Name: Jessica Solsberg
Office: London
About: 1st year trainee sat in the Financial Markets and Products department
I am a trainee in the Financial Markets & Products (FMP) department, completing a split seat between the Banking & Funds teams for the first rotation of my training contract.
In Banking, my main responsibilities consist of managing Conditions Precedent (CP) lists and stakeholder management. For each deal, I maintain a detailed documents list of all the conditions precedent which are required to be in agreed form and submitted to us in order for funds to be released and a matter to complete. I chase the lawyers and clients responsible for submitting those documents to us and schedule regular CP calls to update everyone on the status of the CP Checklist. This ensures all stakeholders are kept informed of the progress we are making on the deal. I'm also responsible for completing company searches and performing research tasks in the due diligence stage of a deal. For example, I was recently involved in a research task relating to the ability to take security over carbon credits.
In Funds, I primarily assist on drafting Strategic Services Agreements, Model Distribution Agreements and Memorandums on Investment Funds. I have also been involved in drafting letters to the Financial Conduct Authority requesting that they investigate into certain investment firms as a result of purported market integrity issues.
FMP are well known for being a social team. I've been in the team for two months and have already attended multiple social events such as the Associates Social in Vagabond, a rib-boat ride to the Trafalgar Tavern in Greenwich for a team social and the Christmas party is coming up soon at The Rockwell in central London. A complete desk move for the entire FMP department is imminent to promote team collaboration and to get us speaking to others we might not have had the opportunity to work closely with before.
In FMP you are exposed to a wide variety of opportunities to attend conferences and network with external lawyers and clients. For example, I will be attending the CREFC Europe conference in December on the subject of insurance covering the types of policies which are relevant to real estate / development financings and what risks they are designed to insure against. I have also been invited to the Real Estate Finance (REF) Quarterly Series Seminar at the Pinsent Masons London office held solely for Junior REF professionals with up to 3 years' experience in the market. Further to this, we internally held a 'NextGen Quiz Night' inviting clients from the next generation to form teams and participate in a quiz held internally at our Riverbank House London office. These are all great opportunities to network with other REF lawyers and clients at a similar level.
I am heavily involved in Sports & Social at the firm and am a 'Ministry of Fun' representative for the trainee cohorts. I lead the newly formed Fieldfisher Run Club which now has over 35 members. In October, four of us travelled to Paris from the London office and participated in the 'Les 20k de Paris' alongside our European offices promoting cross-office collaboration. We were subsequently nominated for the Team Award at the Just Purpose Awards, an internal event that recognises the achievements of people who have contributed to pro bono, community, and sustainability initiatives and projects. We have lots of exciting events in the pipeline for 2023 and a team of 15 lawyers will be participating in the London Landmarks Half Marathon in April 2023. I am also an ambassador for our mental health charity sponsor, Papyrus, so regularly partner with the charity for any of our races and managed to raise over £3000 for the Les Paris de 20k race alone.
All-in-all, I'm absolutely loving my training contract at Fieldfisher so far and I'm looking forward to what’s in store for my next rotations!
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