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 Adam McCaw
Associate
Having studied in Cardiff and being from East Anglia I focused my training contract applications on those two regions. I found Leathes Prior in the Training Contract Handbook and after some research on the Legal 500 website I applied by CV and covering letter.
I was invited to attend a trainee recruitment day in June 1999 and received an offer of a training contract shortly after that day. I was so impressed by the firm on the recruitment day that I had no hesitation in accepting the offer that had been made and calling the other firms who had yet to interview me to cancel my place on their recruitment days. Unlike the recruitment days that I had attended prior to Leathes Prior’s, I felt that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t fluent in Japanese or didn’t have some other extraordinary skill or qualification that might immediately mark me out; I had been given the opportunity to demonstrate my strengths and had confidence that I would be given an opportunity to use those strengths to progress my career if I were fortunate enough to be selected for a training contract.
My training contract started in September 2002 with a seat in the department then known as “Company and Commercial” where I undertook commercial contracts work (with an emphasis on franchising) with Jonathan Chadd and Mike Barlow and corporate transaction work with Paul Warman. This gave me a fantastic grounding for the work that I do now and I still regularly call upon things that I learned in that seat in my day to day work. I moved from the Company and Commercial Department to the Litigation Department where I sat with Frank Brumby who specialises in Corporate Recovery and Insolvency and I stayed in that seat for the remainder of my training contract. During the course of my litigation seat I saw a lot of insolvency related work but also assisted Martin Plowman, who is the head of the firm’s litigation department on civil and commercial litigation matters.
Prior to the end of my training contract I was offered an Assistant Solicitor position in Corporate Recovery and Insolvency. I accepted this opportunity, again without hesitation, and now work alongside Frank Brumby and Sue Sutton in a close-knit team, which forms part of the larger Corporate team (following a recent reorganisation). I was made an Associate with effect from 1 May 2007, am studying to become a Licensed Practitioner with the firm’s backing and have been mentioned as an up-and-coming individual in Insolvency within East Anglia in Chambers & Partners 2007, so things are going well.
The firm operates on an open-door policy (whether by design or by the nature of the people that work here I don’t know!) but I have always found that I will be given time by somebody with the expertise that I need to help with whatever task it is that I have to complete.
It hasn’t all been work and I have made a number of very good friends within the firm in my time here (as well as outside of the firm – this isn’t Bendini, Lambert & Locke!). The partners provide for various events and activities for their staff over the course of the year, including regular 5-a-side games (we have a team in a local league), a rounders afternoon and dragon-boat racing to mention but a few.
In my time at the firm I have found that the impression that I left with after the recruitment day was correct and I have been given fantastic opportunities and the necessary backing to take advantage of them.
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