Why do you love working at CC?

As an introduction, I am a second-seat law graduate 10 months into my graduate program.

I came for the unparalleled graduate program with training and world-class mentoring from leading lawyers, the international secondment opportunity within the graduate program, and the ability to use my language skills. I stay for the amazing people and fun I am having along the way as I challenge myself as never before in a highly multi-lingual and multi-cultural environment.

I am proud to work alongside sincere and extremely intelligent people. I feel CC values reliability, brilliance, candour, and hard work, a nice backdrop to forge a career and enjoy yourself.

CC is a perfect firm for an enthusiastic and bright person to start their career as a lawyer in Australia, a great opportunity for a driven, eager-to-succeed individual who wants a truly global career.

International & domestic secondment opportunities & group international retreats

CC offers the opportunity to go on a six-month secondment to one of our international offices during your graduate program. This usually occurs within your third or fourth rotation. I'm going to Hong Kong in my next rotation and cannot wait!

We also have practice group "offsides", where each of CC's practice groups across a region travel to another country for a few days of meetings, networking and socialising… 9 months into my contract, I went to Bangkok for three days with the rest of the global financial markets team across the APAC region and had loads of fun meeting amazing colleagues from other offices.

There are also various opportunities for domestic secondment. For example, Perth-based graduates can get a firm-sponsored secondment to Sydney for six months with our corporate team. Sydney-based grads can experience Perth for six months in our leading Perth-based international arbitration, investor-states disputes team.

The program and practice areas

The graduate program is a two-year program, split into four rotations lasting six months each. Whilst CC Australia is generally split into three main practice areas, namely litigation and disputes, global financial markets ("GFM") and corporate, through which you will rotate, each practice area has numerous sub-teams, one of which you may be primarily assigned to during a rotation. For example, in my first rotation (discussed below), I focused on investor-state international arbitration disputes, which fall under the disputes umbrella, but its practitioners are specialised and will generally solely practice it.

My graduate journey so far

In my first rotation in the international arbitration team, focusing on investor-state disputes, I was involved in complex headline-making international disputes. The pressure is definitely real as a law graduate starting at CC, and sometimes you may feel like you are very much in the deep end. However, this was the perfect start to my graduate program, where I was closely involved in the preparation and filing of at least four memorials in different international arbitration matters (one matter being a really interesting international corruption matter) with a lot of research and drafting assistance.

There was also the opportunity to get involved in some very large restructuring and insolvency litigation processes, where I got to spread my wings and take ownership of dealing with more minor disputes, drafting affidavits… and, in one case, managing service of court documents in more than a dozen different jurisdictions across only a few weeks.

In my current GFM rotation, I love the fast-paced and top-of-the-market deals that you get involved in, where you can get exposure to major international project financings and leveraged finance deals. I also had the pleasure of working on various fascinating cross-border derivatives transactions and doing a bit of regulatory work advising banks operating in Australia. The team has been really supportive, and I have been able to grow in impact over the past few months.

Next rotation, I am heading off to Hong Kong for six months on a firm-sponsored secondment, where I will continue working in GFM with a focus on derivatives, which has piqued my interest.

Top tips for candidates

Be sincere and confident in the application process, and demonstrate how you will be an asset: we want to hear it. Please also take the opportunity to ask questions and learn as much as possible about us.

If you get the offer, congratulations! You will commence a journey where every day you will learn new things and have an impact in a dynamic environment, amongst good company in a truly global law firm.