King & Wood Mallesons

LIFE AT A GLOBAL LAW FIRM: KING & WOOD MALLESONS

EMILY BRADLEY

Senior Associate

I started my career at King & Wood Mallesons in 2016 as a law graduate in the Perth office. Similar to most of the international law firms, the graduate program at KWM consists of three six-month rotations, allowing you to try out different practice groups between choosing where you want to settle. I completed my first rotation in Projects (where I ended up working on predominately African work). My second rotation was in Banking & Financing (where I ended up settling) and I was lucky enough to complete my third rotation in the Corporate team in KWM’s Hong Kong office. While I enjoyed each of my rotations, my experience in Hong Kong was an unforgettable experience. As the meeting place of East and West and the financial hub of Asia, I was exposed to a diverse mix of work. The friends I made at KWM in Hong Kong still form part of my support network at the firm. The work you do as a graduate in a big firm is varied. Because my experience was all in “front end” transactional teams, it comprised predominantly drafting and reviewing agreements, attending negotiations, and writing legal advice about the transactions. Occasionally, you also help Partners prepare presentations to clients and other lawyers about market developments and updates in the law. Rotations are a really good way to learn different skill sets and develop strong networks within the firm. Big commercial law firms have a reputation for being full of corporate drones, but nothing is further from the truth. The people I worked with as a graduate were interesting and diverse, and I have good relationships with all of the Partners I worked with to this day. London experience In 2019, I received a job offer to work at Slaughter and May in London, in their Financing team. The Partner I work for in Perth was extremely supportive of my move, as he felt that it would help me gain significant exposure to a much wider range of transactions and financing matters, which is experience I could return with to the Perth team. I was thankful that my Partner’s support meant I was offered a leave of absence from KWM. I arrived in London at the end of 2019, and the first six or so months were quite normal: commuting in the dark, going to the theatre in the evening, and snow at Christmas. Things obviously changed significantly in March of 2020, but I was lucky enough to be working on transactions that needed to push on through the difficult early days of the pandemic. The financing team at Slaughter and May is a generalist practice (which is coincidently similar to our working style in the Banking team at KWM Perth). During my time in London I was working on a broad range of financing including corporate financing, bonds, project financing and insolvency work – which mean you never got bored! London is such a dynamic legal market, and a real hub for all sorts of work so if you have the opportunity to work in London (or overseas), I would highly recommend it. Choosing a firm like KWM can help you get there for two reasons. First, KWM trained lawyers are highly sought after in London (and New York, Hong Kong, and Singapore) because of the quality of the training they offer junior lawyers. Secondly, a firm like KWM is big enough and has been around long enough to know that losing people for a short period but welcoming them back only serves to enhance the firm’s capabilities in the long run. I returned to the Banking team at KWM in 2021 and I cannot speak highly enough of my time at KWM (both starting my career as a graduate and returning after London and working as a Senior Associate). I have been supported at every step in my career, and know that there will be further opportunities presented to me in the future. What they are, I don’t yet know, but no doubt they will be interesting, challenging, and rewarding.