You will spend each of your two weeks in a different practice area, working alongside a partner, solicitor or trainee. At the same time, you will undertake a mock transaction that will run for the duration of your placement.

Away from the work, the scheme has a strong social component. As well as the organised events, bowling with the trainees for example, or lunch with the partners, there are many opportunities to get to know people throughout the firm and to find out if Macfarlanes is right for you.

Key dates

The dates of the 2018 vacation schemes are as follows:

Easter: 3 – 13 April 2018
Summer scheme 1: 25 June – 6 July 2018
Summer scheme 2: 9 – 20 July 2018

Application

To apply for the vacation scheme you will need to be in at least the penultimate year of your degree.

Applications for the 2018 vacation schemes open on 1 October 2017 and close on 31 January 2018.

To truly experience what life is like in the London office of Kirkland & Ellis we invite you to apply for our two-week vacation schemes taking place throughout the spring and summer months. You are eligible to apply if you are in your penultimate year of a law degree, final year of a non-law degree or beyond. Ideally we look to recruit as many of our future trainees as possible from the vacation scheme. Vacation scheme participants receive £500 per week and you will be working on real deals alongside partners and associates. It’s unlikely you will see a live transaction from start to finish, so we provide a mock transaction in which you will conduct a negotiation exercise, hammer out the terms of a sponsorship deal and celebrate with champagne at the closing. We also run practice group overview sessions in order to give you a chance to learn more about what we do, and an opportunity to network with different people across the office. You will be allocated a trainee buddy, and there are of course numerous social events throughout the two weeks.

At Kirkland & Ellis we keep our trainee intake small giving you the chance to shine. We hire just 10 trainees each year and provide them with high quality work from day one. You will be treated as a lawyer from the start and be given every opportunity for success. Our work is demanding, challenging, thrilling, high-profile and involves extremely talented clients from businesses in all industries and sectors. Working in this environment will stretch your intellect and make you more than just a lawyer.

Your academic record will be excellent. You will have the initiative, the drive and the work ethic to thrive in the firm’s meritocratic culture and arrive with an understanding of the work undertaken in the firm’s London office.

To apply, visit our website ukgraduate.kirkland.com before the deadline on 7 January 2018.

The figure is up considerably on last year’s H1 result of £149.4m, and comes after the 900-lawyer firm went on a recruitment drive adding 27 partners since May 2017 (including 13 promotions). Simmons managing partner Jeremy Hoyland told Legal Business: ‘The Middle East and continental Europe continue to do well, with France and Italy being our strongest performers. We have also seen a little bit of swing back towards the transactional areas.’

Hoyland indicated that the firm’s pace of recruitment would likely slow in the months ahead, adding: ‘I suspect we won’t run quite to those levels but we continue to be attractive to people in our strongest areas.’

The London-based law firm has made inroads elsewhere, announcing in October that it will be opening in Dublin in 2018 with a lateral hire from Mason Hayes & Curran (MHC). MHC’s head of investment funds and financial regulation Fionan Breathnac is joining the firm’s new branch, which will focus on investments funds and regulatory work for asset managers and financial institutions.

Among the major hires for Simmons in 2017 was the appointment of legacy Olswang intellectual practice veteran Michael Burdon. Burdon, who headed Olswang’s European patent litigation group, joined Simmons in May. Simmons was also named on the revised panel of HSBC earlier this year, reflecting its heavy focus on financial institution clients.

Simmons saw turnover rise by 7% to £316.1m for the full 2016/17 year, while profit per equity partner hit £635,000.

Few firms have so far confirmed H1 results in what is expected to be a tough financial year. Exceptions to the rule are Watson Farley & Williams and Fieldfisher, two of the fastest growing UK firms of recent years, which respectively last month confirmed growth of 13% and 20%.

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White & Case’s Caroline Miller Smith and Carina Radford are advising Brazilian mining company Vale and Japanese energy giant Mitsui, which signed a deal for the refinancing of the Nacala Corridor, a 912km railway line to transport coal from their mine in western Mozambique to a port on the eastern coast of the country across Malawi. Other White & Case partners involved include energy, infrastructure, project and asset finance veteran Philp Stopford and disputes specialist Ed Attenborough.

Head of Linklaters Africa group Andrew Jones and London projects partner Fiona Hobbs advised the lenders, along with Francisco Ferraz de Carvalho in Lisbon and Hirofumi Taba in Tokyo and lawyers in Johannesburg, Amsterdam and Dubai.

Jones told Legal Business: ‘This deal has a terrific collateral benefit for the region. There will be not just trains for coal, but also other cargo and passengers, connecting these isolated regions. This should be a stimulus for Malawi and Mozambique.’

A long-term client of White & Case, Vale started work on the corridor linking the cities of Moatize and Nacala-à-Velha in 2012. In March this year, Mitsui acquired 15% of the Brazilian company’s stake in the coal mine and 50% of its stake in the corridor.

In 2016 the cost of the project, which also involved the construction of a new port at Nacala, was estimated at $4.4bn, with $2bn already invested by Vale. The railway line began operating in May and completion of the project is expected next year.

The $2.73bn deal agreed this week will refinance part of Vale’s shareholders loans used for the construction, support the ramping up of operations along the corridor and mean the companies will share investment and political risks with institutions which have established relationships with the governments of the two countries involved.

Lenders included African Development Bank, Export Credit Insurance Corporation of South Africa (ECIC), Japan Bank for International Cooperation and Nippon Export and Investment Insurance (NEXI), together with ECIC and NEXI-covered commercial lenders.

‘This project required some creative thinking,’ said White & Case’s Miller Smith. ‘One of the challenges for our clients is you don’t choose where natural resources are in the world. We knew that lenders for this project wanted it to be an integrated whole. We drafted a treaty that the two governments [of Malawi and Mozambique] signed in September.’

A team from Linklaters’ South African alliance partner Webber Wentzel advised the South African lenders. In-country advice was provided by ABCC in Mozambique and Savjani & Co in Malawi.

Meanwhile, Slaughter and May and Macfarlanes are facing off as Cineworld offered $3.6bn to acquire Regal Entertainment yesterday (29 November).

The UK cinema operator confirmed it is in ‘advanced discussions’ with Regal for an all-cash offer to acquire the second-largest cinema chain in the US for $23 per share.

Slaughters corporate partner David Johnson and finance partners Ed Fife Guy and O’ Keefe are acting for Cineworld, while Macfarlanes’ M&A partner Harry Coghill is leading Regal’s advisers.

The UK cinema operator advised its shareholders that ‘there can be no certainty that the discussions will lead to any agreement’ and there was no timetable set for the transaction yet.

Cineworld is a long-time client of Slaughters. The Magic Circle firm was part of an international group of advisers as the UK chain acquired Warsaw-listed Cinema City International for £504m in 2014 .

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It will be a packed day, during which you’ll be given the chance to learn more about the Firm, attend skills sessions to help you with your vacation scheme applications and take part in a business game.

Apply by 31 December 2017.

Taylor Wessing is a full-service international law firm, standing at the forefront of the industries of tomorrow. Acting as legal advisers to well-known clients in progressive and cutting-edge sectors, they’re a firm for the ground breakers, the smart thinkers and the trail blazers. Their spark, focus and lateral thinking make them exceptional legal advisers, helping their clients to succeed by thinking innovatively about their business issues.

The day involves talks by partners and fee-earners working in some of the firm’s key practice areas as well as the opportunity to meet the current trainees. Forsters welcomes approximately 25 students to each open day on an invitation only basis.

 If you wish to apply for the next open day, please e-mail your CV and a covering letter to [email protected] by midday on Monday 4 December 2017 at the latest.

Netherlands managing partner Marcus Huisman told Legal Business the firm saw Amsterdam as a logical step. ‘There is a need to be close on a regular basis to our clients and prospects. International clients arrive at Schiphol Airport [in Amsterdam] and we want to offer them the opportunity to meet us there.’

He also pointed to the relocation of the European Medicines Agency from London to the Dutch capital in April 2019 as the most recent development encouraging the firm to open the new space. ‘We have a strong footprint in that sector, and this provides us with new opportunities.’

Bird & Bird’s office in The Hague numbers 80 lawyers, around 20 of them partners, focusing mainly on IP, telecoms, IT, corporate, energy and tax.

Huisman said there was a ‘broad feeling’ that the firm’s energy, corporate and fintech operations would find more opportunities with a base in the capital, and the firm was also looking closely at the Dutch media sector, which is very much Amsterdam-based.

‘We don’t think the new space should be limited to a few partners or associates,’ added Huisman. ‘We want a collective effort to make it a success.’

Bird & Bird’s main operations in The Netherlands will remain in The Hague, where the country’s telecoms regulator and Supreme Court are located and many IP matters decided on. A division of the Unified Patent Court is also expected to be established in the city next year.

This is the third announcement concerning Bird & Bird’s international operations over the last two months. It signed a non-exclusive co-operation agreement with Chinese firm AllBright Law Offices at the beginning of the month and also announced it would open a representative office in San Francisco next year, its first base in the States.

Meanwhile, Herbert Smith Freehills (HSF) is to open a second base in Sydney to house its alternative legal services team and most of its Australian business services staff from 2018.

The firm said the opening of the ‘innovative business service hub’ means ‘a much more sustainable occupancy cost for the firm in Australia’ and will help modernise the way its people work.

About 230 staff will relocate from the firm’s office at Castlereagh Street to the new premises in Macquarie Park at Talavera Road in the first half of next year, including chief operating officer Nicole Bamforth.

‘This enables us to markedly reduce the amount of space we lease in 161 Castlereagh Street with a number of the floors we currently occupy being relinquished to the building’s owners for re-leasing,’ said HSF chief executive officer Mark Rigotti. ‘The per-metre cost-saving is materially significant. The business case in making this move is unquestionable.’

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Carlyle had signed a heads of terms and memorandum of understanding to acquire P&H – which counts UK supermarket chain Tesco as one of its biggest clients – following a competitive sale process in the summer. The deal was not done by the time the private equity firm’s exclusivity ran out at the end of November, with the company’s liquidity crisis giving it no other option than to call in the administrator.

The Ashurst team is led by Giles Boothman, global head of restructuring and special situations, and also includes banking partner Jane Fissenden. Restructuring partner Deborah Gregor is leading the Hogan Lovells team, which is acting for both PwC and P&H’s lending banks.

Allen & Overy is advising Imperial Tobacco as one of the largest trade creditors to P&H. Slaughter and May is acting for the other major trade creditor, Japan Tobacco International (JTI). P&H had tried to address its liquidity issues in April when trade debt owed to Imperial and JTI was converted into senior secured long-tenor debt.

The company was also hit by Tesco’s proposed £3.7bn takeover of rival tobacco supplier Booker, which shrouded the future of P&H’s relationship with its biggest customer in doubt. That deal was given the provisional go-ahead in mid-November by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA).

‘P&H had been facing a number of systematic issues in which the company was caught between powerful tobacco manufacturers and retail giants, a position which was not sustainable in the face of severely squeezed margins’, one industry source said.

PwC’s Matthew Callaghan, Ian Green and Zelf Hussein are the joint administrators. Callaghan, joint administrator and partner at PwC, said: ‘The P&H Group has faced a challenging trading environment, and the need for significant restructuring has been recognised for some while. The company has insufficient cash resources to continue to trade beyond the short term and the directors have concluded that there is no longer any reasonable prospect of a sale. Therefore, the directors have had no choice but to appoint administrators’.

The P&H Group employed around 3,400 employees, of which roughly 2,500 have immediately been made redundant.

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Top prize is a week’s work experience in the firm’s London office and a trip to the McLaren Technology Centre. Find out more and submit your entry by visiting the Norton Rose Fulbright website: https://www.nortonrosefulbrightgraduates.com/uk.