The Freshfields Associate
A career at Freshfields carries great promise. You will be intellectually stimulated on a daily basis. You will have opportunities to tackle problems you haven’t seen before. You will meet interesting and friendly people, and you will always be supported by teams that are genuinely interested in you and accepting of differences, all while getting the job done. Ultimately, our people are rewarded for their contributions, not how long it takes.
The key traits of a Freshfields associate include:
- Problem-solvers, quick thinkers.
- Team players who appreciate local and global perspectives.
- Willing collaborators, responsible strategists.
- Self-starters, go-getters.
How You Can Succeed
From the second you walk through our doors, you’ll be developing the technical, client relationship, trusted advisor, project management and feedback skills it takes to succeed in a top-tier international practice. Freshfields offers an array of both formal and informal training and mentoring opportunities to help you become a better lawyer.
Career Milestones Framework: This framework standardizes the objective benchmarks for career performance and success. To help our lawyers progress through the Milestones framework, the firm has a suite of local and global training programs. The Career Milestones program provides a unique opportunity for personal development and satisfaction. Ultimately, it helps both us and our attorneys track where they’ve been, where they are, and where they’re going and identifies both strengths and opportunities for growth.
Mentoring Opportunities: As a part of the Career Milestones Framework, you’ll also be mentored informally by a more senior attorney who is responsible for monitoring your progress.
Targeted Trainings: Freshfields offers a variety of trainings, including a comprehensive program of CLE courses for all levels of lawyers, taught by experienced Freshfields partners, counsel and associates. Trainings include both substantive topics as well as opportunities to develop soft skills in order to develop well-rounded, competent and capable lawyers.
Rewards and Benefits
It’s in our best interest as a firm of our size to invest in our people. We attract smart, interesting people that we want to keep. We want your experience here to be meaningful so that wherever your career leads, you’ve gained tools from us.
You can expect competitive salaries and bonuses, comprehensive health and dental insurance, state-of-the-art career development, flex and part-time arrangements for experienced lawyers, life and disability insurance, paid maternity and paternity leave, a healthy number of vacation days, and discounted fitness center memberships and backup child care services, among other benefits.
The Freshfields Network
- Secondments: Freshfields secondments allow you to experience life in another office and time zone, and to learn how other teams across our network operate and how we all join up to advise the client. We encourage secondments – both internally between offices and departments and externally with clients and public interest organizations – because they help to broaden business knowledge and skills and enhance working relationships.
- Alumni: The Freshfields Alumni Network has more than 11,000 former colleagues across the world. It is a community that helps Freshfields alumni stay connected. Our alumni are leaders in their industries and are leveraging their experience at Freshfields to make a difference, wherever they are.
- AB InBev
- Airbnb
- Amazon
- Bristol Myers Squibb
- Department of Justice
- Federal Trade Commission
- Hewlett Packard
- New York Attorney General
- PayPal
- United Nations
- United States Senate
- Verizon
- WeWork
- The White House
- Zoom