Trainee Profile

Dasha Popova during her seat in the Financial Services Regulatory Group.

8.30am: On the way to work I check my emails, scan through the Bloomberg news headlines and a piece on a recent data privacy breach catches my eye so I read that before squeezing in a couple of pages of the book that I’m currently reading.

9.10am: While sipping my morning coffee, I read the financial services and regulatory updates. Given the current economic climate, there are many regulatory developments occurring both on the UK and the EU front. It is important to keep up-to-speed with the current events as you never know when your supervisor might get a call from a client expecting detailed knowledge of a particular piece of new legislation. As a trainee, I would be required to assist with the research and drafting of a memo if required.

9.30am: My supervisor, Leonard Ng, is away on business in Brussels. We are advising a client in relation to their lobbying strategy on the rather controversial draft EU Directive on Alternative Investment Fund Managers. As expected, there has been a flurry of activity prior to my supervisor’s departure which involved numerous conference calls, scheduling of meetings with the key European politicians, keeping up to speed with the industry comments and preparing a position paper to be used as a reference point at the meetings. With my supervisor out of the office, I was hoping to clear a few things off my to-do list which at this point includes a variety of know-how projects and practice development initiatives. The ability to get involved in these projects allows you to improve your legal knowledge in an applied fashion. However, learning how to manage your time and to prioritise the numerous tasks that you are given is a big part of the job as a trainee. As such any client-specific work takes priority and we are never short of it in the regulatory group, so the know-how projects have recently taken a back seat. The emergency Budget has just been published and, before I left last night, an associate in my group, Rachpal Thind, asked me to help her out with summarising the issues that are most relevant to the financial services firms. I finish reading the 121-page document.

10.50am: Rachpal and I discuss the issues that we should bring to the attention of our group. I start drafting an email to be sent to the group. These types of tasks are more time consuming than you initially imagine them to be and although I was hoping to finish it off before lunch, there were a few points in the Budget Report that required some further research before I could write anything meaningful about them.

12.10pm: All the London trainees receive an email from one of the other groups in the firm asking for a trainee to volunteer with some urgent proof-reading of a prospectus which must go live shortly. As I am about to respond saying that I would be happy to help out as I am not involved in any urgent client-related work, another email pops up in my inbox informing us that a volunteer has been found. One thing you notice straight away about Sidley is the friendly and supportive environment where people are happy to work hard.

1.00pm: It is sunny outside, which makes a pleasant change to the typical English weather, and there are no in-house training sessions today. All this makes for a perfect opportunity to catch up with other trainees while enjoying an al-fresco lunch at the Whitecross market which is just around the corner from the office.

2.00pm: Back at my desk and I am finalising the summary of the emergency Budget. People are anxious about the England Wold Cup match today which the firm is screening in one of our meeting rooms. As Russia did not qualify for this year’s World Cup, I decide that it would be a better use of my time to finish the email summarising the Budget.

2.50pm: I have been asked by of Counsel in our group to prepare the first draft of an article on the EU legal developments in relation to e-Invoicing. This is not an area that I am particularly familiar with and there are a number of lengthy reports which have been prepared by the European Commission’s Expert Group on e-Invoicing and industry experts that I need to familiarise myself with before I can start writing the article.

3.40pm: A partner and an associate in our group have just come off a call with a client. They ask me to prepare a table of short selling restrictions adopted by the EU member states and a number of other jurisdictions where the client has operations. There are precedents which I could use but they are either not most up to date or they do not cover all the countries in which we are interested. The task is not urgent and will take a few days to complete but it’s best to get cracking.

4.15pm: I am asked to carry out the necessary Know-Your-Customer checks. The Anti-Money Laundering legislation requires law firms to carry these out before taking on clients. The UK legislation is risk-based and as such different types of companies require a different standard of due diligence to be performed. On this occasion the proposed client is a subsidiary of a listed company which means that the client due diligence is relatively straightforward. I perform the necessary checks and fill out the client due diligence confirmation for the partner to sign.

5.30pm: I continue to read the e-Invoicing related reports and concurrently I begin noting down what I believe are the most interesting and relevant points.

7.10pm: Before heading home, I need to pay a visit to a bar that I have short-listed for our upcoming get-together for the London Committee on Retention and Promotion of Women. I am a member of the internal sub-committee and I have taken on the responsibility of organising this particular event. Sidley is that rare combination of a successful global law firm and a professional service workplace where women thrive. Sidley has won a number of prestigious awards over the years recognising its commitment to promoting and expanding opportunities for women. Internal events such as that I am currently organising provide the best possible opportunity to get to know your female colleagues in an informal environment. Being a trainee, I am right at the beginning of what I hope to be a successful legal career and this social event would provide a further opportunity to learn from the experiences of your more senior colleagues.