My two weeks in Construction Advisory and Disputes

My two weeks at Pinsent Masons began with a London induction day which was attended by all of the vac Schemers on our intake regardless of the office they were in. This was a great way to meet our peers (and potential future colleagues!) which we would otherwise not have had the opportunity to meet. The day was informative, with talks delivered by lawyers from various departments as well as fun, with an icebreaker focused around shared common interests.

My second day I started at in the Construction Advisory & Disputes (CAD) team in the Manchester office. Considering the excellent reputation and standing of this team I was initially nervous. However, within the first five minutes I had a very welcoming chat with the two trainees in the department, one of which was to be my buddy for the next two weeks. They were both incredibly friendly and approachable, really setting the tone for my time at the firm and dispelling any nerves I had taken in with me that day.

Following this, I was introduced to the rest of the team via a quick walk around their section of the office, again, everyone was incredibly approachable and welcomed me for the two weeks. I then had a chat with my supervisor, a solicitor in the team who, throughout my time there was extremely helpful and provided me with a lot of interesting and varied work to complete during my time within CAD.

The work I completed focused predominantly around research tasks, assisting my supervisor on live matters he was dealing with for well-known clients of the firm. This was a great way to better understand the type of matters that he was used to dealing with in CAD. However, I was also given a number of other tasks. These included; assisting a trainee on updating the Projects, Construction and Property Business Development report which provided updates of relevant industry events; assisting my buddy on summarising recent adjudication judgements to update the firm’s adjudication hub; proof reading a Membership Agreement for a JV as well as drafting an offer letter for the other side of a contentious matter for the firm’s client. A particular highlight was an opportunity to attend the ‘Breakfast Briefing’ hosted by the team for its clients where a presentation on liquidated damages was delivered. This was a great way to interact with some of the firm’s clients first hand!

I truly had a great two weeks at Pinsent Masons, my team were so nice and personable, characteristic of what I had learnt about the firm before joining. My advice to future Vac Schemers would be to get as involved as possible! Get to know your team as well as other people in other departments- in my experience, everyone is willing to have a chat with you and help you in any way they can!