “Take the time to build those friendships with those in your cohort, and those in the cohort above you,” she advises. These are the people to take your “stupid” questions to, Atkinson says – “they will almost always know something that helps you out. And if they don’t know, then at least you’ll realise that you’re not alone.” She describes her friendship with an associate she worked with in the competition team, “She become one of my closest friends at Gibson because we spent time working on the same deals, the same work streams and realised we’re in it together.”
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