Life at Allens

Adventure awaits: our 2022 Linklaters secondees depart

This week, seven Allens graduates departed Australia to begin their journeys to the United Kingdom, Dubai and Singapore as part of our annual Graduate Secondee program with Linklaters. We spoke to Aisyah Farrar, Will Choules, Wayne Kwok and JuWay Pak as they prepared for their once-in-a-lifetime experiences.

Aisyah shared how she is preparing for her secondment and the move to Dubai.

'My initial thought when I received my offer was, "Oh my god, my favourite season is winter and I'm moving to a country with 50 degree summers!" Now that I've (mostly) gotten over the molehill that I built for myself, it all feels incredibly surreal. At this stage, I am very relieved that my visa finally has my correct name on it, after a record three attempts.'

Aisyah continued to tell us about what she's looking forward to getting out of her secondment most: 'Despite never setting foot in Dubai beyond the airport while in transit, I'm really looking forward to extending the knowledge I've gained over the past year into somewhat unfamiliar and new concepts. It will also be very interesting to see how different jurisdictions operate for transactional teams, especially noting the impacts that the volatility and uncertainty may have in the region and beyond. The networks will also be an incredibly important part of my secondment, within the Linklaters team and with new clients'.

Will shared an insight into his feelings about getting ready to depart to London: 'While I'm really excited to embark on this huge journey, I'm also sad to be leaving the Brisbane team, my grad group and all of the other people in the firm who have made my time at Allens so memorable. I think this secondment will present me with the opportunity to get involved in a variety of interesting, different matters which will help me expand the knowledge and skills I've learnt so far in my legal career. I think the fast-paced work, calibre of clients and training that Linklaters offers will accelerate my development, and provide me with some invaluable experiences to bring back to Allens in the future.'

Wayne spoke about the opportunity to work in a completely new jurisdiction while preparing to depart to Singapore: 'I'm really looking forward to working in a completely new jurisdiction, in an international and diverse city, and hopefully on interesting and cross-border work. I'm hoping I'll be able to come back having gained some new connections, a better understanding of the Linklaters network, and improved technical skills too. I also hope to explore a country I haven't visited before, and to travel a bit too (particularly after the last two years).'

JuWay shared that he's looking forward to catching up with old friends in the UK: 'Putting my professional objectives to one side (which include building my networks at Linklaters and developing my cross-cultural competencies), I'm most looking forward to travelling in my free time and seeing Europe! I spent six months on a university exchange program in the UK, so I'm fortunate to have friends littered across the UK and Europe whom I haven't seen in years. I'm really looking forward to reconnecting with them (even if in a responsibly socially distanced manner!)'.

If you'd like to learn more about the global opportunities available as part of your career at Allens, please click here.