The Trainee Experience with Tom Segev

Ben McAlary:
Hello, and welcome to Ashurst's Legal Outlook, and our brand new podcast miniseries, where Ashurst's trainees and junior associates discuss the influences and factors that have guided them on their career journey to date. The conversations will touch on their origin stories, mentors, education, and early career background, which have all contributed to their decision to explore Ashurst's training program.

In this first episode, I speak with trainee, Tom Segev. We discuss his journey, from studying history at university, to working for a music label, which ultimately led him to the Ashurst Trainee Program. We also learn more about the unique trainee culture at Ashurst, and his advice for those considering the trainee program in the future. Join me now as we get to know a little bit more about Tom, including his passion for American football. You're listening to Ashurst's Legal Outlook. All right, Tom, great to have you on the podcast.

Tom Segev:
Hey, how's it going?

Ben McAlary:
Tom, first of all, can you tell me a little bit about yourself, your background, where you went to school, university, sports, hobbies, paint a picture about what it is to be Tom Segev.

Tom Segev:
I'm a North London boy. Grew up my whole life in North London. Went to a school called Queen Elizabeth's Boy School. Yeah, I had a great time there. It was a very academic school, but I was lucky enough, and I was a pure water sports guy in school. I didn't do any running. I was horrible at rugby. I was average at cricket. Yeah, just barely could function on land, so a lot of water sports.

Then went off to the University of Warwick to study history, and decided I'm now going to graduate from the water and go on to land, and started playing American football, just because I thought it was really fun. Had a great time studying history, really interesting degree. Had no, at this time, absolutely no desire to do law, and were just going through doing anything that I enjoyed.

When it came to post-uni, I was thinking, what am I going to do with my life? The only thing that really resounded with me at the time was music. I was a music journalist while I was at uni, and I thought, let me just pursue this. Got a job at a record label, and at that point, music was everything. I was writing my music, I was well, I was very badly making music. That was my whole life.

Then for about a year, I was working for a record label, a small independent record label, and then just decided at some point that I wanted to move on with my career, and the bridge in between where I am now and where I was, was I was thinking, maybe I'll go into music law, but I essentially just had the choice between commercial law and music law. I had a couple friends that had just started training contracts, so they started GDL, and I decided to go down the commercial law route.

In terms of hobbies now, so like I said, I've graduated from the water. I now run a fair bit. Definitely not saying I'm any good at it, but I do like it. I like to go out, I like to have fun. I think we've got to, as stressful as this job can be, you've got to take the good opportunities when you can. Anything social, you'll find me there. I'm very happy to be in and around the social events.

Ben McAlary:
What a fantastic origin story, Tom. I've got so many questions, I'm not going to ask all of them, but I do want to know, when you were working for the record label and you said that you were thinking about music law or commercial law, what was it? Can you remember a particular instance where you were like, "This really interests me," because I would suspect that because you're in the music industry, it would naturally fit, like music law, very interesting. You're still part of the industry. What was the change?

Tom Segev:
There were certain things about music law that I liked, and especially, I even did some interviews at music law firms, and there were certain things in terms of, okay, so we're going to go to court, and sue you on this sample, or we're going to business development for record label. The music industry in general is a very, very young industry, and I kind of saw a lot of parallels to what I saw to my job in music, where you almost have to be a complete generalist.

You can't necessarily, especially at the beginning of your career, obviously, in any law, later down in your career you can specialize much more. I kind of wanted to have a good grasp of what I was doing, and it's not necessarily hitting the two against each other of commercial law or music law, but I had two interests, and my main interest in commercial law was more towards the renewables and energy space, and that was kind of what I was gravitating towards.

I decided at that point that I wouldn't really want to be necessarily a complete generalist in having to do litigation, IP, corporate. I kind of just wanted to stick to one thing and become good at it, basically. I just went with one interest over the other, and quite happy I made that decision. It's given me the opportunity to grow, and much faster maybe than had I gone to a smaller, more specialized to music firm. It wasn't necessarily a decision that happened overnight. It was just a lot of going to interviews, talking to a load of people, cold messaging, cold calling, and just trying to find out as much as I could and get the biggest picture possible.

Ben McAlary:
Yeah, let's stick into that a little bit, because I'm really fascinated with the influences that you might've had over that time and the people you spoke to. Is there any particular one person that may have been in the industry that you look towards for advice, or that mentor figure, or is it like you're saying, you just wanted to talk to as many people as possible to get that real breadth of what the industry was like as a whole?

Tom Segev:
I, at the time, I certainly was looking for someone to be that mentor figure. I'd heard, especially in music, everyone's got a mentor. Everyone and their uncle was a mentor, but I didn't know how to get one. It was as simple as that. I literally was sitting there, like, "Okay, everyone's got a mentor, but how do you actually get one?" Then law was kind of the same. People say, "Oh, my mentor helped me get into law," and my idea of a conventional mentor was someone that was a couple of years older, of any level, that kind of coached you and gave you advice, and maybe introduce you to the right people.

After realizing I had no idea how to get one, although I had friends that were doing their legal studies, they couldn't really mentor me necessarily to get a training contract, or know what kind of field of law I wanted to get into, I actually found that talking to trainees at firms that I kind of aspired to be at was the best resource. Instead of someone with maybe a bit more experience and taking time out of their day, which would've been valuable, I really found the value in a wide search and a wide approach to it.

You really make some incredible connections from that, and you realize how, especially the younger cohort of people at law firms, they're just going to be so unbelievably helpful. 90% of my cold messages on LinkedIn were answered, and a lot of them helped and gave me advice. I thought, I don't necessarily need that one mentor figurehead. I've just got a wealth of resources in the trainee cohort of London.

I definitely make sure that anyone that messaged me on LinkedIn, I'm always responding. I'm always very happy to help, because I know how much help I got from the many people that when I was trying to find my way.

Ben McAlary:
Amazing. What a great story. Very impressive. I'm really interested now to find out, after you've done all that research, you're there, you're talking to people, you're asking questions, what was it about Ashurst that stood out to you? Why did you choose Ashurst?

Tom Segev:
When you're talking about the top firms in the city, there are a lot of similarities between them, like the opportunity to do international work, or a lot of them have secondments that you can go on. I think work-wise, kind of like I mentioned earlier, the thing that I was most interested in, when you're doing all the applications, and you're forcing yourself to read the FT, and you're kind trying to understand more of the commercial landscape and what's going on right now, I was really interested in energy renewables, sustainable, anything, financing, construction.

I just found those stories easier to read. I found that I was interested in the news, I found I was keeping up with it. I just started getting interested in the space. Ashurst quite obviously stands out as that firm, given the practice that we have here for infrastructure, our projects, and energy transition team. It's not just that particular team that does all the energy work, it's in every team, you will have exposure to these renewable projects, whether you're in corporate, real estate, even finance.

I really was drawn towards that as a practice area, because like I said, it was something I enjoyed, but also I knew how important it was for the future, and it's not necessarily something that's going to go away. To become a lawyer in that space, I was quite sure of the future, so to speak. Aside from that, I was also lucky enough to have a friend who was a trainee who had just started as a trainee at Ashurst then. I think, to answer a previous question again, a really, really valuable resource if you're applying to law firms is to have someone that can speak quite candidly with you about how the firm is, and actually tell you exactly how it is.

I think people don't take themselves so seriously. It's not their whole lives revolve around work. People have so many interesting things that they're doing outside of work. People come from all sorts of different work backgrounds, so maybe they've worked in other careers before. It kind of gives people a bit more wealth of experience before coming here that makes them just infinitely more interesting people.

Ben McAlary:
Absolutely. You touched on there, the culture of Ashurst, and it sounds like that was one of two really main reasons what drew you to the Ashurst brand. Can you maybe put into practice or describe for us what sort of opportunities there are for trainees like yourself to engage and socialize with your fellow trainees, but then also partners and associates? What does that look like?

Tom Segev:
Yeah. There's as much or as little as you want, and there are all sorts of different kind of groups you can socialize with. If you are not necessarily a social person, you're not forced into anything. I think that's an important thing to say. If you are a social person, there are plenty of opportunities. Start with the trainee cohort, we've got a trainee social committee and there are socials organized every now and then.

We've got, there's a trainee ball coming up in September. A lot of summer socials, actually. We do Christmas socials. The trainees do get together and do big ones, but they don't necessarily have to be the big organized ones. Either in your cohort or with other cohorts, a lot of people just decide to go for drinks. I think the cohorts here are quite close as well. It would be a lot of just impromptu staff, just going out, enjoying. Given the amount of time you spend with people here, you actually do make quite good friends with people here.

You'll also find your group and you'll be going out with them, but then that's kind of just the trainees. In terms of the departments, so every department has their own social bandwidth, but I think especially in the department I'm in right now, there is quite an emphasis on let's be sociable, let's do things, let's get together as a group. It's at least every other Thursday, we're going upstairs for a couple of drinks. I think there's a real emphasis on everyone to attend.

That's one thing that I think is really good at this firm is not only are we encouraged to socialize, but it's encouraged for everyone to attend. It's not just, "Oh, we've got a department social, but all the youngers, all the trainees, and all the junior associates are there." No, you'll see people from every level. It's like, no one is seen as inaccessible, no matter what level. I think, yeah, that kind of really helps you feel welcome within a firm.

I think there's even more opportunity to socialize, I play football for the firm as well, and we'll, after games on Thursday evenings, we'll maybe go for a pint, or we'll have organized socials.

Ben McAlary:
Amazing. How long have you been with Ashurst?

Tom Segev:
It's a year and three months.

Ben McAlary:
Okay. Thinking about those year and three months, are there any particular, and you've probably worked across the business, I know that you said you're in corporate at the moment, is there any standout moments for you since starting your training? Is there any particular tasks, or days, or even projects that you've worked on that stand out to you?

Tom Segev:
Yeah, I think there's quite a few, to be honest. My experience in the projects and energy infrastructure team, so that was my first seat, so this time last year, I was very happy with the amount of responsibility I was getting. That was purely because I enjoyed the work. Obviously, to get responsibility, you have to build up trust, but to speak to how accessible the partners are, there was this one project...

I was doing a fair bit of work for this one partner, and there was this one project on a district heating network that I was doing. To briefly explain, district heating is much more renewable, and hopefully in the future, more affordable heating, where there is a centralized heat source instead of each home having its own boiler to kind of pump that hot water around to a number of houses, buildings, so that yeah, each boiler doesn't have to burn its own gas, and you can actually heat the water for cheaper, and like I said, more renewable.

I had no idea what that was before joining. No idea. Emphasis, you don't need to know these things before you come to the firm. You learn here. I was really interested in it, and our responsibility was a due diligence task. Within due diligence, it was a corporate acquisition, and I'd started helping out on the little bits. The partner, senior associate, and council were doing the actual due diligence of the contract. I got given a little bit to do, a little bit to try, and I really enjoyed it. I went to the partner and I said, "Look," I didn't say, "Look," I said, "I'm really enjoying this task. I would like more of this work, please. I would like to take on more responsibility."

The answer was, "Yeah, of course." If you tell someone that you're enjoying their work, and you want to do more of it, and you want to take on more responsibility, the answer's probably going to be yes. It was, I essentially got given contracts to due diligence myself. Obviously, within, I asked a bit for the framework of my review first, and best believe, it was very heavily marked up after by the partner. That opportunity to just sit with something for, I think one of these contracts, literally eight hours more, and just look through it, and just essentially do the same job that the seniors were doing, that really, one, meant a lot to me that someone trusted me to do it, but two, I felt like this is proper work, and this is exactly what I wanted to be doing.

Yeah, I think I was really happy with the responsibility there. You really see how fast you grow in your abilities when you're pushed out of that comfort zone. That was a real opportunity to do that.

Ben McAlary:
Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Thinking about before you started at Ashurst, and once you sort of understood where you wanted to go and you wanted to work at Ashurst, and just before you started thinking about the role, were there any particular elements that you thought coming in, "Oh, you know what, I might struggle with this", or you became particular anxious, or whatever it could be? What was the reality like? Do you have a sort of story to share?

Tom Segev:
Yeah, I remember asking the trainee that I already knew at the firm, "Do I need to do any pre-reading? Do I need to... Is there anything I need to prepare before?" I also did the LPC, GDL and LPC separate from all the Ashurst trainees. My first time meeting anyone at my level from Ashurst, apart from that one person I already knew, was on my first day. I literally, I don't know anything about what I need. I know what I need to wear, and that's probably about it, and where to go.

I was thinking, "Yeah, do I need to prepare anything, read anything? Do I need to bring anything? Is there anything can maybe even give me a step up and so I can kind of hit the ground running?" She was like, "No, no, there's nothing you need to know," and you really come in. It was like, "Okay, I'm fine. Right?" I just came in, and that fear of the unknown is completely disable when you realize there's so much training when you come in. There's so much learning on the job, and no one's expecting you to necessarily know anything coming in. You're there to learn, not to show off what you already know, or not to put to use all this breadth of knowledge.

I think that is the main thing coming into a firm is just be happy that you don't know anything, and just be happy to learn from it. There are, inevitably in this job, there are going to be late nights, but it's nowhere near... Maybe I'm just oversimplifying this, but you get used to it. It's certainly helped by the fact that the teams are very conscious, if you're doing a load of late nights, if someone knows that I'm working till however late in the morning, I can get in maybe a bit later, I can work from home, I can do all this.

I can essentially just take care of myself. Whatever you need to do to take care of yourself, everyone's going to be very understanding, and also on these late nights, you're not the only one working.

Ben McAlary:
All right, Tom. We've reached the stage in our conversation where I'm going to fire some quick questions at you. Are you ready?

Tom Segev:
Nice. Yep. Here we go.

Ben McAlary:
All right, mate. Favorite NFL team.

Tom Segev:
Pats, was a Tom Brady kind of follower, so it's just the Patriots. It has to be

Ben McAlary:
Favorite seats so far?

Tom Segev:
Probably, oh, it's a very tough question. Probably the one I'm in now, corporate.

Ben McAlary:
Football position?

Tom Segev:
Fullback or wing.

Ben McAlary:
Favorite water sport?

Tom Segev:
Water polo.

Ben McAlary:
Favorite podcast or book?

Tom Segev:
I do both. Favorite podcast, Old Man and the Three, JJ Redick. Favorite book, Brave New World, Aldous Huxley.

Ben McAlary:
Favorite musical artist?

Tom Segev:
Right now, Jordan Rakei.

Ben McAlary:
Any goals in terms of your running career?

Tom Segev:
Run faster? No. Get a sub four marathon.

Ben McAlary:
Finally, what would be your piece of advice, short piece of advice for someone considering the trainee program at Ashurst?

Tom Segev:
Talk to people. Talk to as many people as you can. It's the best way to learn about it.

Ben McAlary:
Tom, finally, love to hear about what your hopes for the future are, just in terms of your career. They can be as long or as short term hopes as you see fit.

Tom Segev:
Yeah. Well, I'm gearing up, being in my third seat and moving towards the fourth, I'm gearing up to qualification, very much looking to stay in the firm. I think in more of a short term way, getting ready for qualification, maybe bridge the gap more between now and when I'm qualified. I know that it's quite a jump. Going from a trainee, where you're pretty much being asked to do stuff, and not necessarily delegating as much, to when you are a NQ and you have that delegation role.

I think that development of that people management skill and that delegation skill is one of the most important there is in law, especially as a young lawyer. I think just to be more confident, and more aware of the commercial realities, and the space in which you operate. I think it's very easy to, when you're doing what work as a trainee, just kind of do the work, and you can kind of just be focused on the work you're doing and rather less the big picture.

It's not necessarily a specific goal for the future, but I would like to have more of those big picture maybe discussions with people. People are very open to wanting to explain to you, "This is exactly how the deal works, this is how the client works." Maybe that's something I would like to carry on doing. I think, yeah, just progress as a lawyer. I'm quite happy with how everything's going so far, and just build myself within the firm. I don't necessarily have that five year, 10 year plan, but it's just steady progression. Let's keep it going.

Ben McAlary:
Fascinating discussion, Tom. Thank you so much joining.

Tom Segev:
Thank you.

Ben McAlary:
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