I graduated from the University of Bristol in 2006 with a BA in History. After university, I moved home to London and completed the Graduate Diploma in Law and the Corporate Legal Practice Course at the College of Law.

My first real contact with the firm was the interview for the summer vacation scheme. It was my first formal interview in years and I was terrified, but my nerves were soon allayed by Helen and Sarah's reassuring smiles. They seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me, and I remember it being more like a concentrated chat than the grilling I'd been expecting.

I was thrilled to gain a place on the scheme and spent two very enjoyable weeks with the firm, sitting in two different departments. We were kept very busy with group tasks (there were five summer students on my scheme), talks by various members of the firm, and socials in the evenings. In between all that, our allocated trainee 'buddies', associates and partners in our departments delegated manageable bits of work such as research tasks and drafting exercises, to give us a flavour of the type of work we'd be doing as a trainee in the firm.

People at all levels were warm, friendly and approachable, and I felt very welcome in the firm. Previous placements in other firms where summer students were made to feel like unwanted interruptions couldn’t have been further from my experience at Kendall Freeman (as it then was).

Buoyed by my positive experience at the firm, I successfully applied for a training contract that summer. Kendall Freeman and then EAPD made a lot of effort to keep in touch with me and my fellow 2009 starters once we'd been offered our training contracts. We were invited to the firm's summer parties, and the trainees' winter parties which proved good opportunities to get to know each other a little better before we started. When Kendall Freeman merged with EAPD soon after we were offered our contracts, we were invited to come in for a small drinks evening where several partners talked to us about what it meant for us and the firm. Being one of a relatively small intake is great as it means everyone has got to know us really quickly and there's no danger of disappearing into the masses.

Since starting, I've been really impressed at the way we are the London office of an international firm, with all the benefits of working in a multi-national organisation, but without the notorious hours or pressure that characterise so many others. There's the potential to spend seats abroad in New York or Hong Kong in the future, but we are still encouraged to go home and have a life at the end of a day – very much a 'work hard play hard' attitude to life that I thoroughly approve of!

I'm currently in my first seat in the Insurance and Reinsurance Department and have been kept very busy learning all manner of things, from what seems like a new language of the insurance market, to how to work the lifts and printers! My initial impression of the firm has not changed a bit, as we've been welcomed in with such warmth and enthusiasm. I'd recommend EAPD to anyone who wants the high calibre work and clients of a larger City firm, without losing out on the supportive collegiate atmosphere of a smaller outfit.