Frédéric Elens – Principal Associate

My experience of Freshfields is a relationship of trust.

I have always felt that our primary target was not to work on "big deals" but on transactions that are of primary importance to our clients. We aim to work on deals that make a difference for our client's business and we offer them to be their trusted advisor.

One of the transactions I worked on lately is a good example of that trusted relationship: the deal was a low headline-price deal, but it was part of the global strategy of a key client and involved the creation of a strategic alliance between two parties. The deal was very technical and required a very specific understanding of our client's business and the sector. We had to work hand in hand with various expert teams of our client to get a sufficiently profound understanding of all the technical aspects of the alliance to be created. Working on this transaction was an extremely rewarding experience as it created a privileged human relationship between a great number of people. This mutual trust resulted in a very successful deal that had a great impact on the long term strategy of our client!

That trusted relationship culture is very present within Freshfields. Senior lawyers encourage you to take responsibilities and, in the meantime, they make sure you have the necessary support and guidance to use these responsibilities adequately. For example, shortly after I joined the London team, I was given the opportunity to work on one of the key contracts of a strategic private equity transaction involving various teams within the network. I was not seen as an outsider and our reciprocal trust resulted in a very successful experience.