An introduction to the Corporate seat

My name is Callum Castling, and I am a second-year trainee who joined the firm in September 2023. I have completed seats in employment and corporate so far and I am currently sitting in the dispute resolution team. I qualify in September 2025. 

Introduction

Marriott Harrison has two key practice areas within its corporate team – VC (venture capital) and M&A (mergers and acquisitions).  

Role as a corporate trainee

The type of work that a trainee carries out differs depending on whether the transaction is an investment round (VC) or a share/asset purchase (M&A). 

It is very important to get an understanding of the key pressure points of a transaction before beginning any work on it. Remember that each transaction is different and therefore you should not approach anything in the exact same way. 

There are, however, key tasks that will need to be completed in any transaction. A trainee will typically be involved in the following:  

• Drafting the documents list outlining all the documents that need to be produced before completion. This will need to be continually updated throughout the transaction to note those that have been drafted and signed. 

• The due diligence exercise (if acting on the Buyer side) 

• Have sight of the drafting, negotiating and reviewing of the transaction documents 

• The disclosure exercise and drafting of the disclosure letter 

• Drafting the ancillary documents 

• Completion of the transaction 

• The necessary post-completion steps 

I found that the most regular responsibility that I undertook in a transaction was the preparation or review of the ancillary documents. These are documents that are necessary to give effect to the wider transaction and therefore are essential. 

Finally, more generally, your role will be to help project manage a transaction, by co-ordinating internally with the rest of the team, with the clients and with all other external parties involved in the transaction, in order to complete the deal and to meet the client’s objectives. 

Key things to consider as a corporate trainee

A corporate seat is extremely rewarding and fun, but I found that it helped to use certain ways of working to help me be as efficient as possible. 

1. What am I working on?

As a corporate trainee, there are times when you work on a deal from start to finish and other times when you are asked to do ad-hoc work as and when available. 

As there are often many transactions occurring at once, the first thing that I would do is consider exactly who our client is and what is required from me.  

I would ask myself the following questions:  

• Is this a VC investment round or an M&A deal? 

• Who is the client? What are their priorities? 

• In an M&A deal - are we acting for the buyer or the seller? 

• In a VC transaction - are we acting for the founder or the investor? 

• Does the transaction have an international aspect? 

Once I had thought about the answers to these questions, I then felt equipped to begin the task. 

2. Time-management

The corporate team at Marriott Harrison is its largest team and therefore the seat offers a different experience to the other seats. 

You should make sure that you have excellent time-management skills to be able to complete the various tasks you will be asked to do.  

I did this through: 

• Prioritisation – I created lists of my current outstanding tasks and ranked them based on how urgently they were required. This allowed me to clearly see what tasks I should be focussing on. 

• Managing expectations – there is no point promising the world if you are unable to deliver. Make sure you are aware of task deadlines and be up-front about your capacity to complete them. The associates and partners at Marriott Harrison are extremely friendly and respect your time. They were happy to discuss extending deadlines if needed. 

3. Questions

To be honest, there will be lots of things that you do not know how to do when you first start in corporate. However, this is expected! There is no harm in asking questions. The whole team and firm are friendly and receptive to any questions you might have – remember they have all been in your position before.  

I continuously asked questions throughout my seat and this helped me to complete tasks more efficiently. 

My highlights from the corporate seat:

1. That completion feeling 

There is nothing more rewarding than months of hard work coming to a head and all parties signing on the dotted line.  

We often celebrate here at Marriott Harrison with a completion dinner or drinks. 

2. Collaboration with other teams

Often throughout the deal, there are multiple opportunities to work with our other teams.  

This can come through the due diligence exercise or their input on the transaction documents. 

You begin to appreciate the effort that the other teams put in to providing corporate support, alongside their own individual matters, and this also helps you when you complete a seat in those teams. 

3. Corporate Law Slot and VC Lunch and Learn  

Once a month, we have two separate learning sessions called the “Corporate Law Slot” and “VC Lunch and Learn”. These are both extremely interesting and important for developing knowledge which you can use in the future.  

They both involve discussion about the current market trends in their separate areas and any important updates that we should be including in our advice to clients. 

Given the size of the corporate team here, taking on a trainee seat can seem like a daunting prospect! I quickly realised that I shouldn’t have worried though – the team is friendly, open to questions and happy to help. The work is really interesting, and you will learn a lot. The sense of achievement when a deal closes successfully makes all your hard work worth it!