Job Satisfaction at Clayton Utz

The office can be quiet over the summer clerkship so I was working on a lot of non-billable tasks at times. The work was generally very interesting and some partners went to a lot of effort to involve me which was excellent.

The work given was never too overwhelming or beyond my capabilities. The work primarily focused around legal research, doc review, meeting with clients (with other lawyers present) and drafting.

As a law clerk, I have been given a wide-array of tasks from due diligence to drafting legal advice to summarising important documents. I greatly enjoy the variety of work that I am given and no two days are the exact same.

The tasks are appropriate and challenging enough to keep you stimulated and engaged.

Even at a clerk level I have been given interesting, challenging and client facing work opportunities.

I was given a variety of tasks to work on throughout both rotations. Nothing was ever too repetitive.

Lots of research tasks, assembling folders, constructing letters of advice.

The work is very interesting across most teams. In a top-tier firm such as Clayton Utz, there are a number of high-profile clients with very interesting matters. Even as a clerk you get to work on interesting tasks within those matters, such as conducting research tasks.

I have been working on some big matters and have generally been working on tasks for those matters. Additionally I have been picking up work around that and have gotten experience in making chronologies, summarising medical documents and drafting an advice or brief to counsel.

This is extremely team dependent. Personally I am tasked with the negotiation, drafting and project management of various 'deals' - i.e. the legal aspects of an acquisition or financing which requires contracts to be entered into. At the more junior level (i.e. when you just start) you are typically expected to do banal checks of documents until you prove you have the attention to detail required to: (i) learn what the documents do; and (ii) therefore apply the risk tolerance of your respective client to the words in those documents. This is like learning a new language.

As a graduate I am given the opportunity to get involved in lots of really interesting, high profile matters. I am treated like a lawyer in the team and I am given meaningful work like drafting key legal documents, attending team meetings to contribute to the strategy and conduct of matters, managing the preparation of briefs to counsel, reviewing documents and conducting legal research.

Day to day activities can differ. You can expect a variety of tasks particularly in the corporate practice group. Tasks may involve drafting advice, reviewing transaction documents and preparing regulatory applications and due diligence reports etc.

Drafting letters to the other side, advices, research memos and articles. Also, preparing chronologies, reviewing reports, etc.

Contract review, DD, research.

I have a lot of exposure to clients and get to take ownership of individual task and sometimes small matters all by myself, with excellent supervision. I am trusted to run document review, research complex issues and communicate directly with clients on any given day.

I am involved in all the team's work to the extent possible.

Drafting, research, client contact, project management.

Generally I am very happy to be actively involved in various tasks including: drafting, reviewing, researching, attending client meetings. I enjoy having autonomy to have first cuts at drafting contracts or advice, and having feedback sessions on where I can improve.

I thoroughly enjoy my role and feel like I am given a good amount of responsibility. However, on some occasions it feels as if there is room for improvement to ensure the higher responsibility is proportionate to the amount of briefing/training received.

I enjoy my role and day-to day responsibilities, but being a grad the unpredictability of workflow and lack of control of the work you do is frustrating and makes it difficult to find stability and get into a routine with work.