Law, as the poet William Empson sagely observed, has a way of making “long spokes of the short stakes of men'.

Counting back the months in my calendar, I am surprised to find that nine have now elapsed since the commencement of my apprenticeship at Teacher Stern LLP.”
 
In truth, practice has proven to be a rather genial experience. The law school horror stories having mostly remained a legal fiction. This is not to say, that there have not been seemingly Sisyphean tasks to endure – a twenty thousand document disclosure exercise involving issues of legal professional privilege, which took several weeks to finalise being my personal nadir. It is just that they are as nothing compared to the experience of practical legal study. An experience only enhanced by the fact that it was conducted in an atmosphere reminiscent of a Beverly Hills 90210, with Received Pronunciation.

Having taken LPC electives in private acquisitions, equity finance and intellectual property, I was relieved that my first seat was in the Corporate & Commercial department. These six months proved to be both extremely enjoyable and intellectually rewarding. Indeed, the standard and variety of work to which I was exposed during my time in the department, as well as the level of responsibility that I was accorded by the partners and assistants, far exceeded my expectations.

On reflection, a personal highlight from my time in ‘CoCo’ involved assisting one of the senior assistants with the acquisition of shares in a limited company. This was a particularly enlightening experience because it afforded me the opportunity to apply the black letter law learned at law school to the commercial reality of a share acquisition. What I most liked about this deal was the fact that I got to personally carry out a large amount of the due diligence on the target company as well as assist with the drafting of the sixty page legal report for the client.

At the end of March I joined the firm’s Litigation department. Once again the work has proven to be both varied and stimulating. At the present moment, I am working on a number of insolvency claims – perhaps a reflection of the current state of the financial markets – which though procedural in their content and execution have nevertheless provided me with a far better understanding of how to institute the wind-up of a limited company.

Certainly, the most exciting work that I have been involved with thus far in the Litigation department has concerned celebrities and sport stars. From my own perspective, however, the most intellectually challenging tasks have involved the drafting of letters before action. What I most especially enjoyed about these letters was the tactical manoeuvres; given that the use of exacting language at such a juncture in the dispute will afford one the opportunity to set out the client’s strongest position from first principles, as well as allow one to address any potential defence from a position of strength.

On that somewhat Machiavellian note I will bid you all a bientôt until next week’s instalment…