Our corporate team is consistently top-ranked for corporate M&A, particularly for mid-size deals involving advertising and marketing businesses. We are ranked Tier 1 by Legal 500 and Band 2 by Chambers & Partners and have now maintained these rankings for some time.

We deliver transactional advice and support of the highest quality backed up by our experts in key data and privacy, tax, intellectual property including patents, employment and real estate. This is borne out by the ratings, the testimony of our clients and by the fact our clients tend to stay with us.

Our integrated business model brings together our deep sector knowledge and our specialist M&A capability with other legal disciplines enabling us to deliver highly efficient and cost-effective leadership and project management on our corporate transactions. Key to this is the full-service element provided by colleagues of other specialties within the firm.

Welcome tutorials

When you join the Corporate team, Trainees are invited to a series of tutorials (which are a lifesaver!). Run by Associates across the team, this is a great way to get to know people, brush up on your knowledge, and understand the kind of work you’ll get involved in over the six months.

Typical Trainee tasks include:

Drafting ancillary documents

When a company is making important decisions, they will need to pass board minutes and, depending on the type of decision, shareholder resolutions. The team may ask for your help in drafting these documents – some are more simple (for example, handling a Director resignation) and some require you to consider the numerous steps that need to be taken to get to the final outcome.

Filings

There will nearly always be forms to file at Companies House once a resolution has been passed. Each company has a profile on the Companies House website which maps out its history from incorporation to the present day. It’s important that any key changes – for example to the Directors, the number of shares, the company name, the company address, and so on – are recorded properly.

Statutory books

Whenever there is an allotment, transfer, or sale of shares, a company is required to update its statutory books. This is essentially a bundle of tables which shows who owns the shares, who is a Director, and who, if anyone, has control over the company. Depending on the number of shares being allotted or transferred,

You may also be asked to ‘reconstitute’ statutory books, where you essentially prepare the books from scratch. Here, you’ll go through the Companies House records with a fine-toothed comb and piece together the history of the company.

Due diligence

When a buyer is looking to acquire another company, they will undergo due diligence. This is basically a review of the target company’s assets, which offers insight into how the company conducts its business and flags any potential problems. As a Trainee, you may co-ordinate contract reviews across different teams, maintain the data room (and keep a pretty detailed index up to date), or draft the help draft the due diligence report.

Completion and Corporate Bibles

When you are preparing and reviewing documents, it’s often in anticipation of Completion – the final step where everything is signed and dated. On Completion Day, you can help the fee earners on the deal by circulating the executed documents or checking the documents you receive have been finalised properly.

After, you may be asked to put together a corporate bible along with an index. This is an electronic bundle of all the key transaction documents, so it gives you a good overview of all of the elements that are needed to make a deal ‘work’.

As well as having the chance to see ‘behind the scenes’ of some big and exciting deals, a seat in Corporate is a great opportunity to take on a lot of individual responsibility in a really supportive team.