Clifford Chance

Overall highlights of clerkship/ graduate programs – why you love working at CC/ what has surprised you about the culture of CC

The clerkship program serves as a bit of a "trailer" to life at CC. There is ample opportunity to socialise and network with your fellow clerks who may then become your grad cohort, so when you start the grad program it isn't too unfamiliar (both the work and your colleagues). The remuneration (including a wellness allowance, technology agility allowance, and private health insurance) is generous and the secondment opportunities, as well as opportunities to get involved in business development with clients (for example by attending client meetings and assisting with client presentations) is also excellent.   

International & domestic secondment opportunities / plus practice group global retreats

Within my first year of working at CC I have had the opportunity to move to Perth for 6-months on domestic secondment and travel to Bangkok for our APAC team offsite and will soon be going to London for 6-months. The opportunities to travel for work with Clifford Chance are far superior to the opportunities domestic firms provide. A lot of the matters I have worked on have involved legal issues which stem across jurisdictions, which has involved collaboration with colleagues in other offices, both within APAC and beyond. The Bangkok offsite was an excellent opportunity to network with colleagues from other offices and learn about the firms' strategies. Secondments are also an excellent opportunity to meet colleagues from other offices and expand your networks globally.  

4 x 6-month grad rotations – within the three practice groups there are sub teams and opportunity to work across multiple partners and areas of law   

The 4x 6-month rotation structure of the grad program provides really good exposure and insight into each practice group to ensure you make an informed decision about what group to settle in after the graduate program. As you rotate through each team and do your secondment you get more exposure to the operations and business model of the firm, the clients, and the cross-collaboration across practise groups.

Variety of work and greater responsibility working within small teams – more client interaction and opportunity to add real value to every matter

Clifford Chance is generally smaller in numbers compared to the larger domestic firms. However, this can often work to an advantage, allowing more opportunity to get involved in interesting, meaningful work. It's a nice balance between responsibility and support, whereby you are given opportunities to step-up and take on interesting work while equally feeling supported and provided with training and mentorship.

Learning & Development offering during the grad program and beyond

There is an online Academy portal where we do all our mandatory inductions and trainings which also offers additional trainings and workshops across a wide range of topics, including emotional intelligence, AI developments, business finance and presenting with impact, just to name a few. In addition to the online trainings there are also a number of regular in-person trainings, including at the beginning of each graduate rotation to introduce you to the practice group. For example, GFM has a two-day "bootcamp" concluded with a team dinner. There are also Affinity Network trainings, for example LGBTQ+ Awareness Training and the Bangkok offsite had a lot of sessions and trainings too.  

Diversity of people across teams – greater collaboration

Since starting at Clifford Chance, and particularly through the work of the Affinity Network groups I have learnt so much about other races and cultures. Clifford Chance celebrates a range of cultural holidays beyond the traditional "Western" holidays which creates an environment of inclusion and unity. Each team is unique and diverse, and everyone's ideas are welcomed.

Support network – buddy/ supervisor and supervising partner across each rotation

As a clerk you are assigned a buddy (a graduate) for the entirety of the clerkship and as a graduate you are assigned a buddy (an associate) for your first seat (or "rotation") and for your secondment. In addition to the formal buddy structure there are also a number of informal mentor opportunities and supports available in the firm. Joining an Affinity Group (Arcus, REACH, Enable or Accelerate) is also a good opportunity to build networks across the firm and build a support network, particularly on shared values/interests.   

Life outside of work – involvement in any affiliation groups e.g. Enable/ Arcus/ Accelerate

Being involved in the REACH (Race Equality and Celebrating Heritage) Network has provided an excellent opportunity to step-up and take initiative to organise events and to work on matters beyond the usual scope of "corporate work". For example, some of the work REACH has done includes, ordering in Clothing the Gaps shirts for National Reconciliation week for people to wear to show their support for reconciliation, organising NAIDOC week events, Lunar New Year, Mid-Autumn Festival, Diwali and a number of other significant cultural events and holidays. The firm has also recently implemented a Public Holiday Swap Policy to allow employees to celebrate holidays of cultural significance to them.

As an introduction, I am a second seat law graduate 10 months into my graduate program.

I came for the unparalleled graduate program with training and world-class mentoring  from leading lawyers, the international secondment opportunity within the graduate program, and ability to use my language skills. I stay for the amazing people and fun I am having along the way as I challenge myself as never before in a highly multi-lingual and multi-cultural environment.

I am proud to work alongside sincere and extremely intelligent people. I feel CC values reliability, brilliance, candour, and hard work, a nice backdrop to forge a career and enjoy yourself.

CC is a perfect firm for an enthusiastic and bright person to start their career as a lawyer in Australia, a great opportunity for a driven, eager to succeed individual, who wants a truly global career.

International & domestic secondment opportunities & group international retreats

CC offers the opportunity to go on a six-month secondment to one of our international offices during your graduate program. This usually occurs within your third or fourth rotation. I'm going to Hong Kong in my next rotation and cannot wait!

We also have practice group "offsides", where each of CC's practice groups across a region travel to another country for a few days of meetings, networking and socialising… 9 months into my contract I went to Bangkok for three days with the rest of the global financial markets team across the APAC region, and had loads of fun meeting amazing colleagues from other offices.

There are also various opportunities for domestic secondment. For example, Perth-based graduates can get firm sponsored secondment to Sydney for six months to our corporate team. Sydney-based grads can experience Perth for six months in our leading Perth-based international arbitration, investor-states disputes team.

The program and practice areas

The graduate program is a two-year program, split into four rotations lasting six months each. Whilst CC Australia is generally split into three main practice areas, namely litigation and disputes, global financial markets ("GFM") and corporate, through which you will rotate, each practice area has numerous sub-teams, one of which you may be primarily assigned to during a rotation. For example, in my first rotation (discussed below) I focused on investor-state international arbitration disputes, which falls under the disputes umbrella, but its practitioners are specialised and will generally solely practice it.

My graduate journey so far

In my first rotation in the international arbitration team focusing on investor-state disputes, I was involved in complex headline-making international disputes. The pressure is definitely real as a law graduate starting at CC, and sometimes you may feel like you are very much in the deep end. However, this was the perfect start to my graduate program where I was closely involved in the preparation and filing of at least four memorials in different international arbitration matters (one matter being a really interesting international corruption matter) with a lot of research and drafting assistance.

There was also the opportunity to get involved in some very large restructuring and insolvency litigation processes, where I got to spread my wings and take ownership of dealing with more minor disputes, drafting affidavits… and in one case managing service of court documents in more than a dozen different jurisdictions across only a few weeks.

In my current GFM rotation, I love the fast-paced and top of the market deals that you get involved in, where you can get exposure to major international project financings and leveraged finance deals. I also had the pleasure of working on various fascinating cross-border derivatives transactions, and doing a bit of regulatory work advising banks operating in Australia. The team has been really supportive and I have been able to grow in impact over the past few months.

Next rotation I am heading off to Hong Kong for six months on a firm sponsored secondment where I will continue working in GFM, with a focus on derivatives, which has piqued my interest.

Top tips for candidates

Be sincere and confident in the application process, and demonstrate how you will be an asset: we want to hear it. Please also take the opportunity to ask questions and learn as much as possible about us.

If you get the offer, congratulations! You will commence a journey where every day you will learn new things and have impact in a dynamic environment, amongst good company in a truly global law firm.