Alfie Bright
Employment Associate, Herbert Smith Freehills, Sydney
Biography
Alfie recently moved to Australia where he now works in employment law at Herbert Smith Freehills. Before his move he worked as an employment solicitor for Memery Crystal LLP acting for employers and senior executives across a number of fully listed and AIM listed companies, providing for all of their employment needs. He provided advice on contentious and non-contentious matters, including contract and policy drafting, discrimination issues, managing discipline and performance issues and conducting redundancy and restructuring exercises.
What did you enjoy most about your time at Royal Holloway? Any favourite memories of campus?
Aside from the perpetually sticky floors of the Students’ Union and the Founder’s Building early morning fire alarms, Royal Holloway was an incredibly special place with a really strong sense of community. During my time, I was fortunate to make some fantastic friendships, to learn from some of the country’s top professors and to develop personal and professional life skills that would prove valuable after graduating. I have very fond memories of summer balls in the quads, peaceful walks in the woods and being surrounded by books in the Potter-esque Founder’s library.
Where did you start your career?
I opened my fledgling, trainee solicitor wings at Memery Crystal and am delighted to have qualified into the Employment Team at the firm, where I remain. Before embarking on a career in law, I developed interpersonal, communication and managerial skills through my work in various Conference and Customer Service based positions at Royal Holloway.
What attracted you to a career in law?
I developed a strong interest in a career in law towards the end of my degree. Through my geography studies, I knew that I enjoyed keeping abreast of a constantly evolving academic body of knowledge and providing critical analyses of various concepts, scenarios and ideas. From my previous work experiences in the Conference and Customer Service team I also knew that I enjoyed helping people. The natural juncture at which these interests crossed was a career in law. After seeking legal work experience opportunities, including insight days and vacation schemes, I quickly realised that I was motivated by the prospect of working in teams to find and implement legal solutions to a mixed variety of client scenarios in a sociable, supportive environment, and therefore that a career as a solicitor was for me. To date, I have not been disappointed!
If you could go back in time and give your undergraduate self, one piece of advice what would it be?
Make the most of the opportunities to develop that are abundant at Royal Holloway. Don’t wait for things to happen. Make them happen.
What advice would you give to someone thinking of a career in law and making applications for vacation schemes or training contracts?
Research, research, research. In the same way that you would research for an essay, make sure that you have swotted up on what the firm does, what its sector specialisms are, what they pride themselves on, are they international, national, regional, city, high-street or boutique, what kind of work do they do, who have they recently acted for and (perhaps most importantly) what do current staff (trainees up to partners and everyone in-between) think of the firm? I would always advocate going in and meeting people to get a real feel for a firm, its work and its culture, but appreciating that this is difficult in the current climate, other good starting points would be firm write-ups in the Lex100, Legal 500 and Chambers Student Guide. If you are lucky enough to meet someone from the firm at an insight or assessment day (online or otherwise) then be sure to ask lots of questions and, most importantly, say what interested you about what that person had to say about the firm in your application! This may sound like a lot of work but there is truth in the saying that looking for a job is a full-time job.
What do you feel are the key qualities someone needs to work as a lawyer in your field?
A team player with dedication, communication, resilience, time-management, organisational and interpersonal skills.