Legal trainees at EY – behind the scenes

Sanni Nevala
Associate Legal Counsel
Law

I have been working as Ernst & Young’s since October 2018 and I was part of multiple interesting engagements during my traineeship. EY Law function operates widely in different areas of business law, mainly focusing on transactions, corporate and restructurings and employment law. Besides working with my Finnish colleagues on the domestic level, what I found especially interesting is that at EY I have been able to participate in international engagements and work with my fellow EY colleagues from all over the globe, since the very beginning.

As EY’s legal trainee, I was an equal member of our law team and I was assigned with similar assignments as our newly graduated lawyers. My assignments comprised of, for example, research and review tasks, drafting and commenting of legal documentation, translations and assisting EY’s other service lines when they have been in need of our team’s legal expertise. Every day is different – you could be working with establishing a company abroad or assisting our lawyers in a due diligence process.

In my view, EY aims to provide its trainees a full experience of the lifecycle of each engagement and, therefore, you’ll be able to learn a lot during your time at EY. I have also been encouraged to express my own areas of interest I wish to work with, even as a trainee.

To succeed as EY’s legal trainee, I found it extremely important to have an open and proactive spirit towards new challenges and enthusiasm over business law. Other skills I found useful are good knowledge of English language and strong interpersonal skills. But most importantly, a right, hands-on attitude will get you far!