Hugh Bannister, Solicitor, Mergers and Acquisitions, Canberra

Starting out in my first year as a real solicitor after being admitted has been an enjoyable challenge.

Learning the basics about how to practically apply the academic knowledge of the law picked up during university and providing solutions and outcomes for clients is the most important learning experience for a junior solicitor such as myself. Mallesons places its junior lawyers right at the coal-face of the legal work, under supervision and guidance from the senior associates and partners, and there is very much a learn-by-doing approach taken to develop skills such as these in its lawyers. But I have also found that most people in the office have been more than willing to answer queries about the law and Mallesons’ practise beyond just the task at hand, providing insights or additional useful information and constructive criticism that can be used to improve my own work and interaction with clients.

In my two rotations among the several branches of the Mergers and Acquisitions group in the Canberra office I have been fortunate enough to work on a number of high-profile matters for clients in the private commercial world, pro-bono clients and government agencies. The work has been very varied and included:

• drafting contracts, either from scratch or editing them (something that this is very different from the study of contract law, it is actually a lot of fun trying to construct legally enforceable rights and obligations in contracts);
• reviewing new and high-profile legislation and providing summaries of its effects on clients;
• reviewing documents and files to determine courses of action for pro-bono clients in legal disputes;
• putting together tender documents for clients to bid for the provision of services;
• researching the state of the law, questioning the client about their practices and then providing legal advice and recommendations for clients about their compliance with the law and what actions they could take from a legal point of view.

I have also been able to see the concrete results of the work I have been doing at Mallesons, even though it is still only my first year of post-admission experience. It was a very satisfying moment when I noticed a glossy information brochure for a certain financial product that my flatmate received in the mail and I was able to point to a number of the paragraphs which I wrote or amended when I was involved with the team of people checking the draft version of the document to ensure it complied with the relevant law.