Mayed

My name is Mayed Bin Shabib, and I am an LLB student at Panthéon-Assas University. I had the opportunity to join the Freshfields Internship Programme, aiming to translate my theoretical knowledge into practical experience in law. The programme achieves this effectively with an initial rotation in Dispute Resolution (DR), followed by a rotation in Global M&A and Capital (GMAC).

The programme began with a welcome lunch where the associates explained the various projects they were working on and the different tasks I could directly support.

As this was my first experience working in DR, I wanted to build a strong understanding of the fundamentals, so I chose to prepare an internal research brief for the firm’s knowledge base on three relatively novel areas of Procedural Order No. 1 drafting, which would ultimately be presented to the team.

I was cognisant of the fact that this document would serve as a foundation for Freshfields lawyers drafting procedural orders, and so naturally required a range of precise and authoritative sources that would be tested. However, the novelty of the clauses meant that issues arising from them were scarce and the arbitration guidelines relatively less defined. This spurred me to create a market study, benchmarking publicly available procedural orders to substantiate my analysis with clear statistics.

The task oriented my thinking towards preparing a document that lawyers would depend on – lawyers who instinctively test the logic on which every claim is built. Being held to that standard while drafting allowed me to train my legal reasoning and creative problem-solving in practice, substantiating what I believed to be true with evidence. As a result, I was able to produce a piece of work closer to the standard I so often see from the lawyers at the firm.

Building on this foundation, I was better equipped to assist on live arbitration matters, logic- and cite-checking advice and highlighting any areas of concern.

Moving into GMAC, I was eager to see how that same rigour translates to the transactional side of the firm. I prepared a capability statement for a client pitch, supporting a client looking to conduct a private sale of a portion of its company. This required me to research the firm’s relevant expertise and shape it into a concise and persuasive case for why Freshfields was best placed to advise, which taught me that legal excellence must also be presented with the client’s commercial priorities in mind. Alongside this, I shadowed the GMAC team in various meetings, taking notes and preparing summaries for the team, which offered me a closer view of how transactions are managed in practice and how precise communication keeps every workstream moving.

“The more you learn, the more you realise how little you know.” I leave Freshfields’ Dubai office understanding that thought as an invitation to the vast horizons still ahead of me if I work hard enough. I am sincerely grateful to Freshfields for this experience and would recommend it to any law student who truly wants a future contributing to impactful projects in the region.