Richard Guthrie
Associate
I studied Law at King’s College London, before taking a gap year in Vancouver and travelling around the world. I also gained some legal work experience at the High Court before applying to Leathes Prior. I was bowled over by the firm and the people I met on the recruitment day and have not looked back since. I started my training contract in 2004, qualified as a solicitor in the Company/Commercial team in 2006 and became an Associate in 2010. I moved to Norwich without knowing anybody here but settled in quickly, helped in no small way by the fact that the firm is very sociable.
My training contract covered commercial, corporate, employment and litigation work. I had the opportunity to go to court and deal with several hearings on my own during the course of my training. I also drafted an Unfair Prejudice Petition as a trainee and issued it in the Companies Court. Perhaps the most exciting thing I was involved in during my training contract was a corporate deal to secure extra investment in one of our clients by venture capitalists. There was a big completion meeting in London and we had to convince the venture capitalists and their solicitors to go through with the deal (which had to be done on that day), despite attempts by disgruntled minority shareholders to derail it with applications for injunctions. The deal was on-off, on-off all day and involved several extremely fraught discussions. We won through in the end and went on a pub crawl through the City with our jubilant clients, who then took us for a celebratory meal!
At Leathes Prior you will be given early responsibility and the chance to find an area of law and practice you are interested in. You will have the opportunity to learn about this area, deal with clients, be encouraged to form your own view about the advice to be given and develop the confidence to back your own judgement – all with the necessary guidance from the outstanding and experienced lawyers who oversee the training. This does not happen overnight, but you will receive a first-rate training at this firm and, I believe, will become a better lawyer more quickly than if, for example, you were at a larger firm where you could be chained to a photocopier and progress very slowly.
Only a small number of trainees are taken on by Leathes Prior and one of the things on which the partners place particular importance is whether they can see the applicant becoming a future partner of the firm; that is far from the case with a lot of other firms. If you are ambitious and this kind of opportunity interests you, send in your CV and a covering letter. I could not be happier as a result of my decision to apply to Leathes Prior, which I put down to the quality of work and training, the chance to get involved in marketing events and the firm being such an exciting and fun place to work.
