Last week,n a recent Platforum9 session concluding a week focused on legal careers, Ian Bagshaw, Managing Partner at Perkins Coie London, and Co-Moderator Natalie Thomas, Legal Business Analyst, shared valuable perspectives on navigating careers in Big Law. Drawing from Bagshaw’s extensive experience across firms including Eversheds, Clifford Chance, Linklaters, and White & Case, alongside Thomas’s journey as a first-generation university graduate who joined Perkins Coie through a non-traditional path, their conversation offered refreshing insights for aspiring lawyers considering careers in major law firms.

Understanding Big Law: Beyond the Prestige

Bagshaw characterised Big Law as “an elite group of law firms, probably the top 100-200 in the world who operate internationally.” These firms typically feature diverse practice groups serving an “increasingly smaller number of clients on a repeat basis,” with relatively institutionalised behaviours and established methodologies for career progression.

While the prestige and high compensation of Big Law firms attract many graduates, Bagshaw challenged the conventional wisdom that starting at a top firm is always the optimal path: “You don’t need to always start at the top firm to end up at the top firm,” he noted, reflecting on his own journey beginning at a smaller firm in Leeds. This environment provided him with direct partner contact, meaningful mentoring, and substantial early responsibility in what he described as “a nurturing environment with clear mentorship.”

The Reality of Big Law Training

Despite their institutional strength, Bagshaw suggested that Big Law firms don’t necessarily provide the most effective training environments for junior lawyers. “If you design a business where the majority of training for junior talent is in pressurised situations, then the reality is you’ll create additional workplace friction,” he observed.

This approach contrasts with other talent-focused industries: “Pep [Guardiola] doesn’t sign a player at Manchester City and drop him straight in the first team without a training session.” In successful talent development systems, there’s “a much greater ratio of training to performance at an earlier stage.”

Bagshaw advocated for more centralised, technology-enabled training that allows junior lawyers to learn at their own pace rather than through the traditional apprenticeship model of “worshipping at the desk of someone a year or two more senior.” This would create more confident, capable junior lawyers better equipped to handle client interactions when they arise.

Controlling Your Development

For young lawyers already in Big Law environments, Bagshaw emphasised that building internal credibility is essential for gaining greater control over your work and development. He advised focusing first on what he calls “the things that take least talent”:

• Meeting deadlines or explaining why not
• Always being punctual
• Putting in maximum effort
• Asking informed questions
• Being consistently reliable

“It’s not that hard to be a safe pair of hands in a work environment,” Bagshaw noted. “Very often I find junior lawyers can’t differentiate between the finer points of law and doing the simple things well.”

Thomas complemented this perspective by emphasising collaboration: “It’s really important to understand your own strengths but also your weaknesses. Don’t be afraid to collaborate with people that might be better than you at something in your team.” This collaborative approach can be particularly powerful in competitive environments like law where knowledge-sharing doesn’t always come naturally.

The Changing Landscape of Legal Recruitment

The legal market has undergone significant transformation, particularly since COVID-19. Bagshaw noted that today’s applicants face different expectations than those from even five years ago. To stand out, candidates should demonstrate commercial awareness by understanding the specific positioning and challenges of firms they’re applying to.

“If you’re at a Magic Circle interview, you should understand why you’re choosing the Magic Circle over a US firm. You should understand the competitive threat of a leading US firm to the Magic Circle,” Bagshaw advised. Similarly, candidates interviewing at US firms should be able to articulate why they prefer that environment over a Magic Circle firm.

This level of commercial understanding signals engagement and savviness—qualities that have become increasingly important as technology democratises technical legal skills. “The reality is the key skillset people are looking for is how you use that high base and how you apply that. It’s going to be entrepreneurial skills, like how do you make an impact? What commercial engagement do you have?”

Alternative Pathways: The Perkins Coie Approach

Thomas shared how Perkins Coie London is rethinking the traditional training path to create more accessible routes into the profession. Coming from socially mobile backgrounds themselves, Bagshaw and Thomas have designed a programme that begins with a year as a Legal Business Analyst, allowing candidates to rotate through different parts of the business before committing to legal training.

“By the end of the year, you’ll be in a really well-informed position to decide if you actually want to become a lawyer before you commit to that,” Thomas explained. Those who choose to proceed then enter a training contract programme partnered with a flexible SQE provider, allowing them to “work and study at the same time” rather than taking the traditional route of leaving work to study full-time.

The firm also offers a £3,000 “Welcome to London” grant to support relocation costs—something Thomas personally identified with: “For someone like me from Wales, there’s no chance I could move to London without some support.”

Conclusion: Becoming the Best Version of Yourself

Perhaps the most valuable insight from the session was Bagshaw’s emphasis on using the formative years of a legal career strategically: “Whatever you do, you’ve got a 10-year path to make a key decision [about becoming] partner or not. And the only way you’re going to control that decision is to be the best version of yourself.”

This means looking beyond prestigious names to identify environments that truly nurture talent development: “You should look at the talent-rearing opportunities in an organisation as much as their brand name.”

The conversation highlighted that while Big Law offers undeniable advantages in terms of client calibre, global exposure, and compensation, candidates should take a critical, informed approach to finding firms where they can develop most effectively. In Bagshaw’s words: “If I was looking at it again, I would weigh up what is the best pathway to become the best version of myself.”

For today’s law students and junior lawyers, this might mean considering innovative programmes like those at Perkins Coie that balance practical experience with formal training, or carefully assessing the actual training methodologies of firms beyond their market positioning and prestige. What matters most is creating a foundation that maximises individual potential and provides genuine options when crucial career decisions arise.