Reflections on Training and Qualifying at Hunters

What was your favourite seat?

Somewhat unusually, and due to moving to Hunters at the half-way mark of my training contract following the merger with Peachey & Co LLP in November 2024, I trained exclusively within the Corporate team. However, that doesn’t mean my training lacked variety, as the Corporate team at Hunters acts on a wide spectrum of transactions, including funding rounds for emerging companies (from pre‑seed to Series A+), M&A, public markets (AIM), and ‘traditional’ debt and equity finance. I also gained day‑to‑day commercial experience preparing, reviewing and negotiating contracts for clients across the sports, media and technology sectors (among others). Therefore, my favourite seat can only be Corporate, but if I had to choose, early-stage funding rounds and M&A would be my preferred areas of practice.

Tell us about an interesting matter you have worked on and what you were responsible for.

I’ve been fortunate to work on a range of highly interesting matters whilst working in the Corporate team. Highlights include acting for Mondaq on its sale to Legal500, supporting Q5D Technologies on its $13.5m Series A round, and advising Gresham House on its debt and equity investments in Fischer Farms (all within the last year). Working in a small team at Hunters has meant I’ve had early exposure to responsibility – assisting with the drafting of key transaction documents, managing day‑to‑day workstreams, and working directly with clients and counterparties.  These experiences have significantly accelerated my development, giving me a far deeper understanding of how transactions run in practice and how to operate confidently under pressure.

What’s the best piece of advice anyone has ever given you?

“Always look where you’re going, not where you’ve been.”

As a trainee, it’s easy to dwell on mistakes or replay things you wish you’d done differently in certain situations. It’s important not to fixate on them, but instead, take the lessons from each experience and apply them to what you do next time.

What’s been the biggest change in your day-to-day role since qualifying?

The biggest change has been the increase in responsibility for higher‑level tasks. Although the overall supervision is still there, larger elements of transactions are now delegated to me, and I’m expected to manage them with greater independence. It’s been a noticeable shift from assisting with smaller components to taking ownership of workstreams, which has been both challenging and rewarding.

What advice would you give to someone about to start their training contract?

Take ownership of your work from the very beginning. You are absolutely expected to be learning, and you won’t get everything right – nor should you – but that doesn’t remove the responsibility you have for the tasks you’re given. Things like typos, formatting issues or incomplete cross‑references are easy to fix and may not always be caught in review. If you take pride in the minutiae, the overall quality of your work will improve significantly. In my experience, trainees who consistently deliver work that is accurate, thoughtful and carefully checked will be noticed, even if there are things that need tweaking more fundamentally.