Allen & Overy

Sonya Barcant

Flying back from Geneva...

I’m writing this blog at the end of my Pensions seat on a plane back to London after a day in Geneva where I went to get a witness statement signed (and who said the life of a trainee isn’t glamorous!). In my last blog I mentioned that I was beginning work on a pensions litigation matter – since then I have become greatly involved in it and it’s been really interesting. I can’t go into detail about what it’s about but I have learnt an awful lot and have had the opportunity to attend meetings with witnesses and counsel as well as being involved with the behind the scenes work. My main job has been keeping on top of the evidence for each of our witnesses and making sure that they are referred to correctly and consistently in the witness statements. This trip to Geneva came about because the deadline for filing the statements was a couple weeks ago but the other side put in a last minute request for extension of time. One of our witnesses was due to travel back to Europe at the end of that week so the extension meant that the finishing touches to the statement had to be done by email and the signing in person had to take place in Geneva!

“who said the life of a trainee isn’t glamorous!”

I came out fully prepared with a laptop and remote log-in to A&O’s virtual filing just in case anything in the statement needed a last minute change but thankfully the signing was very uneventful. I then had a lovely 3 hour lunch with the witness and his wife overlooking stunning views of the Swiss mountains! Before getting back on the plane I stuffed my carry-on bag with as much yummy Swiss chocolate as I could manage (all for presents of course!)

I’m sad to leave Pensions as I’ve had a fantastic time in the department and have been involved in a huge variety of work, but I’m looking forward to my time in Employment. I would love to work in pensions in the future but it would be important to also have an understanding of employment law as many issues interlink and need to be understood in context of one another.

I also can’t believe that there’s only 6 months left until I’m a fully fledged qualified solicitor – the training contract has gone unbelievably quickly. It was weird bidding farewell last week to many of my friends who left for their secondments – A&O is certainly going to seem very quiet over the next 6 months. As for me, I’m hoping that there will be some interesting 3 month secondments that I’ll be able to apply for to finish off my training contract. I’d quite like to do something completely different before I settle down as an associate.

Of course, 6 months to go of training also means 6 months to go until my wedding which is very exciting, although there’s still so much to do! I’ll let you know how I’m getting on in the world of weddings as well as employment law next time.

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