Legal Trainee

Practice Group

We are widely regarded as having one of the leading corporate transactional and advisory practices in the world and we continue to act on some of the most prestigious and complex international deals. This is also true in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, where our corporate practice covers M&A (particularly cross border), joint ventures, securities and capital market transactions, regulatory, restructurings and reorganisations as well as more general corporate advisory work.

We act for a variety of organisations including sovereign wealth funds and government investment vehicles, leading regional and international corporates, international and regional banks, some of the most successful regional and international private equity houses, supporting them with their most complex and strategically important transactions.

Our core sectors include financial institutions, energy (especially oil & gas) and utilities, healthcare, retail and consumer and telecommunications within which we advise on outbound investments across the globe as well mandates throughout the region including in the GCC, wider Middle East and North Africa.

Our practice is ranked Band 1 across the Middle East by all of the leading legal research directories.

Our Saudi team, based in Riyadh, comprises of lawyers who are supported by the Freshfields offices in Bahrain, Abu Dhabi and Dubai, as well as the other offices across our international network.  We work together on local and international transactions on a daily basis, providing clients with a seamless service across all aspects of Saudi law.

Our Global M&A and Capital (GMAC) Practice is Freshfields MENA’s largest practice with over 45 lawyers throughout the region, including 9 partners.

Role Summary

We have advised clients in the MENA region for over 40 years and have been building a presence in Saudi Arabia for the past 17 years. During this time we have established the firm as a leader in the legal market, acting on many of the best deals and winning over key regional clients.

After another strong year, the MENA Global M&A and Capital practice has a solid pipeline of work for the most high profile and highly sophisticated clients in the region. As a result, we are looking to recruit legal trainees to join the GMAC practice in Riyadh. The successful candidate is a national of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), has completed a bachelor’s degree in law in KSA and is registered or is in the process of registering for a training licence with the Saudi Ministry of Justice as a Legal Trainee. The role will work on a broad mix of transactions and matters.  Most of the work will have a significant international dimension (bringing with it real visibility across our network) and will range from some of the largest and most complex transactions to smaller deals which provide greater responsibility. The legal trainee will gain exposure and experience in many areas of commercial law as well as participating in matters with the MENA Dispute Resolution team, where appropriate and required.

Key Responsibilities and Deliverables

• Working on a wide variety of transactions for a range of clients, supervised by experienced lawyers

• Involvement in the highest profile transactions in the market and providing legal support where required

• Contributing to developing and deepening relationships with existing key clients

• Involvement in research, translations, business development, knowledge management and other tasks as assigned by the MENA GMAC and DR teams as appropriate

Key Requirements

• KSA national

• Completed a bachelor’s degree in law at one of the universities in KSA

• Completed registration or willingness to comply with the requirements to register for a training licence with the Saudi Ministry of Justice as a Legal Trainee

• Strong academic record and qualifications

• Good technical and commercial background

• Excellent communications in English (oral and written)

• Able to work effectively as part of a team

• Confident, self-motivated and committed to providing excellent client service

• Able to adopt a flexible and proactive approach and retain a professional attitude under pressure

• Able to manage a high degree of responsibility of work demands

• Good organisational skills and attention to detail

• Willingness to learn and broaden experience in legal and related non-legal activities such as business development and knowledge management

• Preferably has experience working in a legal environment