SJ Berwin
Trainee Solicitor

Name: Ross Bowers
University attended: Edinburgh
Degree obtained: LLB (Hons) in Law and Business
Age: 25

Ross Bowers didn’t do a degree in law and business in order to have a career in law. But, following some exposure to the world of banking and accountancy, and with the motivation provided by an Open Day at SJ Berwin, he found he soon changed his mind.

The Open Day changed everything. I only did law because I wanted a good degree. I didn’t think I would end up being a lawyer. At the time of the Open Day, I was actively considering other careers. I had been on placements with a couple of the big accountancy and banking firms and had even considered a career in marketing.

Meeting the senior partner

What impressed me about the Open Day was the personal feel of the firm. SJ Berwin is a corporate firm (you have to do two corporate seats during your training contract for example), but it is not like the magic circle firms I had had contact with, which seemed to me to be vast impersonal entities. It was different. This was only an Open Day but the senior partner still came down and chatted to us for about an hour. This level of access to such a senior figure was unprecedented, and it was a motivating moment for me. It was the point at which I determined to become a lawyer and the point at which I knew what firm I wanted to work for.

Three years later, and having got the PGDL, the LPC, and an SJ Berwin training contract in the meantime, I came back to the firm in order to find out whether it would fulfil my expectations.

Corporate private equity funds

Private equity is what SJ Berwin has an exceptional reputation for, in particular private equity fund formation, so starting off in this seat was the best introduction I could have to the firm. I worked on some large, high-profile funds and I was amazed by the amount of responsibility I was given so early in my first seat. My expectation was that I would be doing mundane work like photocopying, but once I had proved myself with tasks such as proofreading, I was given as much responsibility as I could handle. By the end of my seat I had taken responsibility for a whole transaction, drafting documents and liaising with clients myself, with no one looking over my shoulder all of the time.

General and commercial litigation

This was my contentious seat. We have a lot of departments here, including some quite niche areas such as Media or EU Law. But on my training contract I tried to do what I consider to be the main areas of law: corporate, litigation, and property. This was very different work, but with similar levels of responsibility and quite a lot of court action. The cases ranged from big investment negligence cases down to some quite small matters which related almost to individuals. In some ways the smaller cases were better to work on because even as a trainee I was allowed to run with them.

Corporate mergers and acquisitions

This is where I am at the moment, and it is giving me lots of invaluable experience in all the areas of corporate law: floatations, take-overs, joint ventures, and a lot of private equity work.

Although I have my seat in Real Estate still to come, I feel I am in a position now to say that SJ Berwin has delivered on its promises. Things are happening here. Winning Law Firm of the Year in 2005 certainly helped and we have just moved to spectacular new offices overlooking the Thames, just below Southwark bridge. Yet the individual atmosphere that first drew me here still remains. There is a really good feeling about where the firm is going and it is great to be part of it.