Cleary Gottlieb collaborated with the in-house legal team at HSBC to host a virtual internship for 30 young people across the UK from October 24-28, 2022.
Organized as part of the firm’s longstanding charity partnership in London with the National Literacy Trust, the internship offered students a first-hand insight into various career pathways in the legal profession. This initiative emerged from the efforts of both Cleary and HSBC to improve social mobility and widen access to the legal profession. Volunteers from Cleary and HSBC worked collaboratively to run interactive training sessions and activities that enabled the students to put their literacy and commercial talents into practice and offered them opportunities to develop their CVs and interview skills.
The internship included a fictional M&A transaction, in which the students analyzed a fact pattern, exercised commercial judgement, and took part in mock negotiations with their peers to finalize the deal. Aged between 15 and 19, the students were able to communicate their arguments clearly and persuasively.
Cleary Gottlieb is a proud signatory to the Vision for Literacy Business Pledge 2022, which calls on businesses to help tackle low literacy in the United Kingdom. In recognition of the firm’s volunteering, fundraising, and program support, Cleary was awarded the National Literacy Trust’s inaugural Collaboration Award in 2022.